I’ve been trying out Delicious Library 2, and I must say, I’ve fallen in love with it.  For those of you who haven’t checked it out, it’s one of the many library programs out there that help you organize your stuff, although I do believe it far outranks anything else I have previously used.  For a girl whose book collection has officially overflowed off of her three floor to ceiling bookshelves and into various boxes, having a way to organize my books (especially between moves between home, college, and wherever) is always greatly appreciated.  Now I have in the past used various free applications before, both for Windows and Linux, but since my recent switch to the wonders of Mac, I figured I might as well try out a Mac product.  And so I downloaded the demo.

First thing I noticed, beyond the sleek, pretty look, was that not only did Delicious Library 2 keep track of my books, but it also imported everything from my iTunes.  Now, I’m not saying that it was a necessary feature, honestly, if I want to know what’s in my iTunes library, I can always just click on iTunes and look through there.  However, it was the first sign of just how much information that Delicious Library 2 was prepared to handle.  Not only does it keep track of books, but it keeps track of movies, videos, and games (I scanned Munchkin on a whim to see if it would work).  Oh, and that leads me to the best part – you can use your webcam to scan the barcodes of your stuff into the computer.  When the book/movie/whatever gets scanned, the computer reads out loud the name of the item, all the while having a nifty little animation of the book/movie/whatever appearing.  (Although I still like deleting stuff, and watching the book go up in flame in the process).

Now with the demo version I was using, the scanning thing didn’t always work.  Or rather it did, but instead of scanning the random Star Wars book I was attempting to scan, the computer told me it was attempting to read Ishmael or some random help your teen book.  However, when that happens, you can always do the happy-fire-delete-the-book-thing and then search for the book manually, which was surprisingly easy alternative.

And finally, you can keep track of where your books are – whether you’ve loaned them out to a friend, or, if you’re like me, keep track of which books are in storage at home or hidden in the clutter of a dorm room, mixed in with all your room mate’s stuff.  Apparently you can also post your library online so others can see what books you have too.

So despite the few issues, I forked over the forty bucks.  The recent update to the program has actually improved performance (less misfires with the whole barcode scanning thing), and there is now an iphone app now (I think that’s what the latest update said), for all of you who happen to have iphones.

My opinion: 4 1/2 out of 5 stars.