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Three Book Tracking Apps and how they work for you

By Alice Grace

Celebrate the new year with fresh goals and organization! January is my favorite time of year to reflect on last year and get everything from reading goals and tracking to updating the list of what books I’ve collected back in order. My favorite way to do this is with apps! I’ve tried and tested a few apps to help you find the one that works best for you.


Libib, LibraryThing, and Bookshelf are some of the most popular book tracking apps for both Apple and Android users! All of these offer a free version that requires an account to tailor your shelves to you.

Book Tracking Apps: Which One Will You Choose

Libib

Of the three, this is definitely the most comprehensive app for tracking books , movies, music, and more! With the ability to group series, add tags, mark as read, and more, Libib can be a labor of love. It’s definitely worth every minute, though!

Pros

  • Creating collections and adding books was a breeze. The ISBN scanner only took a few seconds to find the book and update the shelf; it also flagged when adding a duplicate title.

  • The app automatically fills in the description, ISBN, length, publisher, date published, and how many copies were scanned for you.

  • There are so many options to customize how you interact with or organize books and collections, including tags, groups, notes, ratings, status, and cover image. All of which are easy to find and update.

  • Books can be marked complete with or without the dates read or marked with “in progress” and other status options.

  • The app is designed to be simple and straightforward for every library, so there’s no limit to the number of books that can be added.

  • No glitching or crashing during the time it took to add and update books.

  • Libib also sources their data from open data sources like Google Books and university libraries.

CONS

  • There’s no search function specifically, so some books can be harder to find.

  • The app doesn’t automatically group by author or series, and the organization of each collection is alphabetical by title.

  • Some books may have incomplete information since Libib sources data from university libraries and open data sources.

What I love about Libib is that the app is all about tracking and community sourcing literally everything. They’re even beta testing ways to organize and catalog board game libraries!


With everything you can do in this app and all that they’re working for, it’s super easy to pour hours into getting your libraries set up exactly how you prefer it.

Library Thing

LibraryThing is one of the most well-known book tracking apps and definitely the easiest to use! The simple interface is great for showing first-time users what they’re looking for in a personal library app and how to navigate tags, catalogs, and more. 

Pros

  • Adding books is easy with the search function or the barcode scanner. Having both offered a variety I found helpful. The “batch” option also makes adding multiple books at once simple and efficient.

  • Users can mark when a book was acquired and where, when it was read, and more.

  • Books in your collection can be viewed by title or cover.

  • Titles always have a cover option for users.

  • The catalog option allows users to see books in their catalog by author and easily sort them by a variety of different criteria.

  • It’s perfect for users with any size library, as there’s no limit to the number of books that can be added.

  • The app automatically fills in details like publisher, summary, and classification.

CONS

  • Like Goodreads, the app’s database is sourced from Amazon, so some editions can be a little harder to find.

  • Collections are pre-created by the app, not the user, and most are organized alphabetically by title.

  • The app can be easy to crash when using certain features. For me, the most consistent bug is when selecting an author’s name while I’m looking at a book’s details.

I love a straightforward, simple app. LibraryThing does pretty much everything a home librarian wants straight from the scan, especially when using the scan option! However, it can get a little intense when it comes to the sort criteria. Anything more than basic searches or criteria has to be tagged for Library Thing to sort it, and that’s something users have to manually do themselves.


My tips? Take a minute to create a list of favorite ways to sort and scan all those books in with the barcode scanner (the search function won’t flag duplicates!), then make a day of diving in to tag according to the list!

Bookshelf

Bookshelf app icon

Bookshelf is definitely the cutest of these tracking apps with a variety of graphics and elements that make using it a bit more fun. This app’s most amazing feature was the ability to sort, but it also offers the best of both worlds by doubling as a reading tracking app!


While not as in-depth as StoryGraph or some other reading trackers, the statistics they offer are interesting and a nice addition.

Pros

  • The app itself has form and function. It’s pretty without losing any of the functionality expected of a tracking app on both the personal library tracking and reading tracking sides.

  • Users can “batch” scan books with the barcode scanner, search for a book by title, add a book from the community or explore pages, or add a new book manually. The options are all there to get books cataloged, and they all flag duplicates.

  • Data is sourced from VitalSource, the online textbook platform, and uses a similar model to the VitalSource app.

  • Author, description, publisher, and length are automatically filled in, and reviews from other users are included.

  • Sorting can be done with tags and a wide variety of other filters within any collection.

  • Books are sorted alphabetically by author.

  • The free version offers what any user would need to set up any size library and doesn’t limit the number of books that can be added, so the paid version is truly the user's choice.

CONS

  • This app also doesn’t group books by series unless the user puts in the series information.

  • The community aspect is a little weird for the library tracking side of the app, especially when adding a book to a shelf is public on the “Community” tab.

  • Information can be missing or incorrect in some books and editions since data is sourced from VitalSource and user uploads. 

Who doesn’t love having a community? Bookshelf absolutely follows through on the ability to create communities with family and friends . Anything and everything can be shared depending on user preference, so not only are shelves and collections super easy to create, but users get to decide which are shared with others. No one needs to know about those guilty pleasure reads if you don’t want them to.

My final thoughts are that all of these apps were amazing ! I definitely found something that works best for me, but some of what I loved about these apps could be things you’d like to avoid or the other way around. I hope you can find your perfect choice!


So, whether you’re an old hat looking for new apps or someone starting completely fresh, good luck and happy tracking!

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