BookBump
I have been using iTunes for quite some time now and I am absolutely in love with it! Of course, there are programs that are better looking and more functional, but what draws me to iTunes is the effective way I can organize all the music I have. Now, I have always wondered if I could have something similar for my books too. I read a lot of books, especially e-books and audio books and I just keep thinking how great it would be to have a catalog of all of them, just like I do for my music. And that’s when BookBump.com came to my rescue!
When you first look at the Web site, it’s easy to mistake it for iTunes.
The idea behind BookBump is to give you a way to manage your book collection. It takes inspiration from a highly effective iTunes interface and it lets you initiate and maintain your personal book catalog. Cool, huh?!
You can start by entering your books into the library. Books can be entered by putting in the ISBN number or by entering the name of the book, the author or other keywords that describe it. The search results are displayed in a pane on the right side of the page and you can go through the various options provided. Double clicking one of the result options adds the book to your library. You can also search a book by its country of origin.
If you are a die hard bookworm, you can organize the thousands of books you own in what are called “booklists” (you know, kind of like playlists!) You can have any number of booklists you want and all it takes is a click to delete or add a book to a booklist. In your booklist, you can see information about the book at a quick glance. From the publication date to the number of ages, you can see it all at a glance, but the real fun starts when you click on the book’s name. That’s where you get all the information in one go around. You can get information about the book, find similar books, compare various prices available online, as well as, read reviews that others have submitted to BookBump.
BookBump also gives you the option to personalize your book bank. The most useful field, in my opinion, was the Borrowed/Loaned field, which in my case, is very handy, considering my large book collection. Apart from that, you can rate your books, as well as, enter information about your current reading status.
BookBump is still in its early stages, but they intend to include future features, such as social bookmarking, e-book integration and storefront management. For people who want a very well organized database of their books, that might come in very handy. The store would be online, which means you can access it from anywhere and even if your PC crashes, it will remain intact. On the other hand, not everyone will want to go and enter in their personal information, such as ratings or pages read for each and every book they own. However, all in all, I’d give it a try, considering the simple slick interface and the ease of use. If you possess a large book collection, give BookBump a spin today. Have fun!
~ Yogesh Bakshi