Ever since the beginning books have been a BIG focus in our family. When Mark and I were first married we would buy a new book every month. We were both so excited to pick! And, lucky for me, Mark appreciates a “pretty” book. I will pick a hardcover book EVERY time! They are just beautiful and they hold up so much better then paperback.
Once our kiddos started to come along, our book obsession only escalated. Easter baskets, Christmas stockings, birthdays…you can bet there will be a couple of books! Times that by four kiddos and our home library is pretty impressive if you ask me! A lesson learned really young around here is being “soft” with books, so our books are actually in pretty fantastic shape for the most part.
THEN when we decided to homeschool, our book collection went to a WHOLE NEW LEVEL. I was now not just swimming in pictures books and novels but Egypt Encyclopedias and books about energy and the weather. Our library grew rapidly.
Last summer, I wondered if there was a way to make things a little easier on myself. We were getting so many books that I sometimes couldn’t remember what I had and spent loads of time looking for books about different subjects. I was about to make a new project for myself {I do this WAY too often} to organize these myself on the computer when I thought, “I wonder if there is an app for that?”
This is a surprising question because I am always joking with Mark that my phone’s apps are pretty pitiful. I truly have only eight apps {I just looked} and a third of those are church related. I have zero games on my phone and really try and minimize my time on devices {especially when the kids are up}.
BUT I am so glad I looked because I discovered an app that I LOVE. It is called BookBuddy+ and it was a total gamechanger in our house.
Here is the low down.
Depending upon the size of your home library, this first step might be a biggy. I spent about three days adding in EVERY SINGLE BOOK in our house. This process is actually really easy for the most part – just time consuming. You can scan the barcode on the back of the book and almost all of our books came up {if they don’t you can add it manually}.
And as oddly satisfying it is to scroll through and see EVERY BOOK my favorite feature of this app is the “tags”. You can create your own tags and THAT is what has made this game changing.
So when I added my books I also added tags {you can always add more later as well}. For each of the books, I looked up the recommended age range and “tagged” it. We also follow a booklist which gives levels and I tag those. Then I also add themes. If it is a book that takes place in World War II or talks about Ancient China, or geology it gets a “tag”.
WHICH IS AMAZING! So when we start a unit I simply click on my “tag” and I have a list already compiled for me from our home library that fits right in. A-MAZING!!!!!
It is time consuming to put it all in but now it makes my life so much easier. We just immediately add new books when we get them and so our library continues to grow but is so much more effective than it was before.
We are currently just under 900 books in our home and it just makes me happy. I know you shouldn’t love things, but I do find shelves of beautiful books, well…beautiful.
