Are you tired of losing books to careless neighbours? Or are those library fines for delayed book returns getting larger? Ex-Libris, an online app created by Bangalore-based Pratul Kalia and siblings Prateek and Pooja Saxena, helps catalogue your books and keep track of where they are. Kalia says it was Prateek who started it to help his sister keep track of her library.
“The idea came when we couldn’t find a useful book cataloguing tool,” he explains. Thus was born a “simple, no-nonsense cataloguing service with features like tracking locations or keeping a note of loaned/borrowed books.”
Keeping track
The primary part of the service exists on the website where you simply type in the name of the book you’d like to catalogue.
Once you type in names, the site automatically fills in the rest of the details like authors and publishers. If the book isn’t in records, you’ll have to fill in the information. The site then lets you sort books into collections like science fiction, horror, or Indian authors. This is useful for people who have books in multiple locations like the home or office, or even different shelves. “We try to impose as few limits on the user as possible. It is also possible to mark books loaned if you lend them, and catalogue borrowed books,” Kalia tells us.
For personal use
The creators are set to take this concept forward and allow people to keep tabs on other libraries. “But that is an option,” Kalia explains.
“If someone decides to use Ex-Libris for just cataloguing their library and not sharing, it’s completely possible. We hate irritating ‘social’ features as much as you do,” he says with a laugh. Look out for the Ex Libris Android application with ISBN bar code scanners for mobile cataloguing.
At Rs 50 per month, free for Indian users for a year.
Details: ex-libris.in