Photographs and descriptions

The description is the field the catalogue most often has nothing for — and the words are usually printed on the book in your hand, on the back cover or the jacket flap. Rather than typing a paragraph out, you can photograph it and let the phone read it.

1. Open the book, choose "Correct these details", and next to the Description field choose "Scan the printed description".
2. Fill the frame with the printed description and take the photo, then choose "Read the text". Turn the phone sideways if that frames a wide back cover better — the app works out which way up it was and keeps the paragraphs in order.
3. Read what came back. It arrives as paragraphs rather than as a stack of broken lines, and it is an ordinary text field — correct anything misread, and delete any stray line the back cover carried alongside the blurb.
4. Choose "Photograph another part" where the description runs from the front flap onto the back; the second reading is added onto the end of the first.
5. Choose "Save this description".

The reading happens on the phone itself — the photograph is never uploaded, and it is deleted as soon as the text has been read from it. That is unconditional here: unlike a shelf scan, there is no setting that keeps a photograph of a blurb, because there would be nothing to keep it for. Only the text you look at and confirm is ever sent, so this works with no signal right up to the moment of saving. Saving goes through exactly the same review policy as any other correction: a description filling an empty field is Recorded at once, and one that would replace an existing description is Proposed for review.

Pointing it at a pictorial cover with no prose on it gets you "No text was read" and the offer of another photograph, rather than an empty description to save. Recognition is good but not perfect on glossy jackets at an angle, which is why the text is always yours to correct before anything is saved.

You can also do this while adding a book, before it is committed: the confirmation screen that follows a scan offers "Scan the printed description", and what you confirm is held there and applied once the book is added. The offer is there whether or not the catalogue already has a description — what it holds is often a single thin line while you are standing there with the full blurb printed in your hand. Where one already exists the button reads "Scan a fuller description" and the screen says, before the camera opens, that yours replaces it for your Library and is proposed for review.

Reading a description is available to Library admins and members, and needs a signal because the save is a correction to a shared record. Guests are not offered it.

1. Open the book and, under "Put it right", choose "Photograph the cover" — or "Retake the cover photograph" if you’ve taken one before.
2. Frame the book’s cover and take the photo.
3. Trim and straighten it if you need to. The crop box keeps to the shape of a book — it opens on the one closest to your photo, and Mass market, Digest, Trade, A5 and Square are offered beside it, upright or on its side. Drag the box to move it, drag a corner to resize it, and choose "Rotate" to turn the photo a quarter at a time; "Reset" puts it back as you took it.
4. Choose "Save" to keep it, or "Take another" to try again. Nothing leaves your phone until you choose Save.

You can also photograph a cover while you are adding the book, without adding it first and finding it again. On the confirmation screen that follows a scan, choose "Photograph the cover"; the photo you take is held there and shows in place of the catalogue’s artwork, so you can see what you have got before you commit. "Retake the cover photo" replaces it and "Remove the photo" drops it. Nothing is sent until you choose Add to library — a book you decide against leaves no photograph behind. The same goes for "Add to want list instead" (the photo becomes the want’s own reference photo) and for a book typed in by hand, where "Choose a photo" picks one you already have. If the book is saved but its photo isn’t, the app says so and offers to try the photo again, without saving the book twice.

The photograph becomes your library’s cover for that book and shows everywhere the app and the website draw it. This is the answer for the very common second-hand book the catalogue has no artwork for — and most keepers would rather see their own copy, creased spine and previous owner’s bookplate included, than a grey placeholder. Choose "Remove the photograph" to go back to the catalogue’s artwork, or to the plain tile where there is none.

If a photo can’t be sent, the book keeps the cover it had and the app says the photograph wasn’t saved, rather than leaving it half-attached. Photos are shrunk on the phone before they’re sent, so a long shelf session doesn’t cost you megabytes a book.

Correcting details, photographing covers, and removing copies are available to Library admins and members. Guests read the library and are not offered these actions.

A cover is rarely the only thing worth photographing. Under "Photographs" on the book screen you get the whole set — the ones your Library has taken, plus any that have been approved for the shared catalogue — as a grid you can tap into full-screen.

1. Choose "Add a photograph", then either take a new one or choose an existing photo from your phone.
2. Crop and turn it before it is sent: drag the box, or any of its corners and edges, to keep just the part you want — any shape — and choose "Rotate" to turn it a quarter at a time. Choose "Save" when it looks right. Nothing leaves your phone until then, and "Cancel" leaves the book as it was.
3. Tap any photograph to see it full-screen.
4. From there, "Make this the cover" promotes one of your own, and "Remove this photograph" deletes it after asking. If an admin has approved it for the shared catalogue, it disappears from your photos and an admin is asked to take it down; other members keep seeing it until the admin decides.

Promoting a photograph does two separate things, and the app says which. Your Library’s copy takes the new cover straight away. The shared catalogue record is a different matter: unless you are a site administrator, your photograph is offered to it and waits for review, so the app tells you it has been offered rather than pretending it is the cover everywhere. A book holds up to ten of your own photographs; the app explains the limit before opening the camera rather than after.

The same book screen leads to each copy’s own condition record — a chipped corner, a previous owner’s bookplate, an inscribed flyleaf. Choose "Condition of this copy" (or "Condition of each copy", where your library holds more than one, which then asks which copy you mean). A condition photograph can be cropped and turned before it is saved, exactly like a book’s other photographs. Each one can carry a short caption saying what it shows, and the app asks for one after you choose Save; you can leave it blank.

These belong to one copy, never to the book — two copies of the same title keep entirely separate sets, so the pristine one never shows the battered one’s damage. A copy holds up to six, they never become covers, and they are never shown outside your library.

Adding, promoting, and removing photographs — of a book or of a copy — is available to Library admins and members. Guests can look at both galleries but are offered no way to change them.