MRBOMA  This is a great program for free, and had been very stable for me until the latest (beta) release.

Which brings me to the most impressive feature: the support. The latest (beta) version kept quitting on me. I sent the developer an email with my data, preferences, and crash log files and just a couple of hours later they sent me a link to a fixed version! On a Saturday, no less. Incredible response.

Thanks Aetherial!  
(Version 3.2.4a)

RODERICK  So far so good. My books are being found and captured from all listed databases, and the search can be expanded to include specific libraries and resources around the globe. This is a useful feature for small book releases, foreign language texts, or specific trade publications unique to Europe. The addition of other db searches is done via plug-ins which makes the utility/program a good bet for future expansion and functionality.

The image preview of book covers can be a bit jumpy, but, like iTunes you can paste in any image you wish in place of those found through the Quickfill db searches.

ISBN capture via iSight on Macbooks and MacBook Pros necessitates a good light exposure, but once you get a good set up, scanning in books is quite fast.

The strength of the program is its straightforward simplicity. As stated, its for books, or any work that has basic bibliographic information. The interface feels Apple-like enough, and perhaps this is its other strength: its not trying too hard to render textures, features, animations, or anything else. Books is a reliable db for your books, has a minimal learning curve, is open source, and deserves credit and consideration for being so advanced outside of commercial development. Good spare code @ 15Mb; there's not a useless feature in the setup, its all useful, and so far, it all works.

A solid addition for academics, students, or any user looking to document and organize a decent library.  
(Version 3.2.2)

FREDDUCKER  Thank you for fixing the issue on os x 4.11 with QuickFill.

I believe the QuickFill option would work a lot faster if one didn't have to chose between Amazon US/Amazon FR/Amazon DE... because in the end it's gonna be a list and you'll have to search through it to find the correct version you want to add OR it's gonna have no results and you have to change the database and search one more time... whereas if all the databases were searched at the same time then you'd know when to give up when you have no results.

The "fetching data for book - please be patient_ sometimes stays stuck for more than 1 minute which seemed odd to me.

I'm using it these days and I'll let you know when I have more to say - great app anyways!!  
(Version 3.2.1)

FREDDUCKER  The idea is exciting, if I understand correctly it helps sort out your books with an interface that has some of the same strenghts iTunes has (cover artwork fetched online, as well as infos, etc)

Unfortunately it kept crashing everytime I tried going online to gather data.

OX x 4.11 on PowerBook G4 512.  
(Version 3.2)

ALBFAN  Very interesting and useful application, with a clean interface. But the smart lists do not work for me. I've tried to make a smart list showing all the books that do not belong to a specific list. The smart list shows the entire collection.   
(Version 3.1.10)

CHRIS KARR  3.1.9 linked above includes a bug that adversely affects Tiger users. (Book information is not displayed.)

3.1.10 is in testing and will be released soon. Until that release, I recommend that Tiger users avoid this release for the time being.  
(Version 3.1.9)

SOUTHPAWAMI  There is very little I can say about this program as I have not used it very long.

In one word..

Wow.  
(Version 3.1.5)

SJHA  Having earlier drawn attention to a problem I was experiencing whereby Books 3.1 was hanging on Quit, I can now report that I solved this by letting Onyx carry out its full suite of maintenance procedures on my MacBook. I don't know what it was that was critical but anyway Books 3.1 now functions perfectly for me. I must say that during the troubleshooting procedure I went through I had exemplary email support from the developer. Indeed I felt guilty that the problem turned out to be at my end rather than inherent in his programme. So I can now gladly rate Books 3.1 with 5 stars, both for the actual programme features and for the support available if one has a problem.   
(Version 3.1)

SJHA  I am experiencing a consistent failure to Quit with the new version 3.1. I have had to Force quit Books every time. This problem did not occur with Books 3.1rc6. I hope this is soon fixed as this is an excellent programme  
(Version 3.1)

FROSTY  I entered in my first two books and I wanted to try out the Smart List feature. However, when I went to delete the list, I couldn't. The error message said: "Cannot Remove List. The remaining list can not be removed", even though there is another list already there.  
(Version 3.0.5)

