Collectorz.com Newsletter July 2007

Dear collector,

In this newsletter:

New: Book Collector 5 for Windows
Top Tip: Keep a copy of your collection in a safe place
The Big Question: How do I print a selection of my collection?
Meet The Collector: Kees Buis and his huge book and comic collection
Job Opening: Web Developer

New: Book Collector 5 for Windows

On July 10 we released a major update of Book Collector for Windows, version 5. This major upgrade has a lot of new features like full ISBN-13 support, improved Loan Management, e-Book and Audio Book support, new Print templates and improved network support. The network support was a frequently asked feature request; not only individual collectors use our book software but also small libraries, churches and foundations.
For them it’s essential that the database can be locked to prevent concurrent editing. When one user is already using the database in Writable mode, subsequent users will automatically open the database in Read-Only mode.
Read more about the new features of Book Collector 5, including screenshots here.
BTW: the improved Loan Management and Network support are now also available in Movie Collector’s 5.2 version.

Top Tip: Keep a copy of your collection in a safe place

Some customers periodically print out a list of their collection and put it in a safe deposit (or other safe place but not at home) for insurance purposes. In case of fire, theft, a tornado or other doom scenario, you’ll always have an accurate overview of your losses.
As one of our customers calculated “Since the risk for not having the information in case of fire can run as much as $20 per item it is important to have them captured in an inventory program. Running the numbers the potential loss could be: 100 * $20 = $ 2,000; 500 * $20 = $10,000; 1.000 * $20 = $20,000 and so on! I have somewhere between 3.000 and 5.000 pieces of Movies, Music (CD's) and Books that I risk should I not have them inventoried.”
You can either print a list or make a digital copy of your database on a regular basis.

The Big Question: How do I print a selection of my collection?

You can print a list of all items in your database but you can also print just a selection. For example: you can print all your Stephen King books, all your ‘wanted’ CDs or print a list of all your western movies. The trick is to make the selection you want before you hit the Print button.

To set a selection make sure your main screen is in List View and in No Folder mode (use View / Folders / No Folders).
Now, there are three different ways to select a part of your collection:
- Manually select the items you want by clicking them while holding down the Ctrl key.
- Use the Quick Search or Filter to search the items you want. After searching, select all results by clicking in the list, then choose Edit / Select All from the menu (or hit Ctrl-A).
- Use the In Collection status filter (Search / In Collection Status) when you want a list of all your wanted books, CDs, movies etc. or use any of the other statuses. Again, hit Ctrl-A to select all results.
After you have made the selection, use the Print command. You will find that in the top left of the Print screen, the Selected […] option is now available and automatically activated.

Meet The Collector: Kees Buis and his huge book and comic collection

We at Collectorz.com see a lot of collections from our customers when they contact us for support, through submissions to our online databases or to proudly show us their collection on a website or blog. Let's meet one of them: Kees Buis.
Kees lives in The Netherlands and he owns somewhere around 10.000 books and over 2.000 comics. His book collection (SF, fantasy, horror and thrillers) used to be stored in boxes but he bought 26 huge bookcases, started unpacking his books and adding them to Book Collector.
Next to books he also has large numbers of comics and he added them to Comic Collector. He is planning on using the information from both programs to maintain his bookstore online. You can visit his website at DeBoekenplank.nl (in Dutch).
Besides these programs Kees uses Movie Collector for his collection of some 800 DVDs.
Kees was the first customer to post photos of his collection on our forum and this started an interesting thread with collectors posting photos of their valuables. Please feel free to post photos of your collection as well (we did).

Job opening: Web Developer

Yes, we’re hiring! We’re looking for a Web Developer to create a new web-based interface for our online databases for music, movies, games and comics. He or she must be an experienced Web Developer and have an affinity with user interface and user-interaction design. And being a collector yourself will certainly be an advantage.
If you’re qualified and interested in this position at our office in Amsterdam, the Netherlands please click here to read the full job description on our corporate website.

- Happy collecting -

The Collectorz.com team,
Mark-Jan, Alwin, Bernard, Peter, Syts, AJ, Mark, Henk-Jan, Ronald and Vinnie
www.collectorz.com

Any ideas for coming newsletters or do you want to suggest a topic? Contact us here, we love to hear your thoughts.