Scanning books with the phone

1. Open the Scan tab and let it use the camera — it explains what the camera is for the first time you do.
2. Hold the book’s barcode inside the frame. The app reads it on its own; there’s no shutter button to press. It waits for two matching reads before accepting one, so a half-seen barcode doesn’t become the wrong book.
3. In dim light, tap the torch button in the top corner to light the barcode.
4. Read the result. Before offering to add anything, the app tells you where the book already stands with you — "You own this", "You want this" if it’s on the want list, or "New to the catalogue" if it’s neither. That last one is about your catalogue, not about the book in your hand: you are holding it, the catalogue just doesn’t know about it yet.
5. For a book that’s new to you, choose Add to library to record a copy, or Add to want list to note that you want it without adding a copy — the useful one when you’re standing in a shop. A cover photo you took on the confirmation screen goes with it either way: it becomes the copy’s cover, or the want’s own photo.
6. Choose Scan next and lift the next book. The camera stays on between books, so a shelf goes quickly.

Adding a copy opens a confirmation screen with the book’s cover, title, and authors, and lets you set the condition and the shelf it belongs on before you commit. If the barcode turns out to match more than one edition, the app asks which edition you have rather than guessing.

That screen also carries a collapsed "Details" section — what you paid, the list price printed on the cover, and the copy’s weight and size. It is the one moment you have the book in your hands, so it is the one moment those are easy to record; but it stays folded away, and confirming without opening it takes exactly the taps it always did. Weight and size open pre-filled with what the catalogue knows about the edition, and a figure you don’t change records nothing against your copy.

A book left in front of the camera is read once, not over and over — the same spine drifting back into frame for a moment is ignored. Scan a book again later with a signal, and the app checks with your library afresh: if you added it, it says "You own this" and "View book" opens it; if you backed out without adding it, you are offered the add again. With no signal, or while the barcode is still waiting in the offline queue, it says "Already scanned" instead, and offers the queue rather than a book that hasn’t been filed yet.

Working through a whole shelf? Switch the Scan tab from "One at a time" to "Many in a row". Each book is then filed as you scan it — no result card and no confirmation screen — and the camera is ready for the next one at once. A strip under the camera follows each book as it goes — scanned, checking your library, searching the catalogue, found, added — and says how it ended: added, already in your library, or needs you, with the reason underneath (a barcode nothing matched, or one shared by several editions). A line above it adds up the run so far: how many scanned, added, already yours, needing you, and still in progress. Tap a filed book to open it, or one needing attention to sort it out in the queue. "Undo last" takes back the most recent scan before it is filed; once filed, it opens the book so you can remove it there. A book already in your library is not added again in this mode — to add a second copy, scan it One at a time. The app remembers which way you chose, and with no signal both ways simply queue the scans to file later.

Some books carry two barcodes: the ISBN, which identifies the book, and a shop’s barcode (a UPC), usually on the back of paperbacks and magazines. A UPC only finds a book once it has been linked to one. If you scan a UPC nothing knows yet, the app says it is the shop’s barcode and asks for the ISBN instead — on the back above the price, or on the copyright page. Find the book by its ISBN and the UPC is remembered for it, so next time it scans straight in. Typing a book in by hand, you can choose whether the scanned number is saved as its UPC or as its ISBN.

A magazine’s barcode opens the magazine instead of a book — a European barcode starting 977 always, and a US newsstand barcode once someone has linked it to its magazine on the website. Type the issue’s volume, number or cover date and add it; if your library already has that issue, the app asks before adding a second copy. A magazine the catalogue does not know yet is added on the website first, and from then on scanning it on the phone opens it straight away.

When a barcode won’t read, or there isn’t one, choose "Enter a code by hand" and type the number in. An ISBN in either form works, as does an LCCN from inside the cover — dashes don’t matter. It then goes through exactly the same checks as a scan. If the catalogue has nothing for a code, the app says so rather than inventing a match, and offers to let you type the book in yourself; older and non-retail barcodes miss fairly often, and the LCCN printed inside the cover usually succeeds where they fail.

A book with no code at all doesn’t need a failed scan first. "No barcode / vintage" on the Scan tab opens the by-hand form straight away — title required, everything else optional, to your library or your want list, with a cover photo if you like — and "Check a book" looks a title up in your owned books and want list. Both work even if the camera is off.

• A book with no barcode, or a vintage book →
• Checking a book by title →

The app’s Scan tab reads the barcode on the back of a book, not the QR code on a printed label. Point your phone’s own camera at a label instead: it opens the label’s link in your browser, on the website. Signed in there as an Admin or Member of that copy’s library, the book’s page opens with that copy picked out, as described in Book and shelf labels; otherwise it shows the public book page. The app itself does not open label links yet, so it never lands on a different copy.

• Printable shelf & book labels →
• The circulation desk →