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October 7, 2018
Image by Panumas Nikhomkhai from Pixabay

Creating Digital Collections

Posted on October 7, 2018  •  2 minutes  • 342 words

I like collecting things. On one hand this is a problem, because I currently have way too many things. On the other, having different kinds of collections just makes me happy.

I have many different kinds of collections. There are my books, DVDs and Blu-Rays, Pop figures, enamel pins, model vehicles, stuffed animals, posters, artwork, etc.

I decided a couple of months ago that I would like to digitally document everything I have. This will make it easier to find what I currently have (very useful during those times I’m at the bookstore and can’t remember if I bought a particular book or not because I hadn’t read it yet) and will also serve the purpose of helping identify what I had should I ever need to replace items (think fire, flood, etc.).

Of course I could start doing this manually with photographs and typing everything into a spreadsheet, but I really wanted a program that would manage all this for me, as well as being capable of retrieving information based on description, barcode, etc.

I went looking for collection management software. So began a long search of finding promising software only to discover that it’s no longer in active development. I also primarily run Linux at home, so the requirement was that it had to run natively on Linux or at least be in the form of a web app that I could run from a local server instance (not looking for anything cloud based).

I finally came across Tellico which seemed to have everything I was looking for.

Screenshot of the Tellico “book library”. The program has a user interface with three sections. The section on the left lists the authors found followed by the number of titles in the library. The right section is then divided in half, where the upper section lists the titles available in the library, and the lower half displays the content for the currently selected title. In this example, the information for the novel “A Sky Unbroken” by Megan Crewe is shown.

Here are just some of Tellico’s many features:

To make my life easier, I also ordered a Symcode Barcode Scanner so I could scan UPC and ISBN numbers directly into Tellico.

A USB barcode scanner on a black stand with a silver

This little scanner works great! It features:

I’ve started the process of cataloging all my things, but like I said I have a lot of them so that’s going to take time. I’ve decided to export certain collections to HTML so I can include them on this website. Mostly this is for my own benefit so I can see my collections remotely before I buy things, but I figure it will also help anyone trying to shop for me for Christmas or birthday gifts.

The main collections page will be continually updated as I continue to catalog all of the things!

An "all the things" meme with a cartoon figure set against a yellow star background wearing a pink shirt yelling with an open mouth and fist raised in the air with the caption "CATALOG ALL THE THINGS!"

Thanks so much for reading ^‿^

Claire

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