Catalog
I remember reading some time ago about a (almost obsessive) human need to catalog the world around us. Some catalogers go to library school, and many enjoy the science and art of putting things in their place. The rest of us live out in the library of nature, ever so curious from time to time, to put order to things we find… disorganized. I’m not talking about a home improvement show, I’m talking about applying some sort of system to a collection of things.
In steps the Macintosh-only application Delicious Library which promises to organize your supposed home library. Who saw this coming?
To be fair, this program has been out for a number of years; I have some friends that use it and live happier now knowing their DVD collection and books are all catalogued on the home computer.
But I’ve been holding out for version 2, which just went “live” last night. I look forward to downloading DL2 tonight and giving it a whirl.
But what I find curious is that this class of software–for more or less cataloging software–is marketed for the home user. It wasn’t that long ago that I remember my mother’s library became “automated,” whereby you would scan patron cards and check out and look up and do everything with a giant computer. Then I went to college, and their library was… automated. Well, now folks, you too at home can have an automated system to track your books, CDs, DVDs, and now more just like the library.
I’d love to say this software is demonstrating something bigger here–and maybe it is, but maybe not so much–that we today as a culture have our own sizable collections of stuff (i.e., books, DVDs, CDs, video games, etc.) that we could honestly qualify as having our own personal library of things.
I know for me, there’s no better library in the world for baroque music than the giant hard drive inside my computer. While I have a very modest collection of books and own fewer DVDs than fingers, there are times that I’d like to “see” what I own, and have a fair enough system that’s easy to use (not to mention visually appealing) so that I can loan out some of the items I own that still take on a physical appearance.
Delicious Library, it might be worth checking out.
May 28th, 2008 at 7:51 am
Highly recommended!! I’ve been using it for a couple of years and the biggest benefit is that my wife the musician now looks in the library before buying a duplicate copy of a recording she already has buried on a shelf somewhere in the house. Just how many copies of “The Mahler” does a family need?
I also use it to loan books from my collection to colleagues. Now, instead of forgetting who I gave it to two weeks later, I actually know who to go to when I’m trying to recommend the same title to someone else.