The LibraryThing iPhone App has arrived!

The LibraryThing iPhone App has arrived!

Blog post: http://blog.librarything.com/main/2015/10/librarything-app/
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/librarything/id948824489?mt=8

Hey! This is REALLY good! Love the bar-code scanning. My cup runneth over!!!

wow! fantastic!

Wonderful!

Great!!! \o/

Are there any plans for an Android app?

Not scanning any 10 digit isbn barcodes and mixed results with 13 digit ones. Did scan a QR code which was interesting. Pretty good overall, just mixed results with scanning.

>6 eBookNoir: Scanning has always been pretty robust for me. Can you give us a couple examples of books you're scanning, and what device (and version) you're using?

I'm not having much luck with Dutch books. So I just add them the old way, and for the books I'm getting rid of - so hard, so sad to see them go - I use the app's cover scanning to add covers, rather than scanning them myself and then editing them. Much quicker, and good enough for these.

Hm. It certainly does 10 and 13 digit codes. We'll have to figure out what the circumstances are for your particular case.

Love the ability to review my catalogue when browsing shelves in bookstores and fleamarkets, to be sure I'm not buying a book I already own.

Dutch books might be hit and miss. It depends. We are certainly going to expand support for data sources. This first version only uses Amazon and "Libraries" (which is Overcat on LT)

If you have trouble scanning:
Remember that there is a flashlight available at the bottom. The scanner doesn't do well in low light.

If you are STILL having problems, send us a screenshot or picture of the barcode and we can give it a go.

Ya, the books I'm adding are old and many are ultbs, so overcat is no use. KB would help.

Woo Woo! for the LT app

Downloaded! Great app!

Would love it more if the screen would rotate into landscape, especially in edit mode.

At last! Fantastic!

Love it! Add books is pretty slick, and I really like being able to add covers, too!

Exciting! Looking forward to trying it at some book sales.

I like the way it starts searching my catalogue right away when I begin to type in a word.

Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, if you are using the app and enjoying it we'd love for you to add a review to the app store.

Hint, hint, nudge, nudge.

>21 conceptDawg: Gee, I'd be happy to do that -- as soon as there's an Android app.

Hint, hint, nudge, nudge.

;-)

Well, I DID qualify it with a "using it and enjoying it." :)

Yay for the updated app!

>22 PhaedraB: I love you!

I'm so glad it seems to be a hit. I'm forcing everyone I know to download it so there's a better chance I can get my hands on it on Android.

YAY!

Love it! Thank you.

Woot!

I have an old iPhone 4S with iOS 7, and have put off upgrading my phone for some time. The app requires iOS 8 and after giving it a test drive on my newer-model iPad, I'm sold. There is an iPhone upgrade in my future. Who would have thought a book cataloguing app would be the tipping point? Folks here will understand. :)

I don't understand your question. Surely a book cataloguing app is the best reason to upgrade your iOS?

>31 humouress:

It's why I upgraded my iOS!

>31 humouress:, >32 lilithcat: yes it is!! I certainly think so. I was just thinking this might come as a surprise to the folks at Apple.

I also upgraded so I could check it out even though my iPad is wifi only!

Really well done! It's very fast, especially the scanning feature.

I'd encourage all LT members to add a review (5 stars, of course) to iTunes, as apps with more reviews appear higher in search results.

One suggestion: do some SEO to the app page. For instance, instead of calling the app "LibraryThing", title it "LibraryThing - Free Catalog App for Your Books and Media" or something like that.

I love the add books feature, but can someone direct me to where we can change sources? it's all amazon. Is that the only choice?

Also, is there a planned upgrade that will utilize the take inventory feature? That would be awesome.

>36 Bookmarque: It was mentioned, somewhere above, that there's amazon & "library," which is overcat.

>36 Bookmarque: Go to "Account" - you'll find various settings (including sources you can check and un-check) there!

Ah got it! Danke!

I love it!!!

Even at home, there are times I want to do some minor searching or editing (moving something into "Currently Reading" collection, for example) and I don't want to take the trouble of booting my computer. This makes it so EASY! I just moved the book I started into "currently reading" status.

I can't wait to take it to the bookstore. . .

You're talking about using the app on iPads.

Uh, I easily found and installed the app on my phone from the App Store. But a search of the App Store with my iPad yielded nothing.

>41 tymfos: you're probably searching for iPad apps. Switch to search for iPhone apps (you can do that even on the iPad) and you'll find it.

Last night I dreamed I went to school in my underwear for a test I hadn't studied for. Thanks LT! #android

>41 tymfos: >42 tardis: is right. There's a toggle for displaying either iPad only or iPhone only apps in your search results—in the upper-left corner when you're searching the app store.

Thanks!

I'd encourage all LT members to add a review (5 stars, of course) to iTunes, as apps with more reviews appear higher in search results.

Yes, please. We had a number of reviews from the beta group, but then we changed versions for a minor bug fix.

One suggestion: do some SEO to the app page. For instance, instead of calling the app "LibraryThing", title it "LibraryThing - Free Catalog App for Your Books and Media" or something like that.

Considering it. I don't like the… craveness of it.

The new app just got a mention on an ebook and digital publishing blog:

http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/10/20/librarything-launches-an-iphone-app/

>35 feldamundo:

{D}o some SEO to the app page. For instance, instead of calling the app "LibraryThing", title it "LibraryThing - Free Catalog App for Your Books and Media"

Is that sort of thing standard in the iOS world? As an Android user it strikes me as very spammy - put the description in the description, not in the title.