JOHNNY ROCKET  like this program but wish the export to web function would update an existing folder rather than create a new one, that way when I synchronize it with the folder on my website, it doesn't think it has to upload the entire folder. I found a workaround by copying the contents of the old 'books' directory into the new one and overwriting the books that are already there. Then it just has to synchronize the new books.  
(Version 3.0.4)

GOGOGO  Its a really useful program, and best of all its free.   
(Version 3.0)

DRHJARNTVATT  Fixed it by deleting the spotlight addon files and reinstall them  
(Version 3.0b7)

DRHJARNTVATT  Do not sync the software with spotlight! Since i did my spotlight doesn't work any more!  
(Version 3.0b6)

IRRLICHT  Hi,

I want to help by reporting a bug in the current beta.

Just ignore it if it is a known issue.

I could not find anything on this blog.

Sorting to the Title or name of the author is very strange. I was not able to find out to what it actually sorts.  
(Version 3.0b6)

IRVING IMBERLIN  An excellent catalog app. I know it was designed for books, but I recently found another use. It can catalog video games equally as proficient.

Keep up the goos work!  
(Version 3.0b5)

FROSTY  Howdy,

I really love this program. At book 94 of my library it crashed and I was wondering whether you would be interested in the crash log.

Also, I was --falsly-- under the impression that this program autosaved, like a database program (eg. Filemaker), and so when I reopened the program I was tremendously disapointed to find all my entered books had not been saved. This would be a great feature to add! Hint Hint.

Wonderful program though.  
(Version 3.0b5)

PIXELJUNKEY  Looks pretty cool so far. The application needs to be more aware of standard shortcuts: hitting escape to close out of a dialog you accidentally opened, hitting delete to remove a book or list, etc.  
(Version 3.0b5)

ZETSURIN  This looks excellent, but I would like to see more support for ebooks. Most of my books are in PDF, purchased via monthly subscriptions which are delivered to my email. I would like to use Books specifically for my collection. It's not totally obvious to me whether this can presently be done or if it's part of the future plan.

What I would like is to be able to double-click on the book title in a main window and have Preview display the associated file. Is this a possibility in the future? Also, I have noticed that I can drag my PDF's into the preview pane at the bottom but apart from being able to see the file in there, once I click on one of the books in the main list, it vanishes. What is the purpose of that?  
(Version 3.0b3)

RHEA_SUN  very cool, thanks. but now i want to spend moore time with my books.  
(Version 3.0b2)

NEIL_M  the latest is an Alpha release, denoted by the a.

there is a beta of 2.3.3

or

the latest stable 2.2.2

Click on the Information link.

Really people read before installing - otherwise you have no excuse.  
(Version 3.0a15)

PAULSRANDALL  Great job! Chris also stayed on my problem, as well, and I couldn't be happier. I particularly like books because of all of its very useful plug-in modules.  
(Version 3.0a14)

KENA  wow!

The developer responded very quickly to my complaint and did an excellent job fixing the problem! I have my database back and will certainly continue using this app.  
(Version 3.0a14)

PAULSRANDALL  I went back to version 2.3.3 beta because the last several 3.0 alpha releases crash short after the application has launched. My crash report has lots of the following line. I mean lots.

net.aetherial.books.Books 0x000088c0 -[BooksAppDelegate refreshComboBoxes:] + 368 (BooksAppDelegate.m:777)

Any ideas?  
(Version 3.0a14)

KENA  I discovered this app not so long ago. Loved it. BUT I lost my whole database after installing the most recent version, and I'm NOT very happy about that.  
(Version 3.0a14)

JASON OWENS  Books 3.0a10 is an excellent app with a quality which belies its freeware status. A clean, attractive interface combined with efficient data importing gives a nice, quick user experience.

That, combined with customisable options such as user-defined genre lists, makes Books 3.0a10 a fantastic app - one which other developers would definitely have charged for. I rate it definitely better than Bookpedia, for which you would have to pay.

