“Delicious” Fun

In a moment of financial weakness a couple months ago, my wife and I bought a library cataloging program for the Mac called Delicious Library. It cost more than we should have spent, but it has provided more fun than we could have imagined.

The software has the capability of reading the UPC codes off books and DVDs and the like to create a record which can be stored offsite for insurance or other purposes. One can also enter the info by hand, which is necessary for older items, but what fun is that.

It has as well the capability of tracking books or DVDs loaned out to others, which is a decided advantage for us, far superior to the ‘write the name on a scrap of paper and drop it in the cookie jar’ method of the past.

The most fun, however, has come from the UPC misreads. Apparently while a book’s ISBN remains the same and is unique to that item, UPC codes on the other hand get re-assigned over time. So, since the program scans the UPC codes, some interesting mismatches arose. Enjoy:

Scanning Steven Pressfield’s novel of the Spartan stand at Thermopylae Gates of Fire led to His Way: An Unauthorized Biography Of Frank Sinatra by Kitty Kelly.

Colin Powell’s fascinating pre-Secretary of State years memoir My American Journey produced Interview with a Vampire. Is this trying to tell us something?

Intriguingly, my paperback version of Crime And Punishment became The Empty Land by Louis L’Amour.

And finally, Character by Gail Sheehy popped up as a result of scanning The Brothers Karamazov. There just seems something appropriate in that.

I confess. I’m hooked.