>47 MyriadBooks:

Nice catch, I'm unfamiliar with the blog but it's a nice write-up. Is the image his own, or nicked from LT?

>49 elenchus: That's one of the images from our post.

Does the app use the sources we choose for adding items via the website? I ask because I'd rather not default to amazon.com. Adding DVDs in particular, amazon.co.uk gives better info (not labelling region 2 discs as imports, for example).

>51 innominate: No, right now we're just using Amazon.com (books, music and movies) and OverCat. See https://www.librarything.com/topic/199467#5311095 (we'll work on expanding sources).

You can change your options/order of searching through the "Account" page, and drag OverCat to be the first source searched, if you prefer.

Fab, fab, fab! Very glad that you've been able to bring this out.
My request for the next features to be added are tag editing and editing acquisition/reading dates.

Thanks.

My request for next features to be added is putting it on Android.

>48 lorax: lorax
Yes - a few examples of app titles that I see used by popular apps:
"Pandora - Free Music & Radio"
"Fandango Movies - Times & Tickets"
"Yahoo Mail - Free Email and News"

The "Free" probably makes it feel spammy, but note that other book cataloging apps charge, so it could help the LT app stand out. Could also do "LibraryThing - Book & Media Catalogs" or "LibraryThing - Catalog Your Books and Media".

>52 kristilabrie: Many thanks. I look forward to the source expansion!

>46 timspalding: I appreciate your sensibilities re: the cravenness of it all, but sir, this is your livelihood! Think of the children!

The children, Tim!

Really good, just what I want.

>55 feldamundo: It's only free up to 200 items, so it's not really free.

>55 feldamundo:

Thanks, it really does seem to be a platform-based cultural difference, then; in the Play Store those are just "Pandora Radio" and "Fandango Movies" - Yahoo Mail does have the longer title including "Free".

>60 jjwilson61: Not at the moment! If you sign in (or sign up for a new account), you get a free lifetime account automatically!

And the app is still free, regardless of how many items you have in the app. ;)

Excellent. Thanks!

The reaction on Twitter and Facebook have been pretty stellar, I have to say. Here's Twitter https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=librarything%20ap...

And we've seen a bump in use, both with the app and not. So, pretty good :)

Wait 'til all us regulars return to our normal bandwidth, then take some metrics. We're all on multiple platforms, playing with the app & TinyCat across two or more accounts. Heh.

More seriously, I do hope the bump holds up.

>65 timspalding: Today, I *didn't* buy four different books...ones that I already owned. (I use cell data, so I don't care about wifi.)

I love it. It doesn't even have to do anything else.

>67 Lyndatrue:

Send us the money you saved! :)

Also, all previous duplicate buys :)

I wanted to reiterate how impressive the app is. Scanning books to add into my library is kinda fun, especially with the little sound effect on each successful scan.

I logged in and saw the picture of the iPhone on my home page and was thrilled to see this app. I didn't even stop in here to read what people were saying. I just downloaded the app. I can't wait till I go to another book sale. Thank you LT!!

Just added app to phone, like it very much so far! Will really help to not duplicate items at book sales, library and book stores. Great work guys!

Remember folks, drop by the iTunes store and give us a good review so that we can move to the top of the Store lists and get better search placement in the Store.

Your feedback is the best advertising we can get!

And thank you for all of your comments here. They are very much appreciated and help make all of the hard work worth it.

On my 6 plus with iOS 9.1, I can't get any book to scan, with or without the light on. :(

>75 pgardella: Can you try sliding the barcode toward the top of the highlighted scan area and see if that helps? I have a hunch that on some devices the actual scan area is getting offset from the one shown on screen.

Oh. And to comments above about translating the app into other languages. Yes, we have plans. We have a lot of resources in that department but we may ask for help at a later date. We just don't know when that will be. We want to wait until the major features get settled down a little bit first.

Okay, exactly what was needed! The app for iPhone is a very positive addition to LibraryThing. Very fast and intuitive operation. Congratulations and thank you!

I love having the app! Looking forward to using it at book sales!

Two requests: 1) Make the book list sortable. 2) Add an inventory option to the app.

>79 QuesterofTruth:

#1 is going to make it into the next version. #2 will come eventually.

The scanning is very subtle; I managed to add a book three times before realising that it had actually succeeded. I didn't notice any clear feedback. But it is fast and intuitive otherwise.

>81 anglemark:

Apparently there's a cheerful little sound (as per >70 feldamundo: ), are you operating with the sounds muted? (I can't test myself, I'm on Android.)

I might have been, now that you mention it.

I'm so excited! I've been checking the app store periodically for years for this!

It also highlights the barcode when it finds it. With a red rectangle. I think we may want to flash the entire screen when we get a good scan. I'm going to put that on our list.

When editing the cover - mainly just cropping - the dots in the corners are a bit too big or too much overlaying, can they be made to be cross-hairs?

Guys, you made my weekend! Have been waiting so long for this now I am very happy. Great job.

>86 JerryMmm:
Do you mean you can't see the edge of the cover well enough? Heh. Personally, it's not the UI elements that get in the way it's my fat fingers. But we'll take a look and see if we can make some improvements. Probably not in the very first update though. We have enough functional bugs that we'll probably stick to those for the first update.

Speaking of cropping covers, I find the zoom feature there very frustrating. I want to be able to zoom in on a corner of the cover to place the dot accurately, then zoom out to zoom in on the next corner, but the crop marks don't zoom in and out with the cover. (By zooming in and out I mean using two fingers to moving apart and together.)

