New Project for Cataloging Personal Collections.
From time to time, somone will email or IM me and ask for a recommendation for software to catalog their personal library. I'm happy to report that there is a new solution called LibDB on the horizon.
“This is the development wiki of LibDB, an open-sourced Perl/MySQL library and asset management system based on and inspired by the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (pdf), triples from the semantic web, and “the end-user doesn't, and shouldn't, need to know this stuff”. In English, this means that you'll be able to smartly and easily catalog your movies, books, magazines, comics, etc. into your own computerized “personal library”.
Further information is available under ProjectGoals (including user profiles).
LibDB is still in the very early planning stages, and we're currently focusing on movie-related cataloguing. As such, most initial concrete and forward movement will be catered to movies, but realize that the final versions will be far more than just movies. The LibDB database is defined in such a way that you could describe books and other forms of media, even if the interface assumed you were entering film.”
There are lots of reasons to note this project. I don't pretend to fully understand the intricacies of this, but it's “based around the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records” (FRBR), but it will be very extensible and will allow librarians and other anal-retentive types to slice and dice their collections in multiple ways. Oh, and it will be free!
Brought to you be the ever resourceful Morbus Iff, creator of AmphetaDesk. [The Shifted Librarian]