Ex Libris
A home library you catalogue by photographing the shelf.
- The problem
- A few hundred books and no catalogue, and every library app starts with typing in ISBNs one at a time.
- The bet
- An app that catalogues a shelf from one photo, and feels like a bookshelf, not a database.
- The result
- A private, cover-first app that lives on my phone, and one I may bring to the app stores soon.
- My role
- Designed it, and built it with Claude Code.
Books should look like books
I wanted my library to look like a bookshelf, not a spreadsheet. This one is a side project, so I could be as particular as I liked, and a few rules shaped every screen.
- Immersive and cover-first, so the books are the interface.
- Gestures over lists, wherever a swipe can do the job.
- Calm motion, with no bounce or overshoot.
- Private by default: no account, and your books never leave the phone.
Scan a shelf
Photograph a shelf and the books appear, in the order they sit. The spines are read on the phone itself, and live hints nudge you to step closer or back when the titles are too small or too crowded to read.
A real scan of one of my own shelves.
Swipe through, flick up to remove, then “Shelve” the rest.
Triage what it found
Not every spine reads perfectly, so a scan ends with a quick sort. Swipe through the finds, flick up to drop the misses, then shelve the rest in one tap.
A shelf of covers
Home is a row of large covers that you swipe through, with a quiet info card for whichever book is in focus. Tap one to open it.
The home shelf.
A book’s page, and changing its edition.
Make it yours
Status, rating and notes, tags and collections, and the exact edition you own, right down to the cover.
Organise the real shelves
Choose a bookshop arrangement (by genre, then author) or a library one (roughly Dewey). The guide then walks you through it book by book, by its neighbours rather than exact positions, because real shelves also hold plants and ornaments.
Bookshop or library, then placed book by book, next to its neighbours.
Lender, return date and reminder, then “Due back soon” on the home screen.
Who has my book?
Note who lent it to you, when it’s due back, and get a reminder on the day. Anything due soon appears in a “Due back soon” row on the home screen.
Built for an audience of one
Ex Libris was a chance to have some fun: to build something with me as its main user in mind, and to try building with AI from scratch, from the first idea to an app on my phone.
A few friends have said they’d like to try it, so I may put it on the app stores soon.