LibraryThing does CueCats! (we're even selling them)
LibraryThing makes entering your books easy, but it still takes time. A barcode scanner can be a big help. So, we've bought one hundred CueCat scanners (Wikipedia | more photos), and are offering them for fifteen bucks, including shipping anywhere in the United States. That's about as good as they get on eBay. And your purchase helps the site.So, go ahead and buy a CueCat.
Other details:
- We're selling "unmodified" USB CueCats. Unmodified CueCats produce somewhat scrambled data, but we've put the translation right into LibraryThing's system. This turns .C3nZC3nZC3n2D3D3DNr7DxnY.CNf7.CNbWDhfWCNvWCNnZChzZC3nZC3nZC3j0 into 7231631002. See links on Wikipedia for directions on "declawing" your CueCat for use elsewhere.
- LibraryThing now reads Borders product codes (eg., the code above), converting them to ISBNs (see announcement).
- Barcode scanning has been made easier. We've added a "Skip confirmation" checkbox, that allows you to scan a shelf of books without touching your mouse or keyboard. (Having done it both ways, I can tell you that CueCat works a lot better than webcam scanning.)
- I've made a CueCat help and support group.
posted by Tim at 12:44 PM
76 Comments:
Looks like quite an incentive to finish entering my library into LT.
Do you know whether the CueCats work with Linux? Ubuntu 6.06 to be more precise :)
I'm sure someone's made a driver, as the Unix community was in the front of the CueCat hacking trend, back when the company existed and was telling people not to hack them.
I know that USB :CueCats (with or without the colon) work on MacOS with a US keyboard selected; I believe that they are a straight plug-in to Linux too. You should not need drivers at all, they work as an extra keyboard.
DeClawing a USB CueCat is very simple - you need to cut one leg on a chip. A steady hand and a sharp knife will do it in less than a minute. Ask me if you need directions and I'll take some pictures.
We decided not to declaw because it's extra bother for us, and we have it working without it. I feel that most "regular" people will be turned off by the idea of unscrewing the back and cutting pins on a chip. I know my father wouldn't mess with that, and he's my test audience for such things.
I love it when it's plug and play in Linux :D I'm buying one, then.
And where the hell was this three months ago, back when I was inputting my library? ;- )
As you know: What's funny is, I thought everyone knew about CueCats. They're available on eBay by the thousands. But apparently not. The demand on LT is amazing...
I've been using a cuecat to scan into readerware, then importing the csv text file to LT. Works great. Even easier now. Good stuff!
Tim: " What's funny is, I thought everyone knew about CueCats."
Of course, everyone knew about them...
heck, everybody on the internets got one in the mail...
but mine got smashed by kids within weeks of its arrival.
It never really crossed my mind that such an Edsel was still being repurposed as a Force for Good. I mean, you hear mention of the mythical warehouse full of CueCats, but, seeing as how they were once both ubiquitous and free, it never crossed my mind to buy one to play with.
Just a note in case anyone's unclear on it: the USB CueCat is identified as a Human Interface Device, or HID. Like a USB Mass Storage Device, this interface allows a system to write one driver for all USB devices of that class.
The short version is, if your OS can support USB keyboards, then it will work with a USB CueCat.
How about shipping one to Greece?
No problem. Greece is reachable by mail. It's $5 extra, you'll see.
"I find the colon an offense against the English Language, and the company that made them went out of business..." OMG! I better stock up on semicolons and commas while I can.
Just got my CueCat--that was fast, folks, that was VERY fast. Can't wait to play with it!
Okay, that sentence does leave itself open to gramatical misconstruction, which is pretty bad when being grammar snob. But I misspoke--I'm really a *typographical* snob. :CueCat isn't bad grammar, it's *tacky*, like naming your kid Mishellhe or Lowreign. Accept the straighjacket of convention and don't put punctuation in front of your product name!
Great, now 1% of LibraryThing users hate me.
Did you see we ran out? 3.5 days and we're waiting for the next crate. I'm looking forward to the breather, actually. LibraryThing was a really "low touch" business until I had to start filling out customs forms and hauling paper bags of product to the post office. (Fortunately, there's a nice burrito place opposite it and, well, I have to eat, don't I?). I have half a mind to raise the international price, not to cover the postage ($5 is about average) but the annoyance factor. I can understand why Israel needs to know I'm sending "one barcode reader," but Canada? Shouldn't NAFTA mean a shorter form--like "Check here if this is illegal."
Fortunately, Abby ordered LibraryThing address stamps. Unfortuantely, she ordered them to go to Boston. Fortunately, my case ran out today and she's getting the next one. Woo-hoo!
Okay, back to the amazingly complex problem of balanced recommendation lists...
Is it possible that my prose style is impacted by watching three hours of the Gillmore Girls?