If that's not a clear enough description, I can do screenshots.

I noticed that a broad scan of the code with my 6+ would often not register - I had to get the phone much closer to the ISBN (basically fill the brackets) to get it to work properly. If you look at other barcode readers like RedLaser you'll see what I mean. Faster registration means faster scanning and less adjustment. Just an FYI.

Mucho kudos, it even scans barcodes, this has been on my wish list for a long time. Thanks for coming through guys.

>76 conceptDawg: On my 6+ it took me a fair bit of trial and error to figure out how to scan consistently, and this explains a lot! I'm now getting consistent scans by putting the top edge of the scan box through the *middle* of the barcode, as though the actual scan box was moved up the display by half its height.

I'm impressed with the app, by the way. A long time coming, but worth the wait. It could do with a quick tour when you start it up - I had no idea that the account option was where I'd go to change my source!

>88 conceptDawg: I'm using an ipad and a stylus precisely because of my fat fingers, so that helps.

Either crosshairs or 50% opacity would help.

also, when you tap outside the area and move your finger, the last corner you moved moves.
So for example: I move the bottom right corner to where it should be. Then I put my finger just outside the top left corner, and instead of nothing happening, the bottom right dot starts to move when I move my finger.

Making the iphone app universal would probably be nice too, so it's not giant on an ipad.

So far I've preferred to add my books by hand on the site, I first search on the KB for the exact edition I have, then add it on LT using the KB 'aanvraagnummer'. After that I can scan in the cover using the app, which is very nice, at least for the books that are not that important to me. Or the ones I'm getting rid of atm {sniff}.

I think this will work well. The interface is super-clean and intuitive. Congrats.

Another app / smartphone newbie question: is there a way to add a cover to a book already catalogued, as opposed to adding a cover as I add a new book?

I only see the cover function when I add a book, I'm looking to add custom covers for books already catalogued but missing a cover.

Another thing, sometimes when I take a picture it's rotated. Can you add a Rotate button?

>95 elenchus: yes if you find the book in your catalog, click on the book and there should be a camera icon right below the image. click on that to add a cover.

Fabulous, I'll try that this weekend.

Okay, people who are here:

And

>96 JerryMmm: You can rotate the image with two fingers. I think we may add an easy rotate button though.

Great tip! On mine, it's a the bottom of the highlighted scan area. So it does scan now! Woohoo!

So far I really like it!

>100 timspalding: might be important to note, for me, that I've always scanned by having the barcode fill the screen, which reduces room for error. Scanning this way, I've never had issues.

I also don't own a 6+, which is what I've seen most have issues, I think? I have an iPhone 5c.

Let me just say that we are working to make scanning even better/easier in the next version.
If you're having a bit of trouble getting some barcodes to scan it should be much better.
If you're not having much trouble then you'll have even less trouble in the next version.

There's also a bunch of minor UI tweaks already fixed for the next version.

I'm hoping that we can send it to apple early next week but we've been seeing 1 week lead times for them to get an update out to the store.

>104 kristilabrie:

LT should issue you one! For testing, of course.

Just downloaded it - looks great - can't wait to try it when I'm out buying stuff. Thanks for the good work!

We made a video of scanning: https://www.librarything.com/topic/201461

I'd love it to work with iOS 7 and the fact that it doesn't isn't going to tip me over I'm afraid!

This has been awaited with great anticipation! Thank you for a wonderful UI, ease of operation, and overall design aesthetic!

We're number 13 on "Top Free iPhone Apps" for books.

"Well, hello!"



Edited.

That's in the "Books" category?

Yes. Books. Sorry.

Can one download one's entire Kindle and Audible libraries without typing in the titles individually?

Another thing I would like is an add button for my cyberlibrary (Clevnet) and Amazon products. I just joined LT and am daunted by the prospective task of adding books to a list.
Am I missing a shortcut of any kind? Just lazy, I guess; and I've read thousands of books.

You'll probably want to use the import on the main site rather than the app for that.

>111 timspalding: We're coming for you, GoodReads!

>117 leahbird:

>118 timspalding: So perfect.



If only there was a bobcat in Firefly.

>119 leahbird: A+

I've been waiting for this app. My book library is complete but I've decided to scan my 700+ movie library. The movies scan fine using my iPad mini but I could not get the barcode recognized on my iPhone 6. I rotated the movie 90 degrees and there was no problem. So on the iPhone I had to scan the barcode sideways to be recognized. So far I have scanned 550 movies in very little time.

Just downloaded it to my ipad. Love it. Well done.

Watching the scanning video makes me want to start my whole catalog over from scratch. If only the original entry date wasn't so crucial to me I probably would.

The video is very misleading. I'm scanning my wife's books and it goes swimmingly for, say, six books. Then the seventh won't go. Maybe there's a label over the barcode, or maybe it just doesn't have a barcode. We try to make regular books easier with a special ISBN-and-LCCN entry mode, but they still take most of the time.

Many more members signed up today via the app than by the website. That's a bit disorienting!

please add support for Windows 10/Windows Phone; there is a tool that will convert your iOS code for Windows 10 without you having to rewrite it ;)

It would be nice to choose an input source when using the barcode scanner. We like to use the Library of Congress, if available, but the app doesn't let you pick.

>127 GracePointeChurch:

Next next version, I think. The big problem is that other libraries are MUCH slower. We didn't want people thinking our app was bad, because of a secondary service.

