Readerware fields: what transfers to AllMyBooks and where it lands

This page is the reference for what happens to each column of a Readerware export. The export and import themselves — File → Export, the backup ZIP, and the notes for Windows, macOS, Linux and Readerware Mobile users — are on the switching guide.

• Switching from Readerware — the steps for Windows, Mac, Linux and phones →

• The header line is how the importer recognises a Readerware file. Without it the file is treated as an unknown spreadsheet and every column has to be mapped by hand, so keep Readerware’s "Output header line" option switched on.
• TAB-delimited files and CSV files with quoted fields are both read. An unquoted CSV is not: an author written "Strindberg, August" contains the separator, which pushes every later cell one column across, and the import page blocks such a file rather than filing books under the wrong fields.
• Export every column. Columns with no landing place are only named in the report; a column left out of the export cannot be recovered later.
• Dates are written the way the exporting computer displays them. ISO dates (2019-03-15) and month-first dates (03/15/2019, Readerware’s US default) are read; a day-first date is read correctly only when the day is 13 or above, so check a few purchase dates in the report if your system uses day-first dates.
• Text that is not UTF-8 is read in the older encoding its letters fit, and the confirm step names that encoding and shows the first books as they will be stored.

A full Readerware 4 book export is 98 columns wide. Every column named below is read wherever it appears, and how Readerware writes the name makes no difference — TITLE, Title and title are the same column, and so are Call_Number and "Call Number". You do not need to rename, reorder or remove anything before importing.

• Author and Author2–Author6 → the book’s authors, in order, de-duplicated.
• Title and Subtitle → the title, joined as "Title: Subtitle" when the subtitle is not already part of the title.
• ISBN and LCCN → the identifiers the importer matches existing catalogue records by. An ISBN a spreadsheet rewrote (9.78E+12, or one missing its leading zero) is not used and is counted in the report.
• AM_ASIN → kept as the book’s Amazon ASIN, and — when the row has no usable ISBN — tried as its ISBN-10, which it is for a book; Barcode → tried the same way, or kept as a UPC. Either becomes the ISBN only when a catalogue lookup finds a book with the same title, or when the Library of Congress record for the row’s LCCN names that same ISBN — catalogues file some books under another title. ISSN → kept with the identifiers.
• Publisher, Release_date (or Copyright_date), Pages, Format, Content_Language, Edition → publisher, year, page count, format, languages, and edition statement. Every language in Content_Language is kept, in order ("English, Ancient Greek"); a Format naming a DVD, Blu-ray, video cassette, kit or map records what the item is rather than a binding, and Disk_Count above one its number of discs.
• Editor, Translator, Illustrator → the book’s contributors with that role (several names in one cell split on ";"). They show under the authors and are never made authors.
• Reading_Level and Lexile_Level → the book’s reading level and Lexile measure. A Lexile that is not one is left out and counted in the report.
• A row with an ISSN and no ISBN → an issue of that magazine, numbered by Series_Number and dated by Release_date.
• Series and Series_Number → the series name and position.
• Category1–Category3 → topics (kept as the book’s subjects), which also feed the genre filters every member sees.
• Product_Info → the description; List_Price → the published price.
• Dewey → the book’s Dewey class number (221.93 from "221.93 ADA"); Call_Number → the copy’s call number. A row with no Call_Number gets the whole Dewey cell as its call number — "221.93 ADA", "REF 220.3 ALE" — because that is the spine label. Both can be printed on labels and sorted by.
• Pub_Place, Dimensions, Weight, Media_URL, Alt_Title → place of publication, height/width/thickness, weight (converted to grams), a link, and the original title, for a book the import creates. A size or weight that cannot be read is left out and counted in the report.
• Date_Entered → the copy’s added date. Rowkey → remembered on the copy, so importing the same file again recognises each row and adds nothing twice.
• Read_Count or Date_Last_Read → one finished read in your own reading log (dated by Date_Last_Read), never anyone else’s.
• Copies → that many copies of the book; Location → a shelf of that name (created if it does not exist).
• Item_Condition → the copy’s condition when it is New / As New / Like New / Mint / Fine / Very Good / Good / Fair / Poor; anything else is kept word for word in the condition notes. Cover_Condition is added to the condition notes.
• Signed → signed; Purchase_Price, Purchase_Date, Purchase_Place → what you paid, when, and where; Item_Value and Valuation_Date → the estimated value and its date. Currency_symbol is used only when it is a three-letter code such as USD or GBP.
• My_Comments → the copy’s notes.
• Keywords → tags on your account, created if missing.
• Status: Own → an owned copy. Want and Ordered → a want-list entry (Wanted / On Order) with your comments as its note, not an owned copy. For Sale, Sold, Withdrawn, Missing → an owned copy with "Readerware status: …" as the first line of its notes, so nothing is lost and every member can see it, and the book tagged readerware:for-sale (and so on) for you.
• Loan_To, Loan_To_Email, Loan_To_Phone, Loan_Out, Loan_Due → an active loan to that borrower on the first copy, with the due date, so it shows in Loans and turns overdue on time.
• User1–User10 and User_Number → custom fields, when you define fields with exactly those names first (see below).

Catalogue facts (authors, title, series, language, description…) are shared records. When a row matches a book already in the catalogue — by ISBN or LCCN, or by title and author for a row with neither — that record’s details are used and the row’s are not, except that a Dewey or LC classification the record lacks is filled in from the row. The copy-level facts (condition, price, notes, shelf, loan) always come from your file.

• My_Rating, Favorite — ratings, which AllMyBooks deliberately does not keep.
• Loan_Count, Last_Loan_Date, Loan_To_Brwr_ID, Sale_* and Sales_Rank, Owner, Out_Of_Print, Source, External_ID — no landing place; the report names each one that was present.
• Type, Date_Last_Updated, Inventory, In_Last_Batch, Row#, and the marketplace price columns New_Value/New_Count, Used_Value/Used_Count, Collectible_Value/Collectible_Count — Readerware writes these but its own manual never documented them. They have no landing place either, and the report names them.
• Volume and chapter "contents" rows, and the borrower records of the Loan Client — these are not part of the book export.
• Cover images. The manual lists IMAGE1–4_FILE and LARGE_IMAGE1–4_FILE columns, but the real exports we have seen do not contain them at all — so there is nothing in the file to read even if we wanted to, and the paths would point at your old computer regardless. Covers come from the catalogue after import; your backup ZIP is the only copy of the images themselves, so keep it.

Any column the importer neither reads nor deliberately sets aside is carried into a custom field of the same name, if one exists — so the columns listed above as not transferred never reach a custom field, whatever it is called. Before importing, then, define the custom fields you want — named exactly as the columns are: User1, User2, User_Number, and so on — in the library’s custom-field settings. Then import. Each copy the import creates gets those values.

Define the fields before the first import. A later re-import with "Skip it" leaves already-held copies untouched, so it does not fill custom values on copies imported earlier — you would edit those by hand or re-import only the rows you removed.

Shelves the import creates from the Location column belong to the library, so every member sees the same shelves and where each copy sits. Tags created from Keywords (and the readerware:… status tags) belong to your account — other members see the copies but not your tags. That is why a non-Own status is also written into the copy’s notes, which everyone can read.

• Switching from Readerware — step-by-step for Windows, Mac, Linux and phones →
• AllMyBooks vs Readerware →