Oh, it's fortunate that the address stamps are coming to me, especially since the next case of CueCats is. I have no desire to get hand cramps like you, Tim :)
Turn off the Gilmore Girls. Back slowly away.
Wow. Good on you for picking up a pile of the leftovers. I thought everyone knew about them as well. Not to undercut your business, but there are a number of the declawed version up on ebay at any given moment for about the same price. Mine's been a tremendous help (even though I'm sort of stuck at the end of a shelf and haven't put anything in for a while).
It is also possible to use them to enter tags. Grab a barcode font, make a sheet with your common tags, put the cursor in the box, and scan. Works like a charm (takes a little manipulating the text if you're using a Dvorak keyboard layout, but very easily done).
"...like naming your kid Mishellhe or Lowreign."
Heh, when my wife did her rotation through the OB/GYN ward some woman named her new-born daughter Vagina.
The CueCat works out of the box in Linux Ubuntu Dapper 6.06. I declawed it and it works like a charm. Plug and play USB.
Got mine today and it worked right out of the mailer! Thanks for getting this!
Just got mine yesterday, and I love it! Its going to be a life saver when I get home and enter the rest of my library over Thanksgiving break!
Your wikilink should be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat instead of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuecat .
Using the second is better, since the first one is now a redirect.
Ohcrap! I got them mixed up!!
It's "Cuecat" that is a redirect, not "CueCat."
Sorry.
Will CueCat scan without being connected to a computer? I mean, can it store the information for uploading later on?
My computer is in a different room than my library, so I'm not sure I could use it. I hope it works without being connected because it would save so much time in cataloging my books at LT.
I'm woefully tech-illiterate, so any information I might receive here in regards to this question would be most gratefully appreciated.
fleuree: Unfortunately, no. There are such scanners, although I'm not authority enough to suggest one.
This is perhaps a very stupid question, but how do I use this? I plug the CueCat into my Mac's USB port and start scanning. Where do the data end up, and how do I get them into LT?
CueCat - on OS X (UK) os wants me to press a button on the new keyboard (ie the Cuecat)
Any ideas?
Just cancel that dialogue box and you'll be fine. Or scan a book. It acts like a keyboard to the system.
You know, I keep running across mine now and again during various purges of my basement. Never, but never, have I given thought that this thing might be unuseful some day. There was going to be a reason...
And, I still have it in the original Wired box that it came in. Weirdest thing I ever got in the mail, I think. Well, not counting the hedgehog...
Can't wait to try this.
OOOOOOhh. Geeky book fun for packrating booksters!
Let's hear it for pack rats. I hope it still works.
I get them in big boxes with "China" on the side. Clearly they were packed five years ago, and never opened.
I'd hate to point out that you've been undersold, but eBay has thousands of :CueCats. Granted, most of them are PS/2, which is fairly useless, but some are USB. If I can get the seller to guarantee that his :CueCat is "unmodified," should it work properly? I'd rather pay $1.95....
No, you can use EITHER an unmodified or modified one. Both work great.
I've NEVER seen 1.95, and I'd urge you to see what the shipping terms are. But if you can find it on eBay and money is important, go for it.
Tim, thank you, thank you for the CueCat working on LT. After reading this blog, the thing scanned beautifully. Of 50 books to enter, only 9 gave trouble. I had ordered a CueCat from eBay and got the one not USB--the young man sent my 12.50 back, so I thought that was enough messing with them. REAL scanners are just too expensive. My Mac loves this, and so do I.
My CueCat package arrived today in my mailbox in Paris, France... empty. :-(
The envelope had been ripped open. Maybe by customs? And later it slipped out because the envelope wasn't closed again? Or stolen? Who would steal a CueCat?
I guess I can buy another one. LibraryThing is so nice I don't mind giving you more money. But I wonder if wrapping it so it's easier to open and close would help? Maybe I was just unlucky. Any other international buyers have problems?
I've just purchased a CueCat - I assume it went 'ok' and is going to be dispatched, but I didn't recieve any email from you guys letting me know; do you send out confirmation emails?
Kai Carver, when I recieve mine (i'm in the United Kingdom), i'll let you know if it is alright and in its box ;)
Ok, I've just recieved my CueCat (amazingly fast shipping may I add) and it works perfectly.
Great tool for cataloging!
Thanks LibraryThing :)
OK, I just ordered another one. Santa, please watch out this time! ;-)
OK, the second CueCat got all the way to my mailbox in Paris, and works great, thanks.
It took me a little while to figure out that it was working strangely because I use a French keyboard (CapsLock is the easiest workaround). And a bit longer yet to figure out that I can select amazon.fr to find my French books (maybe you could put it both under "Amazons" and under "French").
Small nit about help using the CueCat:
The best info on using the CueCat with LT is in the PDF by Greyhead linked to here:
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=3190
It's an excellent piece of documentation.