>126 sbisson:

Well, that makes two of us.

I envy you iPhone owners! Any chance for an Android version in the the forseeable future?

Thanks!! Waited a long time for it to come.

>126 sbisson: It's not as "easy" as that, I'm afraid. It works great for most of the out-of-the-box stuff but we're doing a fair amount of very customized/specialized code that would have to be rewritten.

And the real problem is rarely the amount of time to write the first version. It's dedicating time and continued support for a platform that has, what, 4% of mobile users? (I don't know, just guessing)

>132 conceptDawg: oohh! Now you've got their backs up.

;0)

(ETA : all 4% (?) of them)

>133 humouress:

A vocal four percent!

Which is the 4%, ios?

Thank you! Fantastic app, much anticipated and much appreciated.

>132 conceptDawg: Pretty much, but the numbers of users are expected to double between now and 2019. Market share to increase to about 5%. Android is hovering around 79% and iOS around 14% market share of smartphones sold.

>109 paulmorriss: I hear you. An app I can't use is, well, useless ...

>106 suitable1: I should definitely have that as a work expense or something. ;)

Perhaps we should have a "buy Android devices for the LibraryThing staff" campaign?

Will you guys develop an app for android? samsung galaxy or note?
thanks

>141 FriStar7406:

Presumably any android app (about which there is much discussion) would be general rather than restricted to one particular model of phone.

>142 lorax:

At the same time, there would be some minimal requirements, so not every Android would be covered. I don't know enough to know what that would look like now. But a four year-old phone is likely excluded.

>143 timspalding:

Well, yeah, that's assumed.

#76 by conceptDawg>

Somehow I just heard about the app being available today. I feel so outside the loop considering my participation in the topics about this in the past.

Browsing looks good so far. I had a problem with scanning on an iPhone 6 (iOS 8.1.3) and LT app (1.0.1). It would not pick up the scan. Seeing your suggestion about placing the barcode outside the guides eventually worked. I started with the barcode at the top, kept it in focus, and moved until the barcode was in the middle of the screen. Then it worked. Thus the guides are misleading for my setup.

On other barcode systems I have used in the past on the iPhones they will do a quick vibrate when a successful scan has been made. This allows one to work without staring carefully at the screen at all times.

On the regular camera app one can tap to start an autofocus. This does not seem to work in this scanning section. It might be helpful based on my experiments.

More data sources would be helpful. Right now I see "Amazon" and "Libraries" (OverCat?) and figure this is intentional. I didn't see how to add Library of Congress, for example.

After I test the rest of the features, I will make the requested review in the app store.

James

I nagged my husband till he downloaded the app last night. After trying to remember his LT password he eventually logged in for the for first time in a long time. The app could bring him back to the site. He even scanned a missing book cover. He said "cool". He then added a kindle book by search and we then got into a fight about adding the correct editions rather than a generic entry and having the right cover for your edition.

>145 Keeline: Thanks for the feedback! If you have sound turned on, it does beep when it successfully scans, but I can see the argument in favor of adding vibrate as an option.

>146 wifilibrarian: glad to see the app is livening up some book discussions for you! ;)

I'm adding vibrate to our developer beta to get some feedback.

Another thought as I have been using this more. It would be nice if the barcode scan was also available in the catalog browse mode.

Use case: visiting a new bookstore to quickly verify if a book is in one's collection already.

James

Two times when I have used the app, the AJAX loading of images and data was slow but OK. Last night, saw around 10 pm PST, it seemed much slower, to the point when I wished it would hurry up or prioritize the text data, especially on a single-entry view.

It could be a question of network resources on either side. I suppose you are working with images of an optimized size for the purpose. This is more critical for the list and cover view modes, of course.

James

It is not clear to me the sort order for a list view. I think it may be reverse order according to the "entry date". I did not notice a way to change this to something that was a bit less random (original publication date, alpha by author, alpha by title, series volume number, etc.). Some of the examples aren't even possible with the website, I recognize.

James

On the detail entries, it would be nice if the author name could be clicked to see all of the works by that author. At the very least it should be copyable.

James

Series data is displayed (great) but one cannot click on it or copy it to see the books in the series with indications of which volumes one has.

James

When performing a search, there is not a clear indication (other than the keyboard) that the focus is in the search text box. Most iOS apps will at least display a cursor. Some will provide a visual indication such as drawing a border around the search field.

James

The grayed buttons on the bottom row give the impression that those items are not available instead of merely not selected. I'm the kind of person who will tap around on an app to figure out what to do but it may be confusing to some who expect certain visual cues and UI conventions.

James

Fully agree with >156 Keeline:.

ya, >156 Keeline: bugged me too.

I came here to say the same thing as >156 Keeline: (I ended up waiting to find out the information until I came home).

>156 Keeline: This tricked me too, particularly coming from the Mac environment. I'm not a big user of IOS apps, so I'm not sure if this is now the new normal!

Ahh. We've reached that point just past the launch euphoria when "I wish it would..." and the "What the hell were the developers thinking?!" sets in. Welcome back, normal LT personalities! :)

Juust kidding. But we aren't done with the app. We're working hard to fix some bugs and get new features in for the next release, which should go out in the next few days (and then sit on the shelf at Apple for a week, of course). The plan is to have smaller releases spaced 1-2 weeks apart that contain one or two new features and a few bug fixes rather than big monumental releases that take us a month or two each.

>151 Keeline: We don't use "AJAX" in the app, but I get what you actually mean there. And the covers ARE delayed until the text data is loaded. Sounds like you just had a really bad connection there. But we'll take a look and see if we can make it even faster.

