Probably at one time in your life, you took a book inventory. You looked at all the spines of all the books and decided you'd make a list of them. You might have done it as a child on a rainy afternoon or you may have been grown up and simply felt the urge to make a comprehensive list of all the books you'd accumulated over the years. And when you were finished with your list, you were probably pretty impressed at how many books you had. You might have even forgotten about some until you made the list.

Your book inventory was probably either on paper or typed with a manual typewriter, if you're a little bit more mature, or maybe it was even typed into a word processor or database. You probably erased several times because you wanted to put the books into a different order, or you had to keep adding columns and categories in your database. It likely became a much bigger and more time-consuming project that you'd imagined it (unless you did do it as a child) and yet you still enjoyed it.

Book inventory software can help you enjoy doing that again, but this time with a modern technological twist. You'll type in the title (or just even a word from the title, or a keyword) then choose the book from the list that appears. And then .. . you'll do the same for the next one. That's it. All of the work of taking a book inventory is done for you. The book is added with just a few clicks, letting you get back to the (fun) business of adding more books.

The hardest part will be remembering all the books you own that aren't on your shelves and readily visible, like those you've loaned out. Most book lovers enjoy sharing a good book, and great book inventory software knows that. So using the software, you can keep track of books you lend out. You'll know who has them and how long they've had them, so you'll never forget about a book.

And the best book inventory software fully embraces the technology that allows it to exist, by allowing you to keep an inventory of your ebooks right along with your traditional books. As a book lover, you've probably got some floating around on your hard drive. They go in with a few clicks, too, so you can keep track of all your books in every form.

Once you've created your book inventory, the real fun begins. Add labels to books. Hated it? Make a "Stinks" label and apply it to those you didn't like. You can sort so they're all together. Want to label your romance novels as "Cultural Materials" and your old textbooks as "Torture Tomes?" Do it! And don't forget how much fun it can be to share with others. You can export your book inventory to HTML and put it online for other book collectors and readers of "Cultural Materials" to see.