04-10-2009, 12:03 AM
BobC wrote:
I've used Books a bit (although not in a while), and found a way to speed things up (subjectively) somewhat for large batches.
If you scan or type(*) your ISBNs into a text document, you can zip through as many as you want to put in a batch. Then you can tell Books to import the list of numbers and do its lookups for the batch while you do something else. It won't take less time overall, but there's less time that you're tied up waiting for it, so it'll seem quicker.
(* Judging from your friend's shelves, she may have a lot of esoteric or older books that aren't barcoded, so there may be more manual input needed on the front side.)
Right on all counts, and my first impression that it was slow (based on the response time for the first ISBN I entered) was incorrect. It may have been something about the particular book I entered because subsequent searches went quickly. Unfortunately, Books does not have the field flexibility of Book Collector and it appears that will be her choice. Since she also has a collection of books she may sell (found more pristine editions, for example) I believe she'll also buy Delicious Library for keeping the books for resale separate.
Thanks to all for your input.
