Features
The Book Corner user interface contains four tabs:
- Books displays the books in your list in a variety of ways:
- Alphabetically by title.
- Alphabetically by author.
- Alphabetically by genré.
- Authors displays the authors of the books in you list.
- Book Groups displays the books group(s) you belong to and their meetings.
- Information is a catch-all. It contains general information (such as online help information) and is the place to go for a number of maintenance functions.
Use the buttons across the top of this page to access detailed information about each of these sections of the program.
Major Features
Book Corner is built around storing and displaying information about books. We divide this information into two categories: publication and personal.
Publication Data
This category includes information about the book which is available from general sources. This information includes:
- Title
- Subtitle (if any)
- Author (or authors)
- Genré
- Publication Date
- Publisher
- Format (Hardcover, paperback, eBook, audioBook, etc)
- ISBN (if the book was published after 1970)
- Page Count
- Series (if this book is a member of a book series)
Most or all of this information is available on the web and we attempt to fill in as much of it as we can for you.
When you enter a book's title or its ISBN (or scan the ISBN with your camera), the application will send a query to the U.S. Library of Congress Online Card Catalog and will attempt to retrieve this information for you.
Personal Data
This category includes information about your interaction with the book:
- Have you read the book?
- If so, when did you finish it?
- Do you own a copy (in any format)?
- Where did you get it? (local store, online, library, etc?
- Who recommended it to you?
- Is it a favorite?
- Is it a book you'd consider giving as a gift?
- How well did you like it (on a 5-point scale)?
- Notes (i.e., what do you want to say about it?)
- Did you read this book for a book group (or groups)?
ISBNs
ISBNs (International Standard Book Numbers) were instituted in 1970 and almost all books published since then have one. Actually, the ISBN is tied to the specific instance of the work, so if a book is published as a hardcopy, a trade paperback, a mass-market paperback, an eBook and an audiobook, it will have (not 1 but) 5 ISBNs. And different editions of the book can also result in additional ISBNs. (And just to make things confusing, these numbers may not be related to one another.)
If a book has an ISBN, it will be listed on the title page and (in many cases) displayed as a bar code on the back cover. So if the book has an ISBN, you can enter it by scanning the barcode (if there is one) or typing in the number manually.
And that's all you'll often need to do to enter a new book into Book Corner. The application will take the barcode and attempt to look it up. If successful, it will fill in the available publication data for you.
Publishers don't file every ISBN with the Library of Congress, so it is possible that your book's ISBN won't be found. Don't worry, just look it up by title instead.
Book Groups
If you belong to one of more book groups, you can keep track of book group meetings (when, where, and what you read). You can compile lists of what you've read, figure out whose turn it is for the next meeting, etc.
And you can use Book Corner at your meeting. When you decide on the next meeting, you can enter the book's title and look it up right there. Then you can add the meeting (including what you're reading) in your iOS Calendar app, right from Book Corner.
Reports
Book Corner includes a wide variety of reports you can generate about the contents of your book list. And each report can be printed, emailed, etc.