If your shelves have outgrown your memory, you’re not alone. Here is how to catalog a home library: record author, title, edition and shelf location in a spreadsheet or app, and scan ISBN barcodes to speed it up.
If you are building a collection from scratch, the guide to book collecting for beginners puts cataloguing in context.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Main classes in the Dewey Decimal system | 10 classes |
| Year the Dewey system was developed | 1876 |
| CueCat barcode scanner on eBay | about $10 |
| CueCat barcode scanner through LibraryThing | about $15 |
| Size of the home library in one scanning example | 2000+ books |
These figures come from Library Journal and Matt Might’s cataloguing guide. Prices and details can change, so check the source before you rely on them.
Decide what the catalog is for
Before you type a single title, decide what you want from the list. Library Journal suggests asking yourself, and anyone who shares your home, a few basic questions about quick access and space.
- How often do you need quick access to these books?
- Do you own enough books to make a system worthwhile?
- Do you have enough shelf space for the collection to grow?
The same article makes one point worth keeping in mind: the key is to make the system practical and useful for you. A collector hunting in second-hand shops needs a different list from a reader who only wants to avoid buying the same novel twice.
Which tool helps you catalog a home library?
Three simple routes cover most homes, and none needs special software skills. Each one has been used by real home collectors in the sources below.
- A spreadsheet. One poster on Tildes, writing in August 2025, keeps a 3500+ volume library in a Google Sheets file updated by hand. The same poster likes that the list opens on a phone while hunting in used bookstores.
- An online catalog. Writing in September 2007, Tim Challies said he had cataloged 1079 books in LibraryThing, and that the software found the right book in 99 out of 100 cases. It also warns you when you add a duplicate.
- Open-source desktop software. Another Tildes reader used BiblioteQ, which looks up records from sources such as OpenLibrary and the Library of Congress and handles field guides and reports without an ISBN.
A spreadsheet suits you if you want full control over the columns. An online catalog suits you if you would rather have the details filled in for you.
How do you scan ISBNs quickly?
The barcode on the back of a book is its ISBN, which Matt Might’s guide says uniquely identifies the book and its edition. Scanning those codes is much faster than typing titles. The guide notes it is easy to scan dozens of barcodes per minute once you find a rhythm.
- Get a barcode scanner that behaves like a USB keyboard. The guide priced a CueCat at about $10 on eBay or about $15 through LibraryThing.
- Open a plain text file and scan every barcode into it, one after another.
- Upload the file to LibraryThing, which pulls information from Amazon and the United States Library of Congress.
- Tag and sort the results, then check the catalog before you put any book back on a shelf.
That guide’s household had 2000+ books, and the finished catalog helped separate out 250 old books for sale. Challies, who typed his titles in one by one, wrote that he would use a barcode scanner if he had to start again.
Scanning has one limit. A Tildes poster with a 3500+ volume library notes that many of their older books have no ISBN, so those titles need typing by hand.
What should you record for each book?
Start with the basics: author, title, publication year and physical location. That is the short list one Tildes poster said they wanted from a home database. You can always add columns later.
The poster with 3500+ volumes uses a fuller set of fields, which makes a handy checklist.
- Author and title.
- Date originally published and date of your edition.
- Publisher of the edition you own.
- Softcover or hardcover.
- Location in the library.
- Whether you have read it.
- A condition score from 1-5.
If you want a consistent scale for that condition column, see how to grade book condition for a fuller approach. If you record publisher and printing details, the explainer on what is a colophon in a book is a useful companion.
Tags add another layer. In LibraryThing a tag can be any word that describes the book’s content, and Challies admits that specific tags such as atonement or justification would serve him better than broad categories.
How should you arrange the shelves?
Your catalog and your shelves do different jobs. The catalog tells you what you own, while the shelf order tells you where to reach. Challies keeps both, and he adds each new book to the catalog before it goes on a shelf.
Library Journal, in a March 2020 article, lists several ways to arrange books at home:
- By subject, borrowing the ten classes of the Dewey Decimal system, which suits nonfiction best.
- By color, by size, or by date acquired, which works for some readers.
- By author, with fiction kept apart from nonfiction, as Challies does.
Dewey was developed in 1876, and the article described it as the most widely used system in United States public libraries. Not everyone enjoys it at home, though. One Tildes reader called sorting by Dewey mostly a waste of time because finding the right classification number for each book took minutes.
Whatever you choose, leave room to grow. Challies left the bottom shelf of each bookcase empty at first, and notes it filled up long ago.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need ISBNs to catalog my books?
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No. Older books often have none, so you can type those in by hand. One Tildes reader catalogs field guides and reports without ISBNs using BiblioteQ.
Is a spreadsheet good enough?
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For many homes, yes. A poster with a 3500+ volume library uses Google Sheets, and another poster notes that a spreadsheet exports as a CSV file, so you are not tied to one service.
Should I sort my shelves by Dewey?
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Only if it helps you. Library Journal says the key is to make the system practical and useful for you, and that Dewey is a starting point mainly for nonfiction.
How long does cataloguing take?
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Expect the first pass to be slow. One Tildes reader says any solution is very time-consuming at the start but worth it once the initial collection is done, and a scanner can speed it up.
