Starting to Inventory My Library and Organize

I have never had any problems adding to Open Office. I have all the cases of sorted tubes entered in it, that I have had time to do. A few more thousand entries to go though.
You might contact Open Office Develpoers to find out if you got a version with a bug in it.

As a follow up on my workbench, I decided to Go with a woodworkers workbench from Harbor freight.
My friend deepened the back and we installed a top shelf for test equipment. I have re-arranged my on the bench test equipment yesterday,

1. Digital voltmeters and counters stacked such as - Fluke,8840A/AF, 45,8010A,1900A, Racal-Dana 1992.

2. Signal generators HP3325A, Fluke/Philips PM5135,

3.  and my analog HP series of cracker box sized test equipment side by side such as the HP 400E, 410C,4260A,6227B.

They were entered into my Test Equipment inventory in Excel.
So Excel is becoming my go to Reference.

There is something wrong with the structure of OpenOffice, in order to use a database, it has to use the spreadsheet for its data, and if you want to add data you have to do it in the spreadsheet. So the database is  read only, but maybe I'm wrong.

So I ended up using Excel to do my library all over again. It took me almost 4-1/2 days to enter all the data.
I have done over 430 books so far. Now I'm cleaning off the couch of stacked books. which was about a 3rd of what I have In radio-orientated subjects. 

I filled up 4 boxes with just my 4-day project, Now to Split my 2 metal wire racks, from each other, remove all my junk from one of them and reposition one against an outer wall I had Tubes. stereo receivers. turntables, a signal generator (HP 606A), military RCL Bridges (2) and such stuff. Then Reload with Just Test equipment. The other Metal rack will Hold just AKRO type Parts cabinets. Then I will assemble a new bookcase I just picked up from Wallmart. That will go up on the backside of the remaining Rack in the center of the room and I should have enough room left to put My Roll around tool chest.

After that, I will start putting numbered stickers on the books spines. Another time-consuming task

Sorry, don't know why. To avoid further problems, please PM me at tselleroneathotmaildotcom. Substitute numeral for "one" and the usual marks for "at" and "dot."

I never got them.

FrankB: Please PM me re my recent PM's to you, which remain unacknowledged, causing me to wonder if you did, in fact, receive them. Thanks.

Geez- I hate to think how long its going to inventory all the manuals and books I have. You have more gumption than I go at this point. I really need to do it, and get rid of all the duplicates I have. maybe I can make some bux on the books though.
(And no- the original 1912-1919 Gernsback "How To Make..." manuals won't be sold. They are mint and very interesting to read. Not to mention they are pretty rare.)
At least I have most of my magazines on paper, so I can take it to the hamfairs to PU what I am missing.

Cliff, I admire you for doing what I've started a good half dozen times already.

I have a decent library of hard copy material, but it's the electronic formats that far outnumber the hard copy collection. I have Filemaker Pro 10, and have data bases for my tube, and semiconductor inventory already done. Or, at least, they are just about up to date with what I have in my stash.

My semiconductor data base has entries for the part number, NTE cross reference, what the item is, a place for notes, a box to describe the item as new or used, how many I have in stock, their location, a price of each, and the total of all the stock I have of that item. The prices are just for reference only. It was also a way to get to learn how to use some of the functions of Filemaker.

I also have Office 2007 and wonder about using Access to do my books. I just can't seem to get the hang of that program though, so I'm leaning to the Filemaker program again for the library data base too.

Keep us posted please as to your progress. I may wish to borrow some of your ideas for when I actually get around to doing mine.

Cheers, Bob

I have been meaning to do this for some time and have had several false starts in the past.
I am going to use OpenOffice.ORG It is just like Microsoft Office, but it is free. It has all the same tools including Wizards to help set up the database.

I have renamed my DataBase Radio Library
You have several choices that allow you to use pre-existing templates, I chose the Personal rather than Business button. One of the choices is Library which I chose and selected the fields that I wanted.
I renamed the fields and changed the order. I moved the Title to the top followed by Author then Publisher, Date, and cover (soft or hardback), ISBN then Location in my library. I think I will have to also assign a number to each book. I just thought I may use the Key that the database assigns to each record. I have already used the wizard to make up a form to enter the data into, Its visually easier to follow that way and also a report to make a (printout) list. I have 28 books listed so far.
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Now I will use the database to make up an Inventory of parts. This should go a long way to help organize my repairs. I also have a small workbench that I picked up at Harbor Freight, but it isn't deep enough to hold test equipment. My friend suggested that I use a solid core door. I think I will do that and use file cabinets under it for support and storage.