Review of Collectorz

Book Collector from Collectorz.com satisfies a need that every homeschooler has in abundance: the need to know what books she has! We've all faced the problem of knowing that we once had that particular book, but not being sure if it is still in our possession.  Maybe we sold it? Loaned it out? Buried it in the back of the book closet? There are many programs available today which promise to help you track your books, but Book Collector is the first one I've seen which really lives up to its name: more than any other book collection and organizing software, Book Collector is for book collectors.  Unlike other sites, its primary purpose is to help you get a handle on your book collection, not to socially share your books with your friends.  That makes it a huge improvement over other programs, in my opinion!

Thanks to Book Collector and The Homeschool Crew, I was provided a free copy of this program to review...but I would have bought it in a heartbeat! This program is so easy to install and so easy to use that if you have books you want to organize virtually, you really can't say no to it.

After downloading the program from the site (options: a 100 book trial version, a $29.95 standard version, and $49.95 pro version), you are ready to go.  All you need to do enter your book into your database is to enter the ISBN number.  Doing so will automatically fill in all of the book's data for you. No more laboriously entering in the author, title, publisher, copyright, etc. like you have to do for other (albeit free) online cataloging sites.  The only thing that you enter manually is your star rating of the book.  Book Collector actually even allows complete automation of the process by selling scanners on its site which will grab the ISBN number of the book for you, thereby freeing you even from that entry process.  While the scanner is nice to have, though, it is not necessary for the operation of the program.  I have thus far not used one in the entering of my book collection into Book Collector, but I do intend to purchase one in the near future.

Book Collector is a straightforward program, and is a great asset to any homeschool.  The standard version is probably sufficient for most users, and is very reasonably priced at $29.95.

Of course, if you do lots of things with your book lists, the pro version is set up to handle those extra tasks!

To find out more about Book Collector, visit their website.  To find out what other Crew members thought about Book Collector, look here!