church library software

[frank]

We have someone in our church that's willing to enter all our books and media into a program for monitoring inventory, age, etc. (and eventually maybe checkin/checkout). She's called around and few if any are using even the simplest library cataloging software to do this.

One nearby mega-church has disassembled it's library and replace it with a bookstore. [no comment.]

If your church is using software to help manage its library of books and media items:

1) what program is it?

and

2) do you like it or not?

Thanks!

Frank

[dstatler]

I don't have an answer for you, but I am also interested in this thread, except we're looking at a way to make our "card catalog" searchable on our church website. The librarian uses a database (run on a Mac - I don't know what program it is) to keep track of the library items and she exported the data as a text file for me. I'm guessing I have to build some kind of mysql database and access it via Perl or something...

Has anyone done this as well and have any tips?

Thanks,
David

[tedanderson]

I don't know much about this kind of software but I imagine that runs off of a database of sorts. If your librarian wants to get started, she can put the info into an excel spreadsheet and then export it as a CSV file which can be read by most database programs.

[blonborg]

We use Concourse http://www.booksys.com/v3/products/concourse/

I don't use it - I'm just the one who has to install it and make it available for our librarians.

[boltd]

One low budget solution (that has a nonprofit pricing model) is the LibraryThing web site. Basically it would provide an online database of books that you have in the library. It makes it very easy to register new books (even with a bar code scanner) using metadata from Amazon and the Library of Congress. The only thing it does not have is any support for tracking check outs and returns. It is a card catalog but not anything more.

[dstatler]

Thanks for the link to the LibraryThing... I think that would work great if your library only had books, but our church library also checks out CDs and DVDs, and I didn't see where LibraryThing supported that.

Thanks again and Happy Valentines Day!

[frank]

Originally Posted by dstatler

....our church library also checks out CDs and DVDs, and I didn't see where LibraryThing supported that.

It's hard to tell from the short demo, but it says it pulls info from Amazon.com, Library of Congress, etc. so I'd think that info on any commercially-produced media form ::should:: be available to it. Can anyone with an account tell us yea/nay?

In-house produced media items, no joy.

[dmot]

I use Librarything and it will do the CDs that I have tried. Get a bar code reader. They are cheap and it makes it go very fast.