Definitely Recommended.  
(Version 3.0a10)

PLANETENPAULTJE  Wowsers! Large file Alert! Spanner in the works somewhere?  
(Version 3.0a10)

BRIAN KENDIG  It's an interesting app, something of a "Delicious Library" Lite. It's a great start, and with some more work, it could become really quite good.

The problems right now are rough edges to the interface. It's trying to be similar to iTunes, which is good; but I should be able to see an enlarged book cover by clicking on the book cover image without a need for a separate button, and I should be able to delete lists and smart lists by pressing Delete without needing a separate "Remove List" button. "New Smart List" should behave like iTunes and automatically ask for my criteria without requiring that I click on "Edit Smart List" every time. The first time I launched the app and tried to add a book, it told me I had to set the preferences and it tossed open a preferences window, but I didn't see anything I needed to change from the default. ("Quickfill Plugin" is a confusing name; it should do a better job of indicating that it's the default database on which it searches for my book info.)

Mainly, though, what makes it a bit clumsy to use right now is the quickfill - if it selects the wrong book info, there's no way for me to correct it without deleting this book and trying again. Like, I entered "Harry Potter" and clicked Quickfill, and it selected "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince". I don't see any way to get a list of other matches I can pick from in case I meant some other book.

Some more refinements to the interface, and especially the addition of an HTML export feature, will make this a really terrific app to have.  
(Version 3.0a8)

BRIAN KENDIG  The new download runs just fine. Thanks for the prompt attention.  
(Version 3.0a8)

BRIAN KENDIG  I launch it, it asks me whether it should check for updates on launch; but when I click either 'Yes' or 'No', it then crashes immediately. The error that shows up in Console is "Uncaught exception: [ valueForUndefinedKey:]: this class is not key value coding-compliant for the key listKey."  
(Version 3.0a8)

EJI  This (a7) is the first version of Books 3 that I've tried, and for software in alpha state, it's still highly useable. Books 3 corrects some of the inconveniences of its forerunner with, for example, multiple at-a-glance lists, great Spotlight integration and a fairly customizable two-pane, e-mail-like view. Opening and saving collections is now just as it should be: instant. And I really like the plug-in architecture -- this has amazing potential with export/import formats. (On that note, the forthcoming J2ME export for phones and PDAs ought to be great.) But I can't understand why ISBN isn't available as a column view choice, or the bottom pane (a plug-in, unfortunately, not in editable HTML format) should offer little more information than the top one.

Multiple autofill doesn't seem to be there yet (Books 2 never quite nailed this) and good ol' HTML export is no longer an option due to the somewhat more elaborate Books Server. Also, the 22.5MB(!) disk image could be slimmed by half with a non-source code version.

Minor flaws considered -- hey, it's still in alpha -- I still prefer this over Readerware, Booxter and the more beautiful but less practical Delicious Library. Books 3 is coming along nicely, and in its final release stage will likely provide many more features than its competitors at an unbeatable price. For my personal library it's just right. though I'd really like to know what bookstore owners think of it. I should think that it's worthy enough to be billed as the recommended Mac software on ABE.  
(Version 3.0a7)

GRADUS  The developer has started to work on Books 3 which will have a completely new interface and a plugin architecture. You can read about it here: http://www.aetherial.net/booksdev/

Since Books is an open-source project, it would be great if people with programming skills were willing to join forces with the dev to make the next version of this program as good as it promises to be.  
(Version 2.3.3)

FLASH1296  Try " Book Data Base X" and YES it does barcode-scanning too.  
(Version 2.3.3)

ANONYMOUS  After cataloguing 30 books, I have three comments to make:

1. Wrong cover art needs to be laboriously cleared via the Edit menu. That's inconvenient and illogical, drag and drop should overwrite.

2. Changes to website preferences don't seem to stick, but revert to Barnes & Noble and the local Amazon site, the country apparently picked through IP tracing. Since I'm an expat and overwhelmingly do NOT use the Amazon site of the country I reside in, this is annoying.

