Scan a barcode or photograph a whole shelf. Our Library catalogues every title, catches double-buys, tracks what everyone is reading, and helps you choose what comes next — on private, Australian-operated infrastructure.
From the first barcode scan to the next great recommendation, every feature is designed to make a large shared collection feel simple.
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Scan in seconds
Use a phone camera to scan an ISBN, or photograph an entire shelf and let vision AI identify the spines.
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Stop double-buying
See an immediate warning when a book is already owned, including who has it and when it was added.
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One home, separate libraries
Every family member gets a private login, personal collection, reading history, ratings, and reviews.
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Ideas that learn
Get personalised reading suggestions shaped by your own books, wishlists, and “not interested” feedback.
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Complete every series
Automatically group series, spot missing volumes, and add the next title to a wishlist in one tap.
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Find the best place to buy
Compare prices across major Australian and international retailers, watch wishlist prices for a drop, and find a copy at a library near you.
iPhone & iPad · TestFlight
Your library, wherever you find your next book.
The native Our Library iOS app is available on request through TestFlight. Take your collection to the bookshop, scan a new stack at home, and keep your reading life close at hand.
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Rapid barcode scanning
Scan a stack without pausing the camera. Books are looked up and added in the background, with a running list and per-book undo.
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Catch double-buys
Get a full-screen warning before adding a book you already own. Find a wishlist title? Mark it as owned in one tap.
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Photograph a whole shelf
Read book spines from a photo, then check the results in a review queue before adding them to your library.
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On-device intelligence
On supported devices with Apple Intelligence enabled, shelf reading and reading ideas can run on-device. A shelf photo stays on your device when local processing succeeds; otherwise the library server processes it.
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Make your next read count
Browse personalised ideas, spot missing series volumes, and keep ratings, review notes and reading progress with your books.
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Your shelves, ready to browse
Search and filter your collection in a grid or list. Previously loaded library data is cached for browsing without a signal; fresh lookups and changes need a connection.
Request TestFlight access →Requires iOS or iPadOS 17 or later. Access is by invitation, not a public App Store download.
Powered by insta.host
Serious technology. Australian operated.
Our Library runs on privately managed Australian infrastructure, with enterprise vision and language AI applied only where it genuinely helps.
Australian operatedPrivately managed hostingEncrypted, outbound-only accessVision & language AIIndependent book cataloguesIsolated per-account dataDaily price tracking
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Mobile-first web appBarcode scanning, shelf photography, library browsing, and reading tracking from any modern browser.
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Private insta.host accessManaged HTTPS access through an outbound-only secure tunnel, without exposing the underlying network directly.
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Australian-operated application and dataThe application and your catalogue are hosted and administered in Australia on insta.host-managed infrastructure.
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AI and independent book sourcesEnterprise vision AI reads shelf photographs and shapes suggestions. Established book catalogues supply the facts, and AI only fills gaps for a title a catalogue has already confirmed.
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Private by design. Operated by insta.host.
Passwords are securely hashed, sessions use protected cookies, and each person's library and recommendation history remain separate on privately managed Australian infrastructure. Card details are handled by our payment provider and never reach us.
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Links to Amazon AU carry our Associates tag. It never changes the price you pay, and it never changes which book is recommended.
New scans are saved only to the selected person's library.
Point the camera at a book's barcode
Shelf matches stay private to the selected person's library.
📷 Scan a whole shelf
Use a clear photo of a shelf (one row at a time works best) — take one now, or pick one you already have. The AI reads the spines, then you confirm what to add.
Recommendations and feedback stay scoped to the selected person's library.
✨ Ideas for your next read
Personalised picks based on your own library.
🔎 Find a book you can only describe
For when you remember the story but not the title — “the one about a beekeeper in wartime France”. Searches a specialist book-description index. Capacity is limited each day and shared across the household, so it only runs when you ask.
👥 People
Create a private login for each reader. Every person keeps a separate library, reading history, ratings, reviews, and suggestions.
Add a person
🎟️ Invitations
An invitation code lets one person create their own account on a chosen plan. The code is shown once, when you create it, and is stored only as a hash — so it cannot be read back afterwards.
Import QBD purchase history
Paste a saved QBD order-history page or order confirmation email. The importer extracts ISBNs/product links and adds them to the selected library without storing QBD credentials.
🔁 Find duplicate purchases
Scans a library for books bought twice (matched by ISBN, by edition when the book catalogues can link them, or by title when there's no barcode) and flags every extra copy as a duplicate to sell or donate — grounded on whichever copy was scanned first.
🔎 ISBN health check
Reviews the barcodes already catalogued. Flags entries that are not valid ISBNs, and editions from the wrong market (a translated edition attached to an English copy) — both quietly break double-buy warnings, price matching and store links.
🖼️ Fill in missing book details
Looks up covers, synopses, publishers and page counts for books that are missing them, and stores each cover on this server so it keeps working and stops telling other sites what you read.
📤 Export your library
Download every book, rating, review and reading date as a file you can keep, open in a spreadsheet, or move elsewhere.
📥 Import from a spreadsheet
Bring in a CSV exported from here or from another reading app. It needs a title column; isbn, authors, publisher, published, pages, status, rating, review, notes, date read and date added are used when present. Books already on the shelf are left alone rather than added twice.
📡 Book data sources
Shows whether each catalogue BookLib looks books up in is answering. A source that stops responding used to fail silently.
A private family book library. Scan a barcode or snap a photo of a shelf and it's catalogued
automatically — cover, description, publisher and price comparisons across major retailers.
Track what's owned, wishlisted or read; rate and review; get personalised "read next" picks
that learn from what you like; and catch accidental double-buys before they happen.
Under the hood
Hosting: privately managed Australian infrastructure, administered by insta.host. Your catalogue lives in a database dedicated to this application rather than in a shared third-party service.
Access: reachable over HTTPS from anywhere through an outbound-only secure tunnel — no inbound ports are opened on the network it runs from.
AI — vision & suggestions: shelf photographs are read, and personalised suggestions are written, by enterprise vision and language models accessed through a private gateway. Your library is not used to train anyone's model.
AI — metadata assist: when the book catalogues don't have a synopsis, publisher or page count for a title, AI conservatively fills the gap — it's only ever asked to describe a book a real catalogue already confirmed exists, never to guess one from scratch.
Book data & pricing: covers, descriptions, editions, series and prices are drawn from a number of established book catalogues and retail price sources. We use several so that no single one is a point of failure, and the mix may change over time as sources come and go.
Affiliate links: links to Amazon AU carry our Amazon Associates tag, so a purchase made through one may earn the library a commission at no extra cost to you. It never changes the price you pay, and it never changes which book is recommended.
Payments: paid plans are bought through Stripe's own hosted checkout. Card numbers are entered on Stripe's page and never reach Our Library, which keeps only a customer reference, a plan and an amount. Prices are in Australian dollars; we are not registered for GST, so no GST is charged.
Accounts & privacy: each family member has their own login — libraries, ratings, reviews and suggestion feedback are kept separate per person and never shared or merged.
Plans
💬 Send feedback
Found something broken, or thought of something the library ought to do? It is saved in
this library's own database on the home server — nothing is sent to anyone else.