>152 Keeline: Sorting will be added. I'm hoping to get it in the next version. We'll see, but I'm feeling good about it. We may delay a day or two to get it in.

>154 Keeline: Series data is not clickable for some obscure reasons. Mostly, though, it's because we don't have the concept of "works" in the app yet. Once we get that series will be much more powerful of a concept. We may add searching your own catalog for that series before we get to displaying actual series pages.

>155 Keeline: That's a bug. It's on our list. Really there's no highlight on iOS much anymore. But the cursor needs to be brighter so that it's more visible.

>156 Keeline: That's a choice, but a hard one. As a designer I can tell you that designing around dark brown UI isn't exactly and easy task. :)
But I'll throw more ideas at the wall and see if any stick.

------

Mostly, just remember that we wanted to get a very streamlined app out for the first version. We'll build on it but it will never do everything you can do on the LT site. That has been decreed.

>151 Keeline: I actually stated that slightly wrong. The REQUEST for the covers is delayed until after the REQUEST for the biblio data. Of course, those two requests can come back at different times. But there's so much variability when it comes to networks and mobile devices that it's hard to say definitively what was happening in your case.

>155 Keeline: and >161 conceptDawg: You're just talking about "Your Catalog" search, right? Not searching within "Add to Catalog"? The cursor looks fine for add searches, for me, but I do see what you're talking about in "Your Catalog" search.

Yes, a search of my catalog.

James

>30 lauralkeet: Just one week later I have a new iPhone and the LT app, and life is good. Thanks!!

I confirmed that turning the bar code 180 degrees allowed the scan of DVDs and BlueRays (horizontal wouldn't scan at all). Weird - I scanned several dozen to test it out - iPhone 6+ with latest iOS.

Update on the update: We're not quite ready to push the update out today (Friday) and I'm going to be out of town from Monday-Wednesday dealing with some family medical issues. So that means that we'll likely push the update on Thursday of next week and hopefully it'll go through approval a week from that (barring any problems).

I'm relatively new to LT. We are now using it for our nonprofits library of a few hundred volumes. Thanks for this app - its a huge step forward!

Hoping the lending/circulation feature will be added. Would be cool to be able to scan a book's barcode when lending it to someone, or when a book is returned.

Great suggestion! I suspect, if we planned on doing something like that, it wouldn't happen for a long time, since we're limited by sheer manpower (4 developers total at LT).

What we can do, and what we plan on doing sooner, is scanning barcodes to search your books ("Your Catalog" in the app), which would bring up the individual item for you. You could then click to Edit the book and add your Lending status through LT. Not ideal, but it would get the job done.

perhaps some different integration with tinycat could be done?

Adding my congratulations on getting the app launched! It will be handy to have my LibraryThing list of books at the ready.

Requests going forward- The collections feature is nice, however it would be very good to be able to sort by date read and alphabetically. As it is within the collections I am not sure what the current logic is for listing the titles.

Again well done!

>171 ralphcoviello: It should be most recently-added at the top, currently.

>171 ralphcoviello: We plan on adding sorting within the next week.

I'm the librarian at a new start-up library in Seattle, and I have 12,000 books to catalog in LT (preferably before our launch in January). The first task is to get the low hanging fruit (i.e. get those books with barcodes into the catalog). Friday, I started a retired volunteer with shaky hands using my iPhone with the LT app, and she began scanning, no problem. Saturday I added in a 12-year-old and a 15-year-old volunteer. 380 some odd books in three hours (including snack breaks and all). Amazing. I still need my librarian volunteers to come in and look at each record and add tags, donor info, etc., but for that low hanging fruit, it's so easy that even arthritic elders and quick-moving teens can use!

Two issues I've noted that I don't see mentioned above:

1. Records entered by scanning with the iPhone app don't include the language field. That field is left blank in the record.

2. Books published in Canada with both a Canadian barcode and a US barcode usually don't come up, no matter which barcode we scan. It says "book not found" or some such.

Otherwise, loving the scanning feature. I just wish all our books had barcodes!

P.S. My older volunteer wishes the barcode scan icon were a little bigger...

#174 by FolioSeattle>

Probably the app is not the way to go for having your older volunteer scan ISBN-based barcodes. Under those circumstances, there would probably be more success with a traditional barcode scanner, even a CueCat, and a laptop or desktop.

It could be that you are scanning UPC codes and not ISBN codes. Look for ones that begin with 978. On mass-market paperbacks this is sometimes on the inside front cover.

Using Amazon as a data source is sometimes more successful than library sources for paperback barcodes. The library sources tend to prefer hardcovers for the obvious reasons but your books may be different.

Most books since 1967 or so will have an ISBN even if they don't have a barcode. If you have a numeric keypad on the computer or plugged into it, you can make pretty efficient use of data entry.

The app is a tool but perhaps not ideal for your needs.

James

Is there a way to track books that I have loaned out?

Not yet, but they are thinking about it:
http://www.librarything.com/privacy If, however, LibraryThing adds major new features, including but not limited to tracking your borrowed books by satellite and punishing malefactors with a death-ray, using these new features may require an additional payment.

>176 EdinburghstLFL: There is on the website.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/188117

Love the app and LT overall! The syncing between desktop (web) and mobile is the fundamentally killer feature for me. #allthethingseverywhere

In the app, has anyone figured out a way to flag, tag or otherwise have the app show books in the Currently Reading collection that are checked out from the library (and therefore on a tighter reading deadline)? I just got a notice today that an unfinished ebook from my library expires today that I won't finish. :(

Seems like this is a perfect place where LT could help out. Next level would a be an optional app notification to remind you x days before the book was due!

