Booklister for Libraries

Booklister is free, including for libraries. The tool at booklister.org is the full tool with no restrictions, and it always will be. There is nothing behind a paywall.

That said, I can sometimes set up a branded instance for a library that wants one. A branded instance is the same tool with your library's name, logo, and subdomain baked in, plus staff accounts so your team can manage their own access. It's something I do on a case-by-case basis when I have the time, not a service I sell.

What a branded instance includes

Your library's name and logo become the defaults, so every booklist your staff creates starts on-brand without manual setup. You get a subdomain like libraryname.booklister.org, and a designated admin at your library can add and remove staff through a simple admin console without going through me. You would need to provide a logo image for your library with a min resolution of 3000 x 900 px so that it prints at high quality. The underlying tool is identical to the public one. If the branded instance ever has an issue, your staff can fall back to booklister.org and keep working.

Companion browser extension

If your catalog runs on BiblioCommons, there's a free browser extension called Booklister Helper that captures titles straight from catalog pages into Booklister with one click. Staff browse the catalog the way they normally would, click the extension's toolbar icon, and the title, author, call number, and cover land on their clipboard ready to paste into Booklister's Quick Add. It's the fastest way to build a booklist when your library catalog is BiblioCommons-powered. The extension is free for anyone to install regardless of whether your library has a branded instance.

Description drafter

Every title has a description field that staff click into and type. That's how descriptions get written by default, on the public tool and on branded instances alike. A branded instance can also optionally include an AI feature that drafts one for a title.

That feature, though, is not something I can commit to providing for free across the board the way I can with the rest of Booklister. Every click costs me a small amount in LLM API charges, and that scales with usage in a way the rest of the tool doesn't. So it's opt-in, by request, and entirely at my discretion. I expect to enable it only for a small number of libraries. If you'd find it useful, mention it when you get in touch, but please don't count on it as part of a branded instance. I also reserve the right to turn it off for any library at any time if costs grow past what I can carry on my own. The full policy is in the Terms.

Where it is enabled, staff click a wand icon on a title (the Magic button) and a drafted description fills the field, ready to edit or replace like any other text. There's also a toggle that drafts automatically as titles are added. It runs in one of two modes, and I set which one your instance uses: either it takes the title and author and looks the book up itself, or it only condenses a summary your staff paste in, like a publisher blurb or the summary from your catalog record. That second mode is the one to ask for if verification is the sticking point for your library, since the source is one a staff member chose and already has in front of them.

Either way, the staff member's judgment is the last word on what a description says. AI text can mix up two books with similar titles in perfectly confident prose, so every draft gets read before it prints, and keeping it, rewriting the parts that are off, or throwing it out and writing something better are all fine outcomes. Your staff know the books and the readers; the drafter is just there to save them a blank page.

Setting expectations

This is a side project I maintain around my day job. I can't promise I'll be able to set up every library that asks, and I can't commit to specific timelines or dedicated support. I work on bugs and improvements when I can, and anything I build rolls out to the public tool and every branded instance alike. If you're looking for a vendor relationship with SLAs and guaranteed response times, this isn't that.

If your library ever decides to stop using a branded instance, send me a note from the contact page and I'll remove the configuration, staff accounts, and branding. Download anything you still want (saved .booklist files, exported PDFs) before the takedown.

Getting in touch

If you're curious whether a branded instance makes sense for your library, the best first step is a short note from the contact page. No commitment needed on either side.