Live today: a huge update for the CLZ Books Web web-based software, with one big new feature:
Automatic book values
You can now get get values for your books from CLZ Core, based on average prices on various online used book stores. Values are automatically filled in when you Add Books from Core.
To get values for your existing books, use Update Values from the menu.
You can also use this, e.g. weekly, to get updates for the values.
Update Values in menu:
Update Values Report:
The book values are shown in the book details panel, near the top.
You can also add “Value” as a column in your list view and sort on it:
Finally, view value statistics and most valuable book lists in the Statistics screen:
Other changes:
- The old “Current Value” field has been renamed to “My Value” and lets you either OVERRIDE the automatically provided value. Or just fill in a value for books that did not get an automatic value.
- Get automatic retail prices in the Retail Price field (previously named “Cover Price”).
- Optionally use the Retail Price as a “fallback value”, when an automatic Value is not available.
- Sort your book list by Value
What to expect for your book collection?
First: with close to 40 million books in our CLZ Core database, we will not be able to provide a value for all books in your collection. In particular, books without ISBN will not get values, as our value system is purely based on ISBN lookups.
Currently, our Core and Cloud statistics show that CLZ Books users will get a value for around 83% of their books, on average.
Your mileage may vary of course. For example, if you own mostly mainstream US books with ISBN, your percentage may be closer to 90%. On the other hand, if you own mostly antique books, or only books in the Polish language, your coverage will probably be much lower.
The coverage of books with a value may slightly improve over time, as we are still gathering value information for less popular books.