Books and Authors OK is very user-friendly software that provides everything you need for cataloging books and creating a database of all authors and literary works they have written. The program is therefore aimed at researchers, students, managers of libraries or book shops and any reading enthusiasts who want to organize the books in their collections quickly and effectively, as well as create biographical archives of authors and keep track of their works.
The Authors and Bibliographies app is designed to store the biographical and bibliographical information of your favorite authors indicating, of each of them, their pen and birth names, gender, place and date of birth, nationality, the titles of their masterpieces and the subjects they deal with, other notable works, their spouses, children and parents, their dates of death and burial places if they are authors of the past, their education and occupation, the literary movements and genres they are generally associated with, the historical periods in which they live or have lived, the first and last work they wrote, the literary awards they received, an evaluation of their literary skills, and any additional biographical notes.
To enter a record in the database, click on the New button, fill in the relevant text fields, upload a photo of the author and press the Save button. To update an existing record, you must open it using the record scroll arrows or the search function, make the desired changes and press Save. The Duplicate button is useful if you need to save two or more records with very similar data because they refer, for example, to authors with the same background. To duplicate a record, just open the one already stored in the database, click on the Duplicate button, enter the new data and press Save.
The Load picture button allows you to insert the author's photo in Jpeg or Bitmap format in the record. This image is automatically scaled to fit the size of the preview box. It is however possible to view the photo in full screen by clicking on the zoom icon. The picture visible in the box can be saved to disk or deleted at any time using the appropriate buttons.
By using the Attach Files button it is possible to attach documents of any kind to the record of each author (for example, a digital copy of their masterpieces).
The Slide Show button shows in sequence, at six-second intervals and in full screen, all the photos of the authors in the database. Once the last photo in the database has been viewed, the slide show starts from the beginning. To exit slide show mode, simply click anywhere on the screen.
The software allows you to carry out advanced searches in the database even using a partial search key, that is, indicating one or more consecutive words contained in any text field. For each search you can refer to one or more fields at the same time. For example, you can obtain a list of all the authors in the database whose works fall within a specific literary genre or of those who received a certain literary award.
After saving the record, pressing the Bibliography button gives you access to a window where you can list and print all the works written by the author. To add a book to the list, just press the Add book button, fill in the text fields in the window that appears, press Save and then Close. For each book you must indicate the title, the year and city of publication, the literary genre and the pubishing house.
To edit a book in the list, you need to select it with a click, press the Update book button, make the desired corrections, additions or deletions in the text fields, press Save and then Close. At the bottom of the list is the total number of books stored.
You can export each database to a Microsoft Excel file to be able to share the data with those who do not have the same software. The individual records of the authors accompanied by their photos can be previewed or printed on paper.
The Library Management app is aimed at reading enthusiasts and libraries that want to manage their books quickly and professionally. This app allows you to catalog all of the books on the shelves of your library and consult them comfortably seated in front of your computer. It will be enough to store the details of your books into the clear and simple database and then find them in the search screen. Here you will be able to query the book archive by different criteria and print the summaries on paper. The book archive can be exported to an Excel file to be shared even with those who do not own Books and Authors OK.
The app provides a work environment with some text fields in which you need to enter information about each work in your library. The individual records of the book database can be viewed on the screen or printed on paper.
The data to indicate concern the title of the book, the author's name, the country, the year of publication, the publisher, the city of publication, the Dewey decimal classification number, the literary genre, the ISBN code assigned to the volume, the language and the original title of the work, the translator's name, any collection or series of which the work is part, the editor's name, the shelf on which the book is placed, the shelf mark showing the exact position of the book in the library, the number of volumes composing the work, the format of the book, the total number of pages, the price, a critical evaluation of the work and any further notes.
In each record you can import a photo of the book cover in Jpeg or Bitmap format. You can then save the photos on the hard disk of your computer and then import them into the book archive with the appropriate button. The picture is automatically scaled to fit the size of the preview box. It is possible, however, to view the cover image in full screen by clicking on the zoom icon. Each photo can be saved to disk or deleted at any time using the appropriate buttons.
To insert the record of a new book, click on the New button, fill in the text fields, upload the photo of the cover and press Save. If you want to create a new record keeping the contents of all the text fields of a previously stored record, you must press the Duplicate button, make any desired changes or additions, upload the new cover photo and click Save. This function can be useful when you have to record the different volumes that make up the same work.
The Attached Files function allows you to attach three files of any kind to each book record which could contain, for example, a digital copy of the same book in PDF format or a photo of the author.
The Find button allows you to search among the files in the book database and retrieve the one you are interested in with a double click. It is also possible to search the book database using multiple filters at the same time. This allows you, for example, to obtain a list of all the books by an author belonging to a specific literary genre or those published by a certain publishing house.
The Slide Show button shows in sequence, at six-second intervals and in full screen, all the pictures of the book covers in the archive. Once the last picture in the archive has been viewed, the slide show starts from the beginning. To exit slide show mode, simply click anywhere on the screen.
At any time you can view the print preview of the book record by clicking on the Preview button. If you want to print the same record directly on paper, just press the Print button.
The Export to Excel button allows you to export the textual data present in the book database into a Microsoft Excel worksheet, which can be opened with any software capable of managing files in XLS format (for example, with Open Office, Libre Office or Microsoft Office). After opening the window containing the data grid, click on the Excel icon. This operation creates in real time a file in XLS format containing the records of the books in the database, which can be opened immediately by answering affirmatively to the question message that appears. At this point, you can save the file on your hard disk and name it as you wish.
Access to the software is protected by a user-customizable password that can be changed as often as desired. For the first access to the software, you must use the keyword "password" (written without the quotation marks). If you forget your password, send an e-mail to the author of the software at info@espositosoftware.it using the sentence "Forgot login password for Books and Authors OK" as a subject line. In response to your e-mail, you will receive instructions to reset your password.
In conclusion, Books and Authors OK is the ideal tool for all reading lovers looking for an app that allows them to easily and accurately organize the books that fill the shelves of their libraries and create a database of authors and bibliographies. The user will be pleasantly surprised to see how the software requires practically no learning time.
