Your home, tasks and tools

When you sign in, the home page opens on your own collection: a greeting for your active library, quick actions to add or scan a book, the books you added most recently, and — for Admins and Members, once the library has its first book — a short list of library tasks (see Your home’s tasks below). My Library is the full working catalog, with search and filters. The Add / Scan button in the navigation bar is the fastest way in from anywhere. Your account menu (the avatar in the top corner) holds your Profile and Library Setup. On My Library itself, the page header has Loans and Value, and a "Library tools" button that opens every other library tool, grouped by task — see Library tools and pins below. The Help Center is always reachable from the site footer.

Search always tells you where it is looking. The search box carries a scope switch — "My Library" searches your own shelves; "Everywhere" searches the AllMyBooks catalogue together with Open Library and other book catalogues, through Discover. For members it defaults to My Library. Opening a book found everywhere saves its full record to the AllMyBooks catalogue and takes you to the book’s own page, which you can bookmark or share. Every results page states its scope and offers a one-tap switch to the other: owned results can re-run the same search everywhere, and a book that isn’t on your shelves says so and offers to look everywhere — it never quietly mixes in books you don’t own. To find a particular edition, type its number instead of words: an ISBN (10 or 13 digits, from any country, with or without hyphens), an LCCN or a barcode number looks up that exact code, and finds the book whichever form of the ISBN it was catalogued under. Words are matched without regard to accents or capitals: "γαληνη", "ΓΑΛΗΝΗ" and "Γαλήνη" find the same books, as do "roda rummet" and "Röda rummet". A number is only treated this way when it is long enough to be a code, so a title like “1984” is still searched as words. The results then say which kind of code was matched (“1 book with ISBN …”), and when nothing on your shelves carries it, the page says no book with that number is in your library rather than searching titles for it.

My Library remembers how you are looking at it. The sort order, every filter and the search text are part of the page’s address, so going back from a book returns you to the same list, reloading keeps it, and a bookmarked or copied link opens the same view. Switching to another library drops a shelf filter, since that shelf belongs to the library you left.

When the website can’t load something — your library, your loans, a conversation — it says so (“We couldn’t load your library”) and offers Try again, rather than showing an empty list that would look as if your books had gone. If your connection drops, a notice along the bottom of the screen says you’re offline: what’s already on screen stays, but nothing new loads and changes can’t be saved until you reconnect.

Under the search box, the home page suggests up to three things worth doing in your active library, each with its count and what it counts, and a button that opens exactly those: "2 overdue loans" (Open Loans — the Loans page, where overdue loans come first), "1 unfinished shelf check" (Resume — your library’s shelf checks), and "12 copies not shelved" (Shelve — My Library filtered to books with a copy that has no location, under a "Missing location" filter chip, whose header then reads the same 12 matching copies; the same filter is in My Library’s Filters panel as “Shelf location (any copy)” under Missing data). Optional record work comes after those: books without a cover, then books without a price — offered only once someone in your library has recorded a price or value on a copy — then books without a page count. At most three tasks show, highest first, so optional work appears only when there is room. There is no percentage or score.

Shelving is counted in copies, not books: two copies of one book where only one has a shelf count as one copy not shelved, and the filter it opens finds that book. A task with nothing to do is not shown, and when nothing needs doing the list is simply not there — no "all done". Tasks follow the library you have active: switching libraries shows that library’s tasks.

1. Press Dismiss beside a task to stop seeing that kind of task on your home. It hides the task for you, in this library only — nothing in the library is marked done, and other members keep their own choices.
2. Press "Customize tasks" under the list to see every kind of task with a tick box, and tick one to bring it back. If every task with work is dismissed, "Customize tasks" stays on the home so you can.
3. Page counts are optional and are off until you tick "Books without a page count" there.

If the tasks cannot be loaded, the home says so and offers Try again rather than showing none. If your task choices cannot be loaded, Dismiss and the tick boxes are greyed out until they can, so nothing you chose earlier is overwritten.

Home tasks are for Admins and Members, on the website. Guests do not see them, and an empty library shows its getting-started steps instead. Your choices are kept for each library you belong to and are deleted if you leave it, are removed from it, or it is deleted. The library page’s statistics still show how complete your records are, in more detail.

• Records still missing a detail →
• Checking a shelf →
• Lending — loans →

The "Library tools" button in the My Library header opens one panel with everything else your library can do, grouped by the job it is for. On a phone it opens as a drawer from the bottom of the screen. Choosing a tool opens its page and closes the panel; Escape closes it without choosing, and puts you back on the button.

1. Books — Import books, Want list, Manage tags, Series gaps, Book clubs.
2. Shelves — Shelf overview, and Locations & shelf setup (the same Library Setup page as in your account menu).
3. Lending — Loans; in tiny-library mode also Circulation desk and Patrons.
4. Reports — Collection insights, Browse by classification, Library activity, Value, Handover report, Print shelf labels, Export CSV (downloads straight away) and "Export & backup…". With the list filtered to a location, "Print shelf labels" becomes "Print shelf label" for that one location, and "Print book labels for this shelf" joins it.
5. Settings — Members & invites, Custom fields, Showcases, Tiny-library mode.
6. Deaccession… sits on its own at the bottom, under Collection review.

To keep a tool one click away, pin it to the header: press the pin button beside it in the panel. It then appears as its own button in the header, between Value and Library tools. You can pin up to 3 tools; with 3 pinned the other pin buttons are greyed out and the panel says "3 pinned — unpin one to pin another". Press a pin again to unpin it. Loans, Value, Export CSV, Deaccession… and the per-shelf book labels cannot be pinned — the first two are already in the header. Your pins are your own, kept separately for each library you belong to, and follow you to any browser you sign in on.

Pinned tools are not the same as pinned views. A pinned view, in the "Views" bar above the toolbar, is a saved set of filters and search — a way of looking at your books. A pinned tool is a page to go to. Each has its own limit (5 views, 3 tools), and neither changes the other.

A pin only saves a click; it never lets you into anything. Each tool’s page still checks your role, exactly as it does when opened from the panel. If a pinned tool is no longer offered — Circulation desk or Patrons after tiny-library mode is turned off — it disappears from the header, and the next time you change your pins it is dropped. If your pins cannot be loaded, the header shows none, the panel says so and pinning is paused until they load; every tool is still in the panel.

Library tools and pins are for Admins and Members, on the website. Guests do not see the panel, pins, Loans or Value. Every Admin and Member sees every tool; admin-only controls — inviting and roles, defining custom fields, creating showcases, turning on tiny-library mode, restoring a backup — are gated on the tool’s own page. Circulation desk and Patrons appear only while an admin has tiny-library mode turned on. Leaving a library, being removed from it, or the library being deleted removes your pins for it.

• Shelf actions →
• Saved views →
• Tiny-library patron checkout →
• Sharing a Library — roles →