Libiry

2. Libiry BookSpineScanner

5 min read

The Libiry BookSpineScanner is a Progressive Web App (PWA) that identifies books with spine OCR and barcode detection. It gives you markdown (text) files that can be used in Libiry, Obsidian and other tools.

Key features

  • Spine OCR - Reads text from book spines
  • Barcode scanning - Detects ISBN barcodes
  • Multiple OCR engines - Tesseract.js (offline) or Google Cloud Vision
  • Book lookup - Witch a.o. Open Library, Google Books, Europeana, Library of Congress
  • Confidence indicators - Shows match quality for each book
  • Export to markdown - Compatible with Libiry and Obsidian
  • Customizable - Change the field names to match those you use in Obsidian or Libiry
  • Works offline - After the initial load, Tesseract.js works without internet
  • Installable - Add to home screen on mobile devices

How it works

  1. Open the Libiry BookSpineScanner
  2. Check the settings. Which OCR engine do you want to use? And which book databases?
  3. Take a photo of your bookshelf (or upload a photo)
  4. The tool detects individual book spines
  5. The tool uses OCR to extract text from each spine
  6. The tool looks up books in various online databases
  7. Review the results and correct mistakes
  8. Export the results to markdown files
  9. Open the markdown files in Libiry or in another tool

7. Review the results and correct mistakes

You’ll see that each result has a confidence indicator:

  • 🟢 Green - correct match (>85% confidence that the OCR text matches this book in the database)
  • 🟠 Orange - uncertain match (50-85% confidence)
  • 🔴 Red - incorrect match (<50% confidence)

For incorrect matches (red), the preliminary book title is exported instead of the matched book title. Toggle the confidence indicator to change its value.

Review each result. Expand rows to view all information.

Fix the wrong matches. Tip: type author and title, set the confidence indicator to green and press Lookup. The BookSpineScanner will then retain the values for author and title, but update the other fields.

Add tags to individual books.

8. Export the results to markdown files

Add tags that all books have in common, like:

  • type/analog (physical book)
  • shelf/bottom-left (location)
  • collection/favorites (collection)
  • genre/scifi (genre)
  • status/to-read (reading status) to all your books by putting them in the tag box at the bottom of the screen.

Tip: Keep your scan photos until you’ve verified the export. If you find errors later, you can re-scan.

When to use

The Libiry BookSpineScanner works best when:

  • You have many books to catalog
  • The spine text is readable (not too small/faded)
  • Old/damaged books may not OCR well
  • Matching depends on the book being in online databases
  • Some manual corrections are usually needed

Barcode mode

For books with a visible ISBN barcode:

  • Enable “Barcode mode” in Settings
  • Take a photo of the barcodes
  • The app reads ISBN numbers directly from the barcodes
  • Books are looked up by ISBN in various databases
  • If a book is not found in these databases, a WorldCat search link is provided as the book title

Supported platforms

PlatformBrowserInstallation
AndroidChrome, FirefoxAdd to home screen
iOSSafariAdd to home screen
WindowsChrome, EdgeInstall as app
macOSChrome, SafariInstall as app
LinuxChrome, FirefoxInstall as app

Privacy

  • All processing happens in your browser - Your photos never leave your device
  • No accounts required - No sign-up, no tracking
  • Local storage only - Settings are saved in your browser only
  • API calls - Only for book metadata lookup (Open Library etc.)

Install as an app (optional)

  • Android (Chrome): Tap the three-dot menu > “Install app” or “Add to home screen”
  • iPhone (Safari): Tap the share icon (square with arrow) > “Add to home screen”
  • Desktop (Chrome/Edge): Click the install icon in the address bar

OCR engines

Tesseract.js (default)

  • Works offline, no setup required
  • Runs entirely in your browser
  • Good for high-contrast, well-lit photos
  • Much better results, especially for book spines with small or rotated text
  • Requires a Google Cloud Vision API key
  • Free tier: 1,000 scans/month, then approximately $1.50 per 1,000 scans

To set up Google Cloud Vision:- Go to Google Cloud Console

  • Create a project (or select an existing one)
  • Enable the “Cloud Vision API”
  • Go to “Credentials” and create an API key
  • In the BookSpineScanner, tap the gear icon (Settings)
  • Paste your API key in the “Google Vision API Key” field
  • Select “Google Cloud Vision” as OCR engine

Data and privacy

  • All processing happens in your browser. No data is sent to any server (except API calls to Google Vision, Open Library and Google Books when looking up books)
  • Settings are stored in your browser’s localStorage
  • Book lookup results are cached in IndexedDB to reduce API calls
  • No account required, no tracking, no analytics

Integration with Libiry

  • Place the markdown files in your Libiry book folder
  • Refresh Libiry

Libiry reads the book metadata fields ‘cover’, ‘booktitle’, ‘author’, ‘isbn’, ‘publisher’, ‘year’, ‘language’ and ‘tags’ from the markdown files.
Other fields are ignored by Libiry, but preserved in the file.

Further reading

4 items under this folder.