3. You might think you have stored decent quality cover art because in spite of the default prefs, downloaded images are displayed properly, but by default, Books only stores tiny thumbnails. Pity it only becomes apparent the next time one launches the application, because now I'll now have to change more preferences, clear old and download new cover art for each of the 30 books.  
(Version 2.3.1)

ANONYMOUS  With a modified cuecat or hand scanner, this imports barcode scans very nicely. Personally, I prefer this interface to Delicious Library. I'm also more impressed with the import/export options in this app than in Delicious Library. In the end, this app wins out for me over the competition on features, ease of use, and speed (I have 350 books in it, and it doesn't seem slow at all; when I tried the same lib in Delicious, it seemed a bit sluggish). Sure, it doesn't have all the eye candy of Delicious, but that's fine by me. I'll take function over form any day.

Oh, and one more thing: this is $40 less.   
(Version 2.3.1)

ALEXF  Looks nice and works well. I would love for it to implement iSight barcode scanning though -- after having tried other programs that offer this, it seems essential.   
(Version 2.3.1)

ANONYMOUS  I give it 5 stars, its a really useful program, and best of all its free. TWO Thumbs up to the creator for constant updates.!!!!  
(Version 2.2.1)

WACKYMACS  nothing compared to the upcoming Delicious Library. www.delicious-monster.com  
(Version 2.2.1)

LUKAS UPTON  This is simply a great piece of software. Very easy to use and extremely useful as well! I think it would be good to implement a way to enter all of your favourite quotes from a selected book, and then have the entire quote database searchable too. Keep up the good work! Thank you! :D  
(Version 2.2)

ANONYMOUS  could someone put up a screenshot please?

how come nobody does that anymore...  
(Version 2.2)

ANONYMOUS  EXCELLENT !!!

Only... still way too slow. A little library of only some 200 entries takes 10 secs to open and almost half a minute to save.  
(Version 2.0.9rc11)

ANONYMOUS  A very nice feature to add would be one that would enable the app to be put in some kind of check out kiosk mode where library patrons could browse the selection themselves via the computer, find its location, and check out the book just by typing in their name (linked to Address Book would make this especially simple since they would only have to type the first few letters of their name) and clicking a check-out button. The database would then be updated to reflect that patron a checked out such book when patron b comes looking for it. Patron B would then see easily when the book was due again and could come back when it is due to return, or even reserve it right then and there.  
(Version 2.0.9rc10)

DANA SUTTON  This is a handy app. I use it to catalogue a lot of rare early books I have downloaded and store on my hard disk as pdf files. It would be great if I could just click on something in a bibliographical record and launch the appropriate file. There's a Launch feature in the Files panel which looks like it should do just that, but I can't figure how it works. Maybe it's not implemented yet??  
(Version 2.0.9rc8)

ANONYMOUS  Works great with a modified USB CueCat scanner purchased from Ebay. Select File/Import/Autofilled ISBN list, and start scanning with the cuecat.

You can also scan to a textedit file, and copy and paste.  
(Version 2.0.9rc5)

HEPPS  great app. very fast and simple adding of books, really rich of features - free - the best software i've ever seen to manage my library ...  
(Version 2.0.9rc3)

ANONYMOUS  Does anybody else use this for their DVD collection? It's so easy to enter all the info and retrieve the picture using Books' Amazon interface. Spectacular app!  
(Version 2.0.6)

ANONYMOUS  What would make this just rock is if you could scan in books barcodes with an iSight instead of typing in all the info.  
(Version 2.0.6)

MATTHEW  Great app, now I just need some books to add in to it.  
(Version 2.0.5)

ANONYMOUS  Wow. This program is incredible. It's feature packed, and has everything I could need to fully organize my growing book collection. Most people probably don't need to do that, but for anyone who needs to organize their books, this is the program for you. It's amazing that it's free to, because it is of professional quality.  
(Version 2.0.4)

PHIL  For a few minutes, Booxter actually seemed more attractive. Not in the long run, though. However, I _would_ like a feature like Booxter's where you can add multiple books at one time. That'd be a _huge_ time saver!  
(Version 2.0.4)

ASMEURER  Great App. Some Rondezvous sharing would be nice.   
(Version 2.0.4)

THEMACJEDI  I looked at both this and Booxter before I decided to buy Booxter. It really did not come down to features, as they are similar, it came down to the interface. I really prefered the layout and look of Booxter. I think I mostly prefer it because it mimics the style of iPhoto and iTunes and has smart lists which is very important to me.

