Embracing technology as the pastor: Cataloguing books

Most pastors are avid readers, which also means they will usually acquire a large number of books.

At first you can keep track in your head what books you own and where they are located in your library. 

But eventually a tipping point is reached where this is no longer an effective practice.  You particularly know you've reached the end of your mental capacity when you end up buying the same book twice, miss a book bargain because you think you have the book already, or spend inordinate amounts of time looking for a book on your shelves.

So eventually you should look at cataloguing your books.  And computers make this task much easier.

There are many library catalogue programs available, but I got hooked on Endnote when writing my PhD thesis and never let it go.  A popular alternative appears to be Zotero. 

My only caution in choosing a cataloguing program is to make sure it has an export function to a standardised file type.  That way if you ever have to migrate to another program, you can easily import your library.

Now for a few personal tips from how I catalogue my library:
(i) only include the author, title and call number in your catalogue, inputting anything more than that is a waste of time (unless you use your catalogue for referencing in professional writing);
(ii) don't use call numbers, have very broad categories (e.g. 'church', 'apologetics') and then simply order those categories on the shelf by alphabetical order using the author's surname;
(iii) label the books with only the first letter of their category - you don't really need to include any more information (e.g. author's initials etc);
(iv) for commentaries, label and order them on the shelf with the number that they are in the Biblical canon, e.g. Deuteronomy is '5', Revelation is '66';
(v) if you can, find a volunteer to enter the bulk of your library into your software (and don't overlook the abilities of children to do this rather mundane task);
(vi) export your catalogue to the internet somewhere so that you can find it easily on your phone whilst shopping (you never know when you may spot a sale);
(vii) maintain your catalogue - don't let things slide or you may as well not have bothered in the first place!