Free tool

A clean home library spreadsheet.

For readers whose books quietly multiply: catalog what you own, where it lives, and what it did to your heart. Works in Google Sheets and Excel. No signup, no watermark, no clutter.

Download for Excel & Sheets Download as CSV

Free forever. A gift from one book collector to another.

ISBN	Title	Author	Genre	Format	Location	Acquired	Status	Rating	My notes
9780141439518	Pride and Prejudice	Jane Austen	Fiction	Softcover	Living room	2015	Read	5	Reread every few winters.
9780547928227	The Hobbit	J. R. R. Tolkien	Fantasy	Softcover	Living room	2019-12-25	Read	4	Read aloud over Christmas break.
9780451524935	1984	George Orwell	Fiction	Softcover	Office	2021-03-02	Read	4
9781400033416	Beloved	Toni Morrison	Fiction	Hardcover	Bedroom	2024-05-14	Currently reading		Book club pick for May.

The first columns of the sheet, with its four example rows. Publisher, publication year, page count, and date read columns are in the download too.

What's inside

One row per book, three kinds of columns.

The sheet is organized the way librarians actually think: facts about the book, facts about your copy, and your reading life. Dropdowns for genre, format, location, and status are fed by lists you control, and four example rows keep the seats warm until your own books arrive.

The book

What's true of this edition anywhere. The ISBN from the back cover pins down exactly which printing you own.

ISBN · Title · Author · Genre · Format · Publisher · Year · Pages

Your copy

What makes it yours: the shelf it lives on and the day it came home.

Location · Acquired

Your reading

Your reading record: whether you've read it, what you rated it, when you finished, and what you thought.

Status · Rating · Date read · My notes

How to use it

Five minutes to a working catalog.

Open the file in Google Sheets (File, then Import) or Excel.
Add one row per book. The ISBN is on the back cover or the copyright page.
Tune the Lists tab so the dropdowns match your shelves and genres.
Sort and filter freely. The header row stays put.
Replace the example rows with your own stacks.

And later, if you want

When the spreadsheet starts to feel like homework.

Typing every title is fine for fifty books. It stops being fine a few piles later, somewhere between the loan you forgot and the nightstand drawer that eats paperbacks. Bookplate reads this exact file, no cleanup first. Here's the example sheet's Hobbit row, about two minutes after import:

ISBN	Title	Author	Location	Status	Rating	My notes
9780547928227	The Hobbit	J. R. R. Tolkien	Living room	Read	4	Read aloud over Christmas break.

one upload later

The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

Fantasy + tag

Softcover · shelved in Living room · in your library since December 2019

Additional detail · Synopsis · Publication

Read ★★★★☆

"Read aloud over Christmas break."

The whole household reads from one shelf

You typed one spreadsheet row. The cover, the pages, the publication details, and a library your whole household can share came with the upload. Ratings are part of the shared shelf; your notes stay yours alone.

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Questions

Cataloging a home library, answered.

How do I catalog my home library?

Go shelf by shelf, one row per book. Record the ISBN plus where the book lives; title and author keep the row readable at a glance. A spreadsheet is the fastest zero-cost way to start, and dropdown lists keep genres and locations consistent as the catalog grows.

Where do I find a book's ISBN?

On the barcode on the back cover, or on the copyright page inside. Books printed before about 1970 may not have one; leave the cell blank and record the title and author instead.

What columns should a book inventory spreadsheet have?

Three kinds: facts about the book (ISBN, title, author, genre, format, publisher, year, pages), facts about your copy (location, date acquired), and your reading record (status, rating, date read, notes). This template ships with all three groups ready to use.

Does the template work in Google Sheets?

Yes. Open Google Sheets, choose File, then Import, and upload the Excel file. The dropdowns and the editable lists behind them come across intact.

Is the template really free?

Yes. Free forever, no signup, no watermark. It comes from Bookplate, a private home library app built by a reader with the same beautiful problem, and the template is yours to keep whether or not you ever use the app.

Can I add my own columns?

Add anything you like. If you later import the sheet into Bookplate, columns it doesn't recognize are simply left alone rather than causing errors.