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Show HN: I built library management app for those who outgrew spreadsheets

(www.librari.io)
83 points hmkoyan | 2 comments | 18 Jul 25 19:28 UTC | HN request time: 0.002s | source

I've been working on librari.io for the past several months and just launched the beta version.

The Problem: I have 500+ books across multiple rooms in my house and was desperately looking for an app to manage them properly. Most library management apps are either too basic or designed for institutional libraries with rigid workflows that don't fit personal use.

What I Built:

- Multiple libraries: manage collections in different locations

- Location tracking - remember exactly which shelf each book is on

- Loan management - track books you've lent to friends

- Custom fields & tags - store any additional book info the way YOU think about them

- Reading progress tracking - dates, duration, personal ratings

- Modern UI/UX - clean & actually enjoyable to use

Current Status:

- Beta version live

- Working on improving the responsiveness of the app and addressing initial user feedback

Would love feedback! Especially curious about:

- What features would make YOU actually use a library management app?

- UI/UX feedback always welcome

- Any book collectors here who'd be interested in beta testing?

Looking forward to your thoughts! Thank you in advance.

Show context
9dev ◴[19 Jul 25 04:23 UTC] No.44612572[source]▶
Im working on a similar project, Colibri (https://github.com/colibri-hq/colibri), an app to manage your ebook collection. Librari is looking really slick! Also, It’s always interesting to see how others approach schema selection and customization.

If I may, I would suggest adding support for ingesting data from open sources, for example OpenLibrary, WikiData, the LoC API, and a bunch of others. Since you’re building a for-profit project, you can probably also tap the billed services to get high-quality metadata. But even with OpenLibrary alone, you have access to a treasure trove of information that spares users from having to type off things from their books. That allows for bulk import, high-res covers, and so on.

I’m currently working on the metadata reconciliation engine in Colibri, so feel free to check out the source every once in a while.

replies(1): >>44613350 #
1. hmkoyan ◴[19 Jul 25 07:30 UTC] No.44613350[source]▶
Thank you for the comment. librari.io already uses OpenLibrary for metadata enrichment, but I'll definitely check out the others too. I'll definitely check out Colibri — thank you for sharing!
replies(1): >>44613813 #
2. 9dev ◴[19 Jul 25 09:06 UTC] No.44613813[source]▶
Likewise! The space of book-lover software is small, we should stick together :)