Both applications are great, really great, but if you like iPhoto and iTune's interface then you may prefer Booxter.  
(Version 2.0.4)

ANONYMOUS  Good interface, no bloat, fills an important gap in the organisation of my life.  
(Version 2.0.3)

VIVALDI  I would certainly like to be able to join the last reviewer in seeing Books 2.0.3 as "the best library catalogue application available", but that will have to wait until I can get one of the recent versions to do any more than make an "unexpected quit" EVERY time it's clicked on. This has happened with all the past four (or so) versions, no matter how many bug fixes the developer has performed. The last version of the program that would work for me was 1.2.3.

I'm operating not too shabby a machine, a G5 running under OSX 10.2.8. I've loaded dozens and dozens of programs from MacUpdate and had this behavior only once or twice from other programs. There isn't any way to fiddle with preferences or whatnot, since the prog won't even load. Is there something wrong with this machine, or are all the other trial users out there deluded? Perplexity continues and grows with each non-loading release.  
(Version 2.0.3)

EJI  Now that Books 2.0 is past the beta stage, it's time for all Booxter, Readerware and Library users to migrate to the best library catalogue application available. The developer has solicited direct, ruthlessly honest feedback from the whole community of Books users throughout the beta development, and it shows in the application he's produced: stable, attractive, full-featured, intuitive, useful and, above all, free.

Like many other users, I've followed Books from its practical 1.x incarnations to the professional tool it is today and I've come to regard it as an essential application for OS X. The latest version rivals or betters its competitors in every way by offering ISBN autofill via Amazon(s) and Library of Congress, LoC lookup, customisable features (date formatting, column height, cover image size), a lending list, batch autofill, and so on. For expanded compatibility, it exports to and imports from all catalogue app file formats (Readerware, Library, BibTex, etc). This way you can barcode scan -- one feature Books presently lacks -- in a clumsy, bloated app like Readerware and then easily bring the information into your existing Books library. Because the developer is still keen to implement more user-requested features, it's only going to get better. He's even made the source code public so that Books can morph into a (free) DVD catalogue tool.

I've tried all other library catalogue alternatives and I've deleted them after using Books 2.0.2. This is -- hands down -- the best app of its kind, good enough for bibliophiles, book retailers, amateur collectors and anyone with a growing personal library. It ought to be on MacUpdate's "select" list.  
(Version 2.0.2)

ANONYMOUS  Maybe I'm confused as to how a "beta" works, but I can't seem to get this program to save anything. It launches great, I can enter everything, even autofill, save the file, but when I open it again, there are no books in it. Everything I've entered is gone. Am I missing something critical here?  
(Version 2.0b14)

ACKI  Crashes every time I try to save anything  
(Version 2.0b8)

JIMW  This is a contribution by the academic environment that just as well be a commercial enterprise and get big bucks. Note that it is labeled Beta. That means it does have some bugs. Additionally, the academic environment does not usually employ testers to test the software before beta release. They instead count on the beta users to provide feedback, which they take seriously. This is somewhat different that commercial software which is a numbers game. What I mean is that with a commercial general beta, a problem generally becomes meaningful only if a large number of people report the same problem. With an academic beta, an individual or handful may make a difference, if it is documented properly. So this means that your individual comment may make a difference in this product.

This looks to me to be an excellent effort that competes with many commercial products that profess to do the same thing. Judging from the other reviews, it still may be a little "rough around the edges" but nevertheless, it seems to cover all the bases and offer just about anything one would want or need in creation a book collection catalog. It also offers tools to make entry as convenient as possible. Finally, it allows the casual computer user to avoid investing in expensive databases such as Filemaker or 4D.

