How to catalogue English-language books
Scan the barcode or photograph the shelf. The right edition, cover and details fill in without typing.
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English-language books are the easiest to catalogue, because almost every book published in English in the last forty years carries an ISBN and appears in the major book databases. The work that remains is picking the right edition, handling older books that carry a 10-digit ISBN or none at all, and keeping a long list tidy. For a general guide, see library inventory.
Cataloguing English books in three steps
Scan the barcode
Point your phone camera or a USB scanner at the ISBN barcode on the back of the book. TitleEntry accepts both 13-digit and 10-digit ISBNs, checks the number is valid, then looks the book up and fills in the title, author, publisher, year, page count, language and cover.
Or photograph the shelf
For books with no barcode, or a whole shelf you do not want to scan one by one, take a photo. The AI shelf scanner reads the spines, identifies each book and adds it to the list for you to review, up to 300 books per photo.
Review and keep
Check each result against the cover on screen, correct anything that is wrong, and save. Your catalogue is searchable and filterable by language, shelf and genre, and you can export it to Excel at any point.
Read more about the ISBN scanner and the AI bookshelf scanner.
Getting the right edition
US and UK editions have different ISBNs
The same title is often published by different houses in the US and the UK, each with its own ISBN, cover and sometimes its own page count. Scanning the barcode on the copy you hold records that edition, not another one of the same name.
Hardback, paperback and reissues
Each format of a book has its own ISBN. A hardback and a later paperback are separate records, and so is a reissue with a new cover. Scan each copy and the catalogue holds the one you actually own. If you hold several copies of the same edition, they are kept together with a quantity.
What an English ISBN tells you
Since 2007 an ISBN has 13 digits, starting 978 or 979. Before that it had 10. The digits after the prefix identify the registration group, and groups 0 and 1 both cover the English-language area, which is why so many English-language ISBNs begin 978-0 or 978-1. A 10-digit ISBN printed on an older book is the same number without the 978 prefix and with a different last digit. TitleEntry handles both, so older stock does not need converting by hand.
The group says where the publisher is registered, not what language the book is in. That is why TitleEntry also records the language of each book as its own field. For books in other languages, see cataloguing Turkish books.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. TitleEntry reads both 10-digit and 13-digit ISBNs, validates the check digit, and looks the book up. Older English-language books often carry only a 10-digit ISBN, and those scan the same way as newer ones.
Photograph the shelf and the AI shelf scanner reads the spine text. It works for older books that predate ISBNs, as well as books with worn or missing barcodes. Anything no source holds can be added by hand.
ISBN registration groups 0 and 1 both belong to the English-language area, so many English-language ISBNs begin 978-0 or 978-1. The group reflects where the publisher is based, not a guarantee of the book language, and books in other languages are catalogued the same way.
Yes. TitleEntry records the language of each book and lets you filter the catalogue by it, so English and other-language books can sit in one collection and be checked separately. For Turkish books, see the page on cataloguing Turkish books.
Title, author, ISBN, publisher, year, page count, genre, language and shelf, with covers optionally embedded. It exports to Excel, which opens in Excel or Google Sheets and can be saved as CSV from either.
Get in touch and we will talk through your collection and set you up.
Last verified 6 October 2026. Source: List of ISBN registration groups.