I've been planning for a while to buy a barcode scanner to get my book collection on my computer to better organize my library. This may sound like a ridiculously geeky idea to some people. But let me just explain that I have floor to ceiling bookshelves spanning approximately 20 feet of wall space in my living room, a four shelf cookbook shelf in my kitchen, and a three shelf bookshelf in my bedroom, and yet not all of my books are on shelves. I have a LOT of books. And the biggest problem I run into is coming across a book and thinking, "Oh, I should get that. It sounds neat." Only to get home and discover I already owned it, but had lost it in the huge pile of books. My hope was to get the library better organized to better track what I own, avoid duplicates, and also better track when I loan books to other people.

A long time ago, someone had pointed me to the Intelliscanner product, a Mac-friendly barcode scanner with software for tracking your library. I've had a bookmark to it for a while, and have had it on the backburner of "things to buy". I think it just got moved to the front of the list. Why, might you ask? Because recent updates to the software include...*drumroll please*...automatic sync to a Palm.

I'm officially in love. And I know what I'm spending my Christmas money on. (And now I have to finish bracing the bookshelves and painting them, as well as going through the last of the boxes in the house, so I can properly put the scanned library away. Whee!)