In conclusion, this seems like a quality major effort that is quite useable right now, even though it may have a few kinks. However that is to be expected, given its beta status. After reviewing the product website, I feel that Its developers seem to be quite receptive to user comments. Assuming that development continues and the quality is preserved, I would not be surprised to see this product emerge as standard or benchmark for library databases.   
(Version 2.0b7)

QUIIICK  Custom application icon is missing in this beta-build. Only a generic icon is drawn.  
(Version 2.0b3)

BARON  Can't get it run...

"The application Books has unexpectedly quit"

everytime i launch it.

Ti Powerbook G4 667mhz, 512mb Ram

OSX 10.2.8  
(Version 2.0b2)

QUANTUMPANDA  A nice little program--*much* better looking than Readerware, and quickly catching up to RW on features. The only things it's missing, to me, are LoC lookups (for older books without ISBNs) and user-customizable fields (like BookTracker has). Oh, and one other thing: it would be nice to be able to enter not just the series a book belongs to, but its number in that series as a separate field, so you can sort the list by order in series. Add those things and it'll be near-perfect!  
(Version 1.2.3)

EJI  I'd like to clarify some of the points that I raised in the previous review. A bit of tinkering has brought me to the root of some problems.

When populating fields using Amazon USA, the fields previously populated (cover images in particular) from, say, Amazon Germany are wiped clean. It would be better to pool the data from all Amazons (and more, as I've already mentioned) and have the feature do what it says -- that is, only populate *missing* fields. It is possible to update one by one without this drawback, but that raises the issue of saving time.

And one minor additional caveat: I've noticed that a "First Edition" checkbox is missing.

Still, I've upped my feature rating from 3 to 4. It's not as if they weren't there; they just needed some finessing.  
(Version 1.2.2)

EJI  I tried Books to see how it stacked up against Readerware, an excellent library database app I've been using for several months now because of its unique features: populating fields using online information, cover image download and multiple ISBN lookup, among others. Books, however, is written in Cocoa (not clunky, crash-prone Java) and is lightweight, customizable, stable and free. Plus the developer is very responsive.

v1.2.2 makes some steps toward Readerware features and even allows for a Redearware-specific database import to make switching easier. Unfortunately, the cover image feature is still a bit buggy. I couldn't manage to make one appear for several entries no matter what I did, from dragging and dropping a JPEG to using the new "populate fields using online information" button. Likewise, the Date Published and No. of Pages fields didn't accept Amazon's info, either. And when that's in good working order, it would be great to see it make use of all the library sites on the Web (which Readerware does), such as the US Library of Congress and European booksellers. I have a lot of foreign books that I know are going to test the developer's comprehensiveness.

Books is almost there. A few more tweaks and I can gratefully toss Readerware in the Java junk pile. Kudos to Chris Karr.  
(Version 1.2.2)

ANONYMOUS  Awesome!   
(Version 1.2)

STEPHAN  Earlier versions had problems with Umlauts in book titles, so maybe that's the reason why your entries vanished?  
(Version 1.1)

CHRIS KARR  If anyone is having trouble with saving, please e-mail me at books@aetherial.net. I can't help fix the problem if I don't hear about it.  
(Version 1.0.1)

HANK  after every book I entered I hit save. And even books I entered 3 days before, that were still there when I proceeded, are gone now...   
(Version 1.0.1)

ANONYMOUS  Hank: Sounds like you forgot to save before closing. I believe the developer is putting in a save on close feature in a future release, but until then I'd recomend hitting save after each entry.  
(Version 1.0.1)

HANK  I put in about 100 books, closed the program and when I re-opened it, ALL my books were gone! Where did they go?  
(Version 1.0.1)

ASMEURER  Very bugged but has mainly the same things as Library does only it's not free. Some better documentation would be nice too.   
(Version 1.0.1)

LSNJD  Great little program for organizing your home library. The developer is very receptive to comments and suggestions. Plus it's free!  
(Version 1.0)

NACHMENSCH  Easy to use. Why not present a menu of months? Having taken the trouble to verify their spelling, why not make it a choice.  
(Version 1.0b4)