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Rating: 
Summary: Some Good Ideas But Not A Solution
Review: According to a recent New York Times article, Kathie Coblentz has a home library she estimates at 3,600 volumes packed into a one-bedroom apartment. As a special collection cataloger for the New York Public Library she has written the book portion of this set (software, book, and binder).
Book cataloging software is an iffy proposition. My current collection (20,000+ volumes not counting 1,000+ of graphic novels) is on a computerized database. I tried many off-the shelf products and they all fail in one major aspect or another. Do you want to know what stories are in a particular collection? Do you want to know that the book crosses several genres? (a big thing in romances these days) Do you want ISBNs? searches capable of looking for primary, secondary, tertiary, etc. authors? M. Ahrens suggests software that adds data based on ISBN. But what about all of those books published before the ISBN became a standard in 1970? Value? Edition? Typeface? Binding? A collector is better off thinking about what they want to track in their collection and using a simple database program (Paradox, Access, etc.) or a configurable home inventory program.
The binder is designed for printing out a copy of your book inventory (mine changes several times a week thus making a paper record short-lived and wasteful). It is a nice addition for a complete collection (say a complete collection of first editions of a favorite author) but inadequate for any active collection.
The book is interesting but seems to apply to a perfect world. If you add to your collection, the idea of shelf numbering may not be something you want to have to keep updating in the database as books move from one shelf to another. Calculating shelf space needed is usually pretty straight forward (but always add at least 30% if you don't want to spend more time moving books than reading them.
Of course there are nuggets that cataloging novices may not have thought of and the price is not prohibitive but if you are looking for that final solution to your personal library, this is really just a signpost that can point you into better directions.
Rating: 
Summary: The book is more helpful than the software
Review: My main problem with this set is that the software, while simple and attractive to use for recording one's personal relationship with one's books (in addition to some standard cataloguing data, there are categories like how you acquired it, its physical condition, your rating of it, whether or not you've read it) and some practical details like which shelf number it's on and to whom you may have loaned it, just isn't powerful enough to solve the problem I bought it for, which is to make it possible for me to really search my collection effectively. To do this, I would like to record not only titles, but what Kathie Coblentz calls "other access points", which could be the names of authors whose essays appear in a collection, for example. It's also the case that, while you may record several authors for a book, the search function will only find an author in the position in which you entered it, (so you may have to do several separate searches to find all the books on which a particular person's name is listed as author). So this won't save me the trouble of setting up my own database, as I had rather hoped it would.The book is more helpful, with sections on figuring out ways to group books together into categories, how much shelf space you need for each category, a system for numbering shelves so that you can use the software to know where in your collection to find them (more useful if you have the luxury of making these shelves be partially full, so that you just add books to existing space, rather than moving categories around when you add new bookshelves), preservation techniques, and tips for culling the collection. The largest piece in the set is the ring-binder with a number of landscape-oriented brown sheets of paper, for you to print out your booklist. Again, this is probably more useful for the person who wants to lovingly look over the data about their books than for someone who is adding new books all the time and will put such a list out of date regularly. So if you're seriously looking to bring a large set of books under searchable control and are comfortable using software, this is probably underpowered for you. But for the book-lover whose books are treasured objects (someone who collects first editions when they find the ones they want, for instance) and who is comfortable enough with a computer to enter some data and print it out in order to then be able to handle a physical list of their books, this is a nice gift set.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Unfortunately I concur with the semtiments of the other reviewers. I ordered the system based on the writeup in the New York Times. At least I can save the $40 price by ordering books from Amazon.com. First, I could not open the CD-ROM, but apparently the program is not useful. Second, book's main virtue is as a general discussion of book cataloguing and organizing, best suited to a collector of fine books rather than someone (like me) who buys too many and needs to find them at home, rather than duplicating an academic library setting. For the basis of my collection's organization I used The Reader's Catalog. It works great because of its index to over 40,000 books, a well thought-out plan, and the convenience of being a paperback book with complete bibiographic data on the books. Why type in an ISBN when they are easily available from Amazon or in a book like the Catalog?
Rating:
Summary: software is useless- book mediocre
Review: Unless you're a data-entry maven, the software is worse than useless. Why waste hours of time entering the info for your books, when the technology exists to simply enter the ISBN and get all the relevant data? (see www.bookcrossing.com to see how easy this could be) The "shelf feet" info was somewhat confusing, suggestions for classifying by genre was vague, and the material could have been presented in a much more logical fashion. Layout of the book also lacks...although non-fiction isn't necessarily as compelling as fiction, this really puts me to sleep. There is some good information in here, but overall it is a dissappointment. I am only hoping that it doesn't take potential librarians and turn them off from the whole idea. This book reads like a marian-the-librarian steriotype. Libraries can be vibrant, alive and FUN. This book is none of the above.
Rating:
Summary: software is useless- book mediocre
Review: Unless you're a data-entry maven, the software is worse than useless. Why waste hours of time entering the info for your books, when the technology exists to simply enter the ISBN and get all the relevant data? (see www.bookcrossing.com to see how easy this could be) The "shelf feet" info was somewhat confusing, suggestions for classifying by genre was vague, and the material could have been presented in a much more logical fashion. Layout of the book also lacks...although non-fiction isn't necessarily as compelling as fiction, this really puts me to sleep. There is some good information in here, but overall it is a dissappointment. I am only hoping that it doesn't take potential librarians and turn them off from the whole idea. This book reads like a marian-the-librarian steriotype. Libraries can be vibrant, alive and FUN. This book is none of the above.
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