OK, just wanted to throw that out and say how much I love this!

My library shows me what I have out, and which books can't be renewed. They also send me e-mails warning me a few days in advance about what is nearly due. (None of this for the eBooks, though.) Checking that regularly is easier than constantly updating the information in LT would be.

How you use collections and tags is up to you.

>175 Keeline: Thank you, James, for your advice. I did start my volunteer off with a laptop and a cue cat, thinking the larger screen would be better for her, but she could not get the cue cat to work for her. She became frustrated, and much preferred the iPhone app.

Since we have 12,000 books to enter into the catalog, we are starting with low hanging fruit, i.e. those books with barcodes. I will have volunteers who are also librarians assisting with the actual cataloging.

As I mentioned, the only barcodes which are not scanning in are specific Canadian/US published books. I have not had a chance to investigate more fully.

Lisa

>179 khit.io: MarthaJeanne said it very well here. The notifications sound like something you should get from your library, and you can create Tags and Collections from the .com side for your library books (which would show up on the app), but this would take work keeping them up to date.

We're planning on building the app with more features from the website, but we wanted to give members something streamlined and solid to work with sooner rather than later (add on just one more feature, and you're adding that much time for our 4 developers at LibraryThing :) ). Thanks for your feedback! Let us know if you think of anything else.

>174 FolioSeattle: Thanks for reporting! We'll look into the scanning issues for Canadian books and the language field not being entered.

>174 FolioSeattle: Do you have a couple examples of the barcodes which are not returning search results? If they're scanning but finding no results you can just type in the numbers to Talk here and I can see what's going on with them.

>174 FolioSeattle: okay, CC (ccatalfo) fixed the language not being input through the app. This should be working now!

I am experiencing some weirdness when scanning a book. The scan sound isn't stopping (even after successfully finding a barcode and returning the book information, until I click DONE and go back to the catalog listing screen.

It had worked (ie, the sound stopped when the scanning stopped) a couple weeks ago when I first got the app, but not now. The only difference now, is that I upgraded my phone to iOS 9.1 (13B143)

If it makes a difference, I'm on AT&T

>186 mahsdad: Have you tried turning the phone off & on again? Or uninstalling the app & reinstalling? Not specific to the app but general tech troubleshooting 101, heh.

I should know better and try all the Level 1 tech support stuff. I will do that just to try to eliminate the obvious. Thx

>188 mahsdad: Do let us know if that doesn't resolve the issue. That sounds kind of bizarre.

>186 mahsdad: Certainly let us know the result.
I can't think of a reason that would cause that and we have 9.1 installed on various devices here that are used for testing. I'm looking through the code to figure out what could possibly cause something like this.

I should know better. I'm an IT guy and I feel like such a n00b. Rebooting the phone did the trick. Thanks everyone. We're all good.

Sorry to jump the gun.

One comment, about adding books, both on the App and on the site. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but the assumption seems to be that if you happen to scan a book that you already have (or select it thru the website process) that it will be immediately added to your catalog despite the fact that its a duplicate (and the system knows that its a duplicate because it tells you). Then the user has to go back to the catalog to delete the duplicate record.

Is this conscious design choice? Could you not tell the user that its a duplicate and then give them the option to add it if they really want it? I would think that the majority of duplicates entered would be erroneous and deleted. Why not eliminate the add in the first place. Just curious.

Thanks for all LT does. Love the site and the app.

>191 mahsdad: It was a decision.
We felt that many people would scan books in quick succession and bringing up a dialog to ask for input in the middle of that process would break the flow.

Cool. Makes sense. It usually only happens once in a blue moon for me, mostly when dealing with my Wishlist, as I usually don't have a physical book when I'm doing that.

I only noticed it when I was testing this scan thing, because I kept scanning the same book, it was the only one I had at the office.

Thanks again.

The App hates me. It will not download. I tried deleting it and installing. It says waiting....been three days.

>194 Lori_OGara: Sorry to hear that. Would you mind telling me what device/iOS version you're using? It should work for all iOS devices using iOS 8 or higher.

That happens to me on my phone all the time. It's a bug in iOS and the app store. It has nothing to do with any particular app. Right now I can look at my phone and I have three such apps that are in limbo and not downloading. They are in a permanent "waiting..." state. I tap them. They say "installing..." then they go back to waiting.
I've tried rebooting the phone. Logging out of my itunes account and signing back in. Nothing has been a magic bullet so far.

It's frustrating. But it's another entry in Apple's "We still haven't figured out cloud services" journal.

In short: I don't know what to tell you.

Would it be possible to choose this in the app prefs: to warn when scanning a duplicate (or not to warn)?

>197 PhilippeLeBihan: After thinking about it a bit I think we're actually going to switch our angle there and here's what I have in mind.

It will let you scan any book that you have or don't have and it will add it to the list of recently scanned items. But if you already have that book in your collection it won't automatically add it as it normally does. Instead, the row will be highlighted and you'll get a vibrate warning to let you know something needs your attention. In addition the row will show that you already have that item and give you the option to add another copy anyway (with a button that says, "Add another copy" or something equally genius).

I think this is the better way to go all around.

Right now we do most of this anyway, we just need to not automatically add it and add the button to force adding of the book.

