Library
Search every book in the house by title, author, notes, or who has it. Tap a book to see where it lives or edit it.
Shelves
Every room, bookcase, and shelf, with books in order from the left. Handy for putting things back, or checking a shelf against what's actually on it.
Import & Export
Bring books in from shelf photos or spreadsheets, and review, price, and list books you want to sell. Nothing on this tab shows up in the main library.
Unidentified books
The walk-through takes you to each one in turn — where it sits and what's on either side. Scan its barcode, type the title, or snap the title page and the photo goes to Dropbox for Claude to read. Spot a book that isn’t in the catalog at all? Tap ＋ Found a book we missed and it goes in right where it sits.
Books whose spine couldn't be read, listed by where they sit. Pull each one, check the title page, then tap it here to fill in the title and author (and clear “Needs review”).
Sell & value
Set a book to Sell on eBay or Sell on Etsy, give it a condition and price, then export. eBay: upload the file in Seller Hub → Reports → Uploads. Etsy has no built-in upload, so use the Copy for Etsy button on each book to paste into a new listing, or give the file to a bulk-listing tool. After listing, set the status to Listed; when it sells, Sold removes it from the main library (it stays here for your records).
Build a library from photos
The quickest way to catalog a whole house — or start a brand-new library. Claude reads the spines and fills in every book with its room, bookcase, shelf and spot.
- Photograph each bookcase. One or two shelves per photo, close enough to read the spines, in good light. Leaning or stacked books are fine.
- Send the photos — either way works:
- From this app: tap Send shelf photos below, pick the room and bookcase, and take the pictures. They go to the photos/inbox folder of this library’s Dropbox. Then ask Claude (with that Dropbox folder linked) to “check the photo inbox.”
- In a Claude chat: attach the photos and say which room and bookcase they are.
- Claude adds the books. With the folder linked, they appear here on their own. From a chat, Claude sends back an import file — load it under Load a file below.
- Tidy up. Spines Claude couldn’t read come in as mystery books — use Unidentified → Start the walk-through to scan or snap each one. Covers and details fill in by themselves.
Books with barcodes are often faster to scan: set the shelf once and scan along it.
Load a file
Or paste JSON / CSV text:
Undo an import
No imports yet.
How it works
The Railey Library is a catalog of every book in the house — what it is, and exactly where it sits.
Finding a book
- Type in the search box — a title, an author, or a subject (“birds”, “Civil War”). Use Title or Author to narrow it.
- Pick a genre, or tap a collection button under the search box.
- Filters narrows by room, bookcase, shelf, read status or loans.
- Tap a book to see where it lives. Swipe left or right to flip through the results.
Where books live
Every book has a room, bookcase, shelf (1 is the top) and spot, counted from whichever end is closer — “#3 from left” or “#2 from right”. The Shelves tab lists every shelf in order, handy for putting books back.
Adding books
- Barcode button — scan the barcode on the back. Set the room, bookcase and shelf once; the spot counts up as you scan along the shelf. It tells you if you already have the book.
- Camera button — photograph a whole shelf or a book’s title page. Photos go to Dropbox and Claude adds the books later (ask Claude to “check the photo inbox”).
- + button — type a book in by hand.
- No shelf for it yet? Leave the location blank and fill it in later.
Do we own this?
In the barcode scanner, switch to Do I own this? before buying a book. Scan it, or type the title — nothing gets added.
Editing a book
Open it and tap Edit details to change anything: where it lives, read status, rating, notes, who it’s loaned to, or which collections it’s in.
Mystery books
Some spines couldn’t be read from photos. Epilogue → Import & Export → Unidentified lists them. Start the walk-through, pick a shelf, and it takes you book by book: scan the barcode, type the title, or snap the title page.
Phones, computers and no signal
- Everything saves on the device right away and syncs through Dropbox, so the phone and computer match. Each device connects once under Epilogue → Data & Sync.
- It works without a signal. Changes sync when you’re back online.
- Add it to your phone’s home screen: in Safari, tap Share → Add to Home Screen.
- After an update, close the app completely and reopen it to get the new version.
Starting your own library
Each library is its own folder in someone’s Dropbox, and libraries never mix. To start one, open Epilogue → Data & Sync → Library settings, type a new folder name (and your library’s name), then connect your Dropbox. To fill it, use Epilogue → Import & Export → From photos.
Behind the scenes
The catalog is one file, tamarack-library.json, in the Railey Library folder in Dropbox — neatly laid out, so it can be opened and read. The app itself lives on GitHub, with a setup guide and developer notes. Selling duplicates, imports and backups are under Epilogue → Import & Export and Data & Sync.
Data & Sync
Your catalog saves on this device as you go and syncs to Dropbox so it's the same on your phone and desktop.
Library settings
Each library is one folder in someone’s Dropbox. Libraries never connect: each has its own books, its own Dropbox login and its own settings, even on a shared phone. Name and tagline travel with the library; typing a different folder opens (or starts) a different library on this device.
Copy set-up link makes a link that opens the library on another phone or computer. For your family, use it as is. For someone else’s own library, first type a new folder name above (for example /Smith Library), then copy the link — it opens a brand-new, empty library that lives in their Dropbox once they connect.
Dropbox
Checking…
The library has its own Dropbox connection, separate from your other apps. The catalog lives in Dropbox/Railey Library/tamarack-library.json. Connect once on each phone or computer. Changes from two devices are merged book by book, so editing on your phone and desktop never wipes out the other's changes.
Redirect URI for the Dropbox app settings:
At a glance
Covers & details
Covers are found automatically in the background from Open Library and Google Books whenever new books come in (only when the title and author clearly match). It also fills in blank ISBN, year, publisher, page count, and keywords, and never overwrites what you've typed. For a wrong or missing cover, open the book and tap “Look up cover & details” to pick one.
Backup & export
Merging a backup adds any books it has that you don't, and keeps whichever version of each book was edited most recently. It never deletes anything.