Booksource Classroom is a free website program that works in conjunction with an app to help you develop an inventory and digital check-out system for your classroom library books. When teachers buy books at the book fair, bring their own books at home, find them at yard sales, or have them donated it can lead to a large collection, and sometimes it is not always clear what one has in their collection. It would be a very time-consuming process to create a list of all of the books in one classroom, and it would be even more time-consuming if one wanted to look up the reading levels of said books. So as one can guess, such things rarely happen, as they are just not practical.
What I love about the BookSource tool is that you create your account online, and set up your classroom the way you like. For example, you can set up ‘locations’, which could be things like different genres, or series bins. What makes this work well in terms of mobility is the corresponding app. Once the online account is set up, one can download the app, log in, and begin scanning the books. The app uses the camera and mobility of cell phones to scan the barcodes of books and automatically adds them classroom account. Since the app scans the barcode of the book, the program cross-references the book against the company database, and several other sources, and adds additional information like a synopsis, interest level, reading level (for several systems), genre, page count, word count, series if applicable, title, author, and book cover. Information that could potentially take up to twenty minutes to acquire is instantly generated in seconds. The mobility of the app also allows the books to be scanned, and ‘checked in’ and ‘out’ of the classroom library.
Very interesting! I like the fact that it is mobile-friendly, which has become a must-have feature for me when considering anything I do in class. It seems to be fairly user-friendly, and versatile enough for a bit of customization.
Another use that jumped out to me was to satisfy some of the needs of our school book club. We have 30+ enthusiastic 11 and 12 year olds, who are extremely engaged readers. More than anything else, they LOVE to share their interests. This could be a particular book or series they love, an author they want to share with others, or a book they are looking forward to reading. Also, they are obsessed with my collection which includes a lot of titles that are a bit more arcane than the titles they are used to finding in Chapters or our school library. My books are not cataloged, nor do I have the desire to catalog all of them. What I imagine is putting this app in the hands of the students, and allowing them to build a catalog of books for our book club. This catalog wouldn’t have to exist in one physical space; it could be a catalog of available books that they can access when they wish, and use as a means of knowing who has a book, where it is located, etc.
Just a thought, thanks for sharing this tool!
Hi Sarah!
Thanks for sharing this app. It’s a very neat tool for people who have lots of physical books. You can have your own catalogue right in the palm of your hands. This is also great if a person needs to research about a particular subject and they need to rummage through their collection. This is a faster way of looking. Not all people have e-books so I guess this is also great if they’re second guessing if they have a particular book in their collection.