Sometimes, when checking a book in a shop, the network is so weak it takes so much time to connect and load the database…
It would be great that the app keep in the iphone all the books infos and when connecting, it would "simply" update the database.

Sounds great!

Let me add to my earlier kudos by praising how small (in terms of MB) the app is. It takes up hardly any space on my iPhone, which is otherwise starved for memory. Thanks for keeping it lean!

Could you consider adding an offline mode where it caches my library (I can live without cover art in this case). Often I'm in a bookstore and want to see if I currently own a book I'm considering purchasing. More often than not, the store has horrible to nonexistent network coverage. I'd like to be able to check my inventory even if I'm in a place with a spotty network.

>202 metavillage:

You're only about the thousandth person to ask. That would be a major undertaking; they're not ruling it out, but it would mean a lot of other things (like an Android app) wouldn't get done.

I love this app. Thanks so much for creating it. I don't use a cell phone but it works beautifully on my iPad. Adding to my library is so darn fast now. What a time-saver. My only desire for the app would be to have a landscape mode for iPad, since I always use my iPad with a keyboard.

I'm having no luck scanning either. Worked like a charm for first couple of days I had the app, then stopped working. I uninstalled and reinstalled the app, and still no success

>205 marybx: That sounds troublesome. We'll need to pinpoint this for you. How did it "stop working" for you? A few details to keep in mind:
- Does it just not scan at all?
- Are you getting any error messages when trying to scan?
- Do you have good lighting? (There's a "Light" button just below the scan box if you need more light)
- Have you tried filling the scanner box with the barcode (close up), or moving the scanner down across the barcode to see if that helps? Really, scanning should be working well for you, but if it works this way at least, we can narrow down a fix.

Also, if you can give us the version/build of the app that you have (go to Account>About section, both version and build # are shown), and what device you're using (iPhone 5, 6s, etc), we can see what's going on. Sorry for your trouble. Feel free to email me at (info@librarything.com) if you need to, instead!

Please launch the Android version, it can be as basic as can be, so we can look up in our collection what we have - and what we don't have as yet - when we are in the book store ... Thanks !
H.

>207 oldworldarax: You can use our mobile page in the meantime, which is a very basic way to search your library while you're out and about: http://www.librarything.com/m/. Hope this helps!

>208 kristilabrie:

I would not under any circumstances recommend the /m/ site. The font is unreadably tiny and not zoomable. I use the main site on my phone, which is not ideal but infinitely better than /m/. Tinycat, when and if it is launched to general users (I know that the original statement was that it would be, but then Tim was reconsidering because of concerns that institutions would just create individual accounts and get it for free), would be even better.

That bug where the /m/ site wasn't searching anything added since October 2014 got fixed, right?

>209 lorax: That bug where the /m/ site wasn't searching anything added since October 2014 got fixed, right?

yes, I was curious and checked this today.

I don't know what bug that is, but the LibraryThing Mobile site has long displayed a list of books each with a link which leads to an error message:

Some sort of error has just happened. The error was logged and Tim 1has been alerted. If problems persist, email timspalding@librarything.com

In most cases the problem can be fixed by using this link.

The reported error was:

Problem with the concurrent query manager in the LibraryThing Bureau of Garbage Vollections. We have an entire room of trained monkeys working to solve the problem..

The link does take you to the Your Books page of desktop LibraryThing, but there's no link to the book/books listed by LT Mobile.

I take it the monkeys are moonlighting, working on Shakespeare?

>209 lorax: You're right, TinyCat will definitely be better once it's released! Which will hopefully be later this month. The bug was indeed fixed.

>211 shikari: Oof! Yeah, I doubt our developers will fix that bug for the mobile site, given how outdated the site is. It works if you need a very basic list of your books that you can search, but not much further. lorax makes a good point about using TinyCat once it's released, and we'll get an Android out as soon as we can (which isn't planned anytime soon, i.e. the next few months/year).

>213 kristilabrie:

Yeah, fixing that bug is, to my knowledge, the only change that was ever made in the /m/ site since it was launched in 2006, so I don't think they'll be fixing anything else. And frankly I wouldn't want them to waste time on it unless they're going to go whole-hog and update it so it looks like something from this decade.

While we're talking about TinyCat, has it been decided that it will be released to individual users, then?

Very true - oldworldarax mentioned using something really simple and that was as basic as I could think. You're right, probably better to use the regular site if they don't mind it.

TinyCat will be released for everyone, individuals and organizations alike! It will be free for personal use, though, if that's your question. :)

>215 kristilabrie:

Yes, it was; sorry, I thought it was obvious that individuals wouldn't be excluded, but if we had to pay out at the same rates as organizations I doubt you'd get many takers. Sorry I left that implicit.

>213 kristilabrie: I must say that I use the mobile site quite a lot as working on the full site generally needs more bandwidth than the weak non-3G signal one receives in most bookshops. It's a shame the link doesn't give me access to the Book Summary as I usually just want to know which edition of a book I have. But I realize old tech is decreasingly supported, and am grateful it's still running.

It's nice to see the /m mobile site searching the recent entries. I confirmed this after seeing the posts. However, there is still the problem with the very small text that cannot be scaled. I have outlined the simple fix to repair this numerous times over the years. If there is interest to make this a functional stopgap for the Android and other users who may wish to use it, I'll be happy to provide that information again to the LT developers.

As an iOS user, I do appreciate the app presently available. It's not perfectly complete but it is very useful as it is.

