A few months ago when I decided that I wanted to organize and catelog my classroom library I decided I was going to need a little help. I imagined the 1000+ books that were stored in my garage and mentally calculated how long it would take me to type them all into Excel. And of course I would want to include the AR Level and Points, and while I was at it I wanted to label all the books into categories…I would probably be done by 2020, if I was lucky. So I did a little Googling and THAT is how I discovered the Intelliscanner, dun-dun, dun. Confession: One of my secret desires has always been to be a librarian. All my childhood books have numbers written in the covers, and my sister was forced to play library on more than one occasion. The Intelliscanner is basically a library scanner for the common man teacher.
This handy little scanner connects to your computer, scans the barcode on your books, and puts them into a fantastic software that looks a lot like iTunes. It loads all the information about your book, including the title, author, type of book, date, price, and even adds a cover picture (if available). It’s a nerdy teacher’s dream device.
Click the picture to see this up close
It would take me YEARS to enter all the information that this program looks up online for me. When you double click the book it gives you additional information, including a summary:
You can customize your own categories , and I created columns for the Reading Level and AR points. You can order your books according to any of the categories by clicking on the column heading, so I can arrange them by reading level, author’s name, or type of book with just a click of a button.
I love this feature of the Intelliscanner Software, I can click the “Statistics” button and it breaks down my library for me. I have 1,325 books in my library with 845 unique titles. (I told you I have a book problem!) I also scanned in the movies I use in my classroom and the audio books I have in my listening center. It even tells me how much I spent on books if I paid sticker price, I certainly hope I didn’t spend $6,320.89 on books, good thing I shop at Half Price books :)
Oh this next part just warms my nerdy, little heart:
I can lend out my books, just like in a real library. My kids will type in their name, and I’ll be able to keep track of who is reading what. I know, I know, what can’t this program do?
One more thing it can do, is that you can share your library online with the handy little “Share” button. It publishes your library to your own website (for free!), check out mine here http://www.intelliscanner.net/aoelschlager/books/. I love all the options and features that the Intelliscanner and software offers. Not only does it fulfill a childhood dream, but it is a great organizational tool and will help me manage my classroom full of eager readers.
Upcoming Post: An Intelliscanner alternative…LibraryThing
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I’ve been looking into getting the Intelliscanner, and I’m so glad that I found your blog. Your site showed features that I haven’t seen anywhere else in my research. One question, though: Did you use this on your school computer or your own computer? I’m just wondering if there’s software that needs to be loaded onto the computer before you’re able to use the Intelliscanner, because we’ve been told that we can’t have any software on our school computers that wasn’t loaded by our district.
Thanks!
Hi Rosa,
I LOVE my intelliscanner and fortunately I was able to use it with my school computer…Another thing you could do though, you can scan all your books with your home computer and export your library as an excel spreadsheet or to a website. It’s not ideal because the software is amazing, but it would work!
The scanner will work to scan barcodes into other programs or web-based catalogs, but I personally haven’t tried this!
Hope that helps,
Amy (aka the Nerdy Teacher)
I’ve been looking into purchasing an intelliscanner and am glad I came across your blog. I’ve heard that it slows down a lot when you get a lot of books (1000-2000) books in it. I have 5000 in my library so I would like to purchase it but am afraid to use the money just to have it not work.
Hi Jenni,
I have about 2000 books in my collection, and I didn’t notice a difference. I’m sure the scanner itself won’t slow down, but the software can be a little cumbersome, so I could see that it might get a little slow. I LOVE my scanner, but you have more than twice the books I do. Good luck in your decision.
Amy
Good morning, Amy!
I just ran across your blog via a post on Pinterest…this is what I do on MY first day free of school! I just LOVE your blog…as I looked through it, you look like my kind of teacher! You do things very similar to how I run my classroom…but I did appreciate gleaning a few new ideas from you…and that Intelliscanner looks AMAZING! I am hoping to persuade my husband that it would be a good investment!! :) I am planning to bookmark your site! Thanks for the inspiration, Girl!!
Mrs. S–
STOP before you buy an Intelliscanner you MUST check out Classroom Organizer! from Booksource! Using this FREE program you can catalog your classroom library for FREE using an iOS or Android App!! It is amazing. I will be writing a post about it soon!
Hope that helps,
Amy aka The Nerdy Teacher
Hi Amy!
I wanted to reach out to thank you for sharing the Classroom Organizer with your followers. We are glad you found us! If you have any questions or feedback for us, please let us know! You can email me at aroetheli@booksource.com. Hope to hear from you! Thanks again!
Hi there!
What an awesome blog- I just stumbled upon it and I love a lot of your ideas. I recently purchased an intelliscanner and am having so fun setting it up for next year! I can’t seem to find a way to load friends names. Is there a way to do that or do they need to be entered each time?
Let me know if you have any other pointers :)