# Wofür wird libib verwendet? Wofür wird libib verwendet? ##### Post Metadata

# LiBib: not just for home libraries, but with a caveat LiBib is often listed/described as a personal/home library management app, which purpose it serves admirably. Its barcode scanning input is nearly instantaneous; entering an ISBN is almost as fast. Books may also be entered by way of keywords, titles, etc, from which LiBib will retrieve an entry if it can. The information retrieved is limited, compared to what EndNote can pull from the Library of Congress, for example; but you instantly get a basic entry for your existing books. The software is free, so small-to-medium institutional libraries could use it to catch up to the digital age without any budgetary impact except user time (which is efficient, as the software is simple to use). The "Pro" version offers a range of circulation-management and other lending-specific capabilities, plus batch editing, moving items from one library to another, custom published libraries, and so forth. The cost is still minimal - currently $9/month, $99/year (March 2021). One caveat: importing and exporting are possible, but a little strange. You can export a whole LiBib library (not selections from it) to a CSV file in Excel. You can also import a whole CSV file (not selections from it) into a LiBib library. So far so good. The concern is this: it turns out that when you import from CSV to LiBib, it is not merely copying each imported record; rather, it is finding the ISBN in the import and doing a new search as if you had just typed the ISBN for a new entry. Thus, the books you entered manually because they lacked ISBN will be lost, even though you have hand-entered data that could (and should) be imported. Thus, libraries whose collections include major quantities of books older than 1967 (ISBN) or about 2005 (widespread use of bar codes) would stand to lose these older titles if, for whatever reason, they backed up to CSV, and then reimported to LiBib. The lost titles would, ironically, be the ones on which the user spent most time in data entry. I believe that LiBib could fix this relatively easily, though I don't know the actual structure of their program. During import, the program is intelligent enough, for instance, to deal with conflicts between existing data and imported data in the same field. It ought to be possible to direct LiBib to import all fields verbatim if ISBN is missing. I like the software, and have had prompt and clear replies from support; the company's website and their support people take a pleasantly personable attitude toward interaction with users. I hope they can and will fix this concern, since I think the software could be the saving grace for small underfunded libraries, museums, small knowledge-intensive businesses, etc. ##### Post Metadata - Net upvotes: 1