James

Very, very easy to scan and add books to my library. Love this!

agreed, considering Android is now more popular/used than iOS!

I would like a version for the Kindle Fire

So... I've uploaded my books into a catalogue on my Librarything app, but when I go on to my Librarything account online, I can't find the books. How do I sync from my app to my account online? Any help much appreciated.

>221 lilypadma: Unfortunately, a Kindle app is not in our plans, and we're unlikely to make one in the foreseeable future.

>222 JonnyGibson: Sorry to hear you're having trouble. Please email me at info@librarything.com with some more details: what type of device you're using, and a few of the specific books that are missing would be a big help in looking into this. Staff are away for a long weekend starting tomorrow morning, so I'm afraid it's possible we won't be able to assist you until Monday.

>222 JonnyGibson: Did you log into the same account on the app?

Have you checked all your collections? I've recently rediscovered that when you're in the camera screen for scanning barcodes there's a second line that says 'Collections' where you can select the collections that your books will be scanned into (if that makes sense).

Also, this topic has been continued on a second page (link at the bottom of this page) and someone has reposted your query there.

>221 lilypadma: lilypadma: Unfortunately, a Kindle app is not in our plans, and we're unlikely to make one in the foreseeable future.

Kindle Fire is Android, isn't it? Can't you use Android apps on it generally?

You can side-load most Android apps on the Kindle Fire. Our app shouldn't be an exception but I'll reserve my right to amend that statement when we are finished. :)

wow, I love the bar scan with Iphone. I won't have to buy a scanner. YAHOOOOOO!

The USB modified CueCat scanner is pretty cheap at under $30. It may not be an ergonomic ideal but it is pretty functional and nothing comes close for the price.

I've used the barcode scan feature on the iOS app (iPhone and iPad). I wish I could search by barcode as well.

I also found a couple nice features for photographing covers. Often there is some keystone distortion to the image. There are drag handles on the image to let you crop around the trapezoid that should be a rectangle. I wish I could do that with other photos on the iPhone.

James

I love the app! The book scanner works great and I love being able to search my own library! However I would also like to bed able to search the libraries of my friends in the app while I'm on the go as well to make sure I'm not buying them books they already have. Would this be a feature that might be implemented in an update of the app?

>228 Keeline: I'm going to try and add barcode searching in the next version. We'll see if it makes the cut.

>229 Sara_thisgirl: This is unlikely to make the next version of the app but it's certainly something that we can look at again in the future.

Hi,

Just a thought, and it is probably already on your list, but just in case:

Add a feature to send a message (email, or txt) to someone from your device contacts with the details of a book along with the URL to facilitate book recommendations.

P.S.
I am using the app on an iPad so the addition of support for display rotation would be welcome.

Please please please add a way to change the Lending status of the book on an iPad. I am a teacher who uses this for her school book catalog and we mainly use iPads. Having to go to a computer to type in who is borrowing the book can get messy.

>233 wcthsEng: Could you not do that by using your web browser to visit the regular LibraryThing site? Why would you need the app to do that?

Better yet, use Tinycat.

>235 gilroy: Which also cannot be managed from within the app, yes? I've only used the app for adding books to my library, so maybe they've added new functionality to it that I've never noticed.

>233 wcthsEng: Hm. Yes, I'd love to add about a million features to the app. Right now I'm concentrating on getting LT2 out to everybody so that the main site is easier to use (announcement coming very soon about that). And unfortunately we are an extremely small staff and it's me or nobody as far as both LT2 development and App development.

But your situation is certainly the exact thing we created TinyCat for: classroom libraries and lending. You should check it out.
https://www.librarycat.org/

Or just click on the little tinycat icon at the top of any LT page when you're signed in.

>236 rosalita: Actually, the only thing the app does is allow the books to go in and out easily. TinyCat is its own interface... as >237 conceptDawg: said.

>238 gilroy: So the same as always. Got it.

>231 conceptDawg: Hello!! And Happy New Year to the team! :-)

Up the search by iPhone scan please. Any news on implementing this? I believe the MOST useful application of the mobile app is avoiding adding or worse purchasing duplicate copies... a quick scan search, independent or at least prior to scanning to ADD is a must have.

Especially in the new COVID world, (sadly) hanging out in bookshops and "books by the bag" sales is a thing of the past. Quick flash and grab (or not) is the new browse :-(

Plus, juggling a phone in one hand to thumb type ISBNs when there's nowhere to put the book down flat is no fun ;-)

Thanks for any hope you can give us on this future!

Cheers,

Anthony

No news. Right now we are dedicating all of our resources to updating the main site. Hopefully we'll be able to redirect some time back to the LTApp in the next month or two.

Can you please add the lending/circulation feature to the iPhone app? I'm a teacher and have a small personal library that I let students check out books from. It would be very convenient to just be able to scan the barcode and check out books while on the run, instead of having to go to the website on a computer each time.

>242 NicoleShorts: It will probably be more likely that we add mobile scanning to TinyCat first, though I couldn't give you a timeline for this at all. We still need to look further into it to see its viability. Regardless, this feature has been requested and is on our minds! We'll be sure to announce any changes to this, thanks for your patience in the meantime.

The Android app gives "error in authentication token combination".

Is it possible to select the collection to which a new title is scanned?

>245 deano27: Yes

Click on the scanning button/link (the barcode at the end of the search line on "Add to Catalog" without pointing to a book. There is now a menu at the top with the list of the collections the book scans into with an Edit button next to the list. Click on Edit, change the selection and then scan the book(s) you want :)