Ask HN: Software to share your library with friends?

Posted by LorenDB on Saturday May 06, 2023 @03:28PM
from the ask-hn dept.

I and some friends would like to set up a shared library program where we can see the contents of each other's bookshelves and then borrow books from each other easily. I was looking around for suitable software; TinyCat looks reasonable but I'm not sure if it's the perfect solution to this problem. Do you have any recommendations?

I'm happy to self host but that's not a requirement. Bonus points for good FOSS solutions.

( 7 comments | 2 points | on HN )

Re:Ask HN: Software to share your library with friends? by schwartzworld on Saturday May 06, 2023 @03:54PM (#35844821)

Calibre, alternatively you can pretty easily just serve ebooks from a standard webpage.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Software to share your library with friends? by LorenDB on Saturday May 06, 2023 @04:05PM (#35844925)

Thanks, but I'm talking about physical books. Calibre isn't going to be much help there :)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Software to share your library with friends? by sfink on Saturday May 06, 2023 @07:23PM (#35846296)

Presumably you must want something more than a simple spreadsheet that lists all the books with their owners and current borrowers. It might help to know what you have in mind. Cover images? ISBN links? Import wizard? Personal reviews?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Software to share your library with friends? by LorenDB on Saturday May 06, 2023 @10:23PM (#35847301)

Sure! I'm not too worried about fancy features. Cover images and ISBN would be nice for sure, but manual input of books probably wouldn't be a huge bother (at least for me). Reviews would also be nice but aren't a big deal.

Mainly I want something that lets us pretend we have a "real" library system and is easy to use.

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Re:Ask HN: Software to share your library with friends? by reyostallenberg on Saturday May 06, 2023 @11:24PM (#35847614)

Maybe you can configure https://directus.io/ to your needs

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Re:Ask HN: Software to share your library with friends? by mttjj on Sunday May 07, 2023 @10:43PM (#35857534)

I haven’t used it myself but I was going to suggest TinyCat. However, you mentioned that it isn’t suitable without going into specifics. Based on my understanding of the software and of your requirements it seems like a great option. Can you expand on what you mean by saying it won’t work for you?

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Re:Ask HN: Software to share your library with friends? by LorenDB on Monday May 08, 2023 @09:45AM (#35861443)

I'm not completely opposed to TinyCat; the main reservation I have about TinyCat is that it seems to make your library publicly visible to anyone and everyone, which I would tend to shy away from.

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