It is usually summer. Everyone else has left. You are walking the shelves with a barcode scanner, picking up each book one at a time, scanning it, checking the result against your records, correcting the mismatches, and wondering why you agreed to do this alone again.
A 2,000-book library at 10 to 15 seconds per book is somewhere between 5 and 8 hours of standing in the same room. That is before you factor in the books that will not scan, the records that are wrong, and the ones that have gone missing and are not on the shelf at all.
The problem with how most schools do library inventory
Most school library inventory methods are slow for the same reason — they are book-by-book processes.
Whether you use a barcode gun, a scanning app on your phone, or a full system like Follett Destiny, the default approach is the same. One book. Scan. Next book. Scan. For hundreds or thousands of books.
Enterprise library systems do a lot more than just inventory — they handle circulation, OPAC access, overdue tracking, and more. But for a smaller school library, or one without dedicated IT support, they are often more than the job requires. And the cost per student adds up quickly for independent schools and academies working with tight budgets.
What most school librarians actually need for inventory is simpler. A fast way to record what is on the shelves. A clean file to work with afterwards. A tool that does not require a training course to use.
How TitleEntry makes school library inventory faster
TitleEntry uses your phone camera to photograph an entire shelf at once.
The AI reads every visible book spine and returns a list of books with full metadata — title, author, ISBN, publisher, genre. You review the results, make any corrections, and export everything to an Excel spreadsheet with one click. No barcode gun. No special scanners. No cables or hardware. No app to install. TitleEntry is a web app that runs in your phone browser.
A typical school library inventory session with TitleEntry
Here is what the process looks like in practice.
Start at one end of the library. Open TitleEntry on your phone.
Take a photo of the first shelf. The books appear on screen within seconds.
Add a shelf label — "Fiction A–D", "Non-fiction 500s", whatever system you use — and move to the next shelf.
Each session builds up your catalogue as you go.
When you have worked through the whole library, export the complete book list as an Excel file. One click.
The whole process for a 2,000-book library can be done in a day. Not a week.
What about books without barcodes?
School libraries collect books over decades. A lot of them predate barcodes entirely.
TitleEntry does not need a barcode to identify a book. The AI reads the text on the spine directly — title, author, publisher — and uses that to look up the book. Old books, donated books, books with worn or missing barcodes all get catalogued the same way.
If the AI is not confident about a particular book, it flags it for your review rather than guessing. You can correct the title, author, or any other field directly in the results before saving. Nothing gets added to your catalogue without you seeing it first.
Duplicate detection for real-world shelves
Real school library shelves are not perfectly organised. Books get misshelved, duplicates accumulate over years, and the catalogue does not always reflect what is actually there. When you scan a shelf, TitleEntry automatically checks new results against your existing library. It flags anything that looks like a duplicate — same ISBN, similar title, or matching author — and asks what you want to do. You can update the stock count, skip the duplicate, or save it as a new entry.
What you get at the end of inventory
When your inventory is done, you have:
- A complete book list with title, author, ISBN, publisher, year, language, and genre for every catalogued book
- A shelf-by-shelf breakdown if you added shelf labels during scanning
- A clean .xlsx export file ready to use however your school needs it
If you use a library management system already, the Excel export gives you a clean import file. If you manage your library catalogue in a spreadsheet, you have a ready-to-use update. If you are starting from scratch with no existing digital record, you have the whole thing built in one afternoon.
Honest about what TitleEntry does not do
TitleEntry is a cataloguing and inventory tool. It is not a full library management system.
It does not manage circulation, handle overdue tracking, give students an OPAC to search, or replace a system like Follett Destiny if you need all of that. What it does is give you the fastest way to build or update a book catalogue from a physical collection. If you need a digital record of what is on your shelves — and you need it without spending a week doing it — TitleEntry is the right tool for that job.