For schools, colleges & small libraries
Point your phone at a book.
It's already cataloged.
BeeShelf is the library system for institutions that never had an IT department. Cataloging takes seconds, checkout takes a tap, and your members get a catalog they actually want to open.
Free to start. No card. Your data exports the day you ask for it.
A real record, built from a scan in under two seconds.
Why we built it
A library isn't a place that lends books. It's a place that helps people become readers, and keeps what a community knows within reach.
Most library software forgot that. It's good at due dates and fines and nothing past them. BeeShelf does the routine work so well you stop noticing it, and puts the rest of its effort into the part that was the point all along.
Cataloging
From a pile of donations to a shelf, in an afternoon.
Scan a barcode and the full record is there: cover, author, a real publisher summary, a suggested shelf. No barcode? Photograph the cover and BeeShelf reads the title to find it.
- Real catalog data first. We only ask AI to fill the gaps a publisher left, and we label it when we do.
- The first time anyone on BeeShelf scans a book, everyone gets that record for free. Your catalog gets faster as more libraries join.
- Clean records land approved; the doubtful ones wait in a review pile. You never babysit the easy ones.
Circulation
Six kids, four minutes, one of you. Done before the bell.
Checkout runs from your phone, standing in the middle of the room. Scan a card, scan a book, it's out. The confirmation is instant, so a line of restless readers never turns into a jam.
- Sub-second confirmation, even on a patchy connection.
- Renewals, holds, and fines you can find and change yourself, without a support ticket.
- Fine-free if that's your policy. It's a setting, not a special request.
Discovery
A catalog the kids who never read actually want to wander through.
This is the part no other library system tries. Covers, not call numbers. A space that leans toward what you like the more you explore it, the way a good shelf in a good bookshop seems to know you. There's a real book on the shelf at the end of every drift through it.
Because you loved Tomorrow's Tide
- The Salt Road N. Okri coastal, quiet, literary
- Migrations C. McConaghy sea, longing, climate
- A Tale for the Time Being R. Ozeki tides, memory
- The Old Drift N. Serpell place across time
The same list a screen reader gets. The space is the view; the ranking is the truth underneath it.
Requests
When a search comes up empty, that's information.
Every other system shrugs at "no results" and throws the request away. BeeShelf asks the member if they'd like it, then ranks what people are asking for so you can spend the book budget on what your community actually wants. When it arrives, the people who asked get a note.
- Duplicate asks collapse into one entry with a count, so you see demand, not noise.
- Ranking you can read and adjust, never a black box.
- Mark it acquired and everyone who wanted it is notified, with a hold waiting.
Stocktake
The yearly count, done in an afternoon instead of a week.
Walk the shelves and sweep your phone along the spines. Anything the system expects but doesn't see gets flagged. You end the day with a clean list of what's missing and what's out of place, not a week of dread you keep postponing.
- Every scan you already do keeps the count current, so this is barely extra work.
- Works in the stacks where the signal is bad, and catches up when you're back in range.
- Fix a wrong "lost" flag or a shelving slip right from the list.
Privacy
Reading is private. We built the system that way.
A taste profile makes discovery better, and it belongs to the member, not to us. They can see exactly what it knows, and a school can turn personalization off entirely and run on popularity alone. Nothing is ever sold, and your whole catalog exports the day you ask.
Make it yours
It carries your name, not ours.
Members see the library's brand, not a vendor's. Try it: one colour re-skins the whole thing.
Pick a colour
One colour and a logo re-skin every screen your members see. The yellow Borrow button never moves. The colour that means "do it" stays constant, on purpose.
Who it's for
Built for the libraries the big systems forgot.
Schools
Get a class reading without an IT department or a budget for one.
Small colleges
Real cataloging standards when you want them, hidden when you don't.
Special & corporate
Keep what your organization knows findable instead of forgotten.
NGOs & community
Nearly free, nearly self-explanatory, forgiving of a shaky connection.
Catalog your first shelf today.
Free to start, no card, and your library is online in the time it used to take to find the login page.