Organize Your Books, Movies, Music, and Video Games With Libib

I have a reasonable but not overwhelming amount of media: mostly books, followed by video games, followed by some collectible vinyls and CDs that I keep around. I also have friends who have rooms full of stuff: stacks of books and floor-to-ceiling bookcases that are nearly bursting from overuse. All of us could benefit from checking out Libib, a free service you can use to scan and catalog your books, movies, music, and video games.

Sign up for a “standard” account on Libib—the pro version costs $100 a year—and you’ll be able to register up to 5,000 items within up to 100 different “libraries,” or groupings of stuff. Setting up new libraries is an easy process via Libib’s website or its apps for both iOS and Android. (I prefer to use the latter, and I’ll explain why in a bit.)

Once you’ve created a sample library and given it a clever name, it’s time for the fun part: summoning your inner Belle and organizing your stacks of stuff. On the iOS app, that’s as easy as tapping on your library and then tapping on the big plus icon in the upper-right corner of the app. When you do, you’ll be given the option to scan your items’ barcodes (yes!) or enter their details manually (no!).

Dorky as it sounds, Libib’s barcode-scanning functionality is a ton of fun to use. It’s incredibly speedy and didn’t miss the mark with any of the books I tried. Each successful scan gets a satisfying “beep,” and you’ll be scanning multiple items faster than a typical experience at the self-checkout lane.

Libib’s manual entry option, though much slower, is great for when you have rarer items that don’t come with barcodes. And this is all on you. Libib doesn’t perform any searches or lookups based on partial data you enter, so make sure you spell the title and author right (for your own records).