Unfortunately, it took me a while to find it. The blog post we're in now points people straight to Wikipedia and says "See links on Wikipedia for directions on 'declawing' your CueCat". The help and support group is a bit buried, and anyway, what people will look for first is documentation, not a support group.
The other LT CueCat page:
http://www.librarything.com/cuecat.php
doesn't have links to any documentation at all.
Using the CueCat, while easy, isn't completely obvious. Like others, I had a bit of an "OK, what do I do with it now" moment (and I'm supposed to be computer-savvy). Greyhead's doc does a good handholding job. And it's far superior to other pages on the Internet for declawing help (if it were in HTML it would be even nicer).
Anyway, I'm all set now!
This is probably the stupidest question ever, but by scanning my books into LT with a CueCat that hasn't been declawed, am I sending my book purchasing habits out to some crazy men in suits somewhere?
Hey. Why don't you post about this on the CueCats group? I could offer an answer, but that would be a place where others could see it.
http://www.librarything.com/groups/cuecatquestionsandhe
Feel free to offer any answer here. Don't let me stop you. :)
Well, my husband and I just pulled up the 5 pin on that big chip (which I am sure has a name).
So theoretically, it's not transmitting a serial number anymore and is just spitting out the ISBN in plain old numbers. Right?
My CueCat arrived today. It worked fine out of the box but LibraryThing couldn't find my ISBNs, until I switched to Amazon.co.uk and then it was fine.
I've also installed the CueCat utility that turns the data to normal text and this works fine too.
Cheers!
gee whilikers, I'm So glad to see the CueKitty I got free for the asking from a RadioShack store about 4 or 5 years ago finally has this wonderful use! Can't wait to try it out...
I haven't gotten an answer to my question in the help group, so I'll try here. I have Mac OS 10.3.9. Nothing happens at all when I plug in the CueCat. It doesn't seem like the computer recognizes that something has been plugged in. The red light on the CueCat does come on. Anyone have any advice?
The Cuecat is cool. Could it be possible to make it so the code read in could be used in the search box too? Right now when we scan the bar code into the search box it doesn't come up with anything. I assume this is because the search box is not translating the Cuecat code.
Clint: No, it should read it. If it's not, either either (1) you have an unusual keyboard layout. We have identified various ones that break, and fixed most (eg., Dvorak), (2) You are scanning more than just the ISBN part. I can't remember the details, but books sometimes have a second code, which shouldn't be scanned.
Of corse, it's also possible this is a one-off problem—a book with a bad code, a book that isn't in the db, etc. Post to Talk or mail one of us?
Excuse me if this is a double post. Is Cuecat Blackberry compatible? Could you use it in a book store to store items you want to add to your LT wishlist or even Amazon wishlist?
I don't know. It might be if Blackberries have a USB port. Do they?
You'd probably need to declaw it, although that's east.
You must have shipped it immediately, thanks!
Not all the readings are successful, but it sure makes catalogging more fun. Doubled my library in one evening!
@clint gardner: I think the reason you're not seeing anything in the search box is because the CueCat is returning an ISBN-13. Perhaps the ISBN-13s are not being indexed? I am seeing the same issue, and I don't have a Dvorak keyboard. The text coming back from the CueCat is indeed the correct ISBN-13 (I just got my CueCat today, and declawed it in about a minute, so everything is coming back as human-readable text).
anybody know how to combine the purchase of a cue cat with a lifetime membership as a single purchase?
I'm looking to use my paypal rebate ($30 min purchase for $15 back) but doesn't work on multiple purchases from same vendor.
It's not possible. I'm pretty sure. It's set up as single transactions, not as a "basket," such as a real ecommerce site would have.
Just got mine, and it worked out of the box. Since both my husband and I each have libraries to input, it will see a lot of use. What a neat idea!
Oh, yes. Someone brought up the fact that their library was in another room; would Cuecat store? As you said, no, but since my library is also in another room, and I also have a laptop, I will bring that to the library & scan away. You know, since the mountain won't come to Mohammed...
I still have my original CueCat from back in the day- the thing is, it's not the USB kind, it's the keyboard-port kind. Can I still use it, and if so, how do I install it on my Windows XP computer?
I've just done my entire library, or at least as many books as have any barcode printed on the back cover or jacket. I had an old CueCat and it worked perfectly with my Mac iBook G4 running OS X 10.4.9 and Firefox.
It also pushed me over the 200 book limit, so I splurged and bought a lifetime membership. Thanks, LibraryThing, for the incentive.
Approximately 15 percent of my titles have short reviews and 85 to 90 percent are tagged. I had an interesting and pleasant afternoon. Odd that it was interesting and pleasant, but...
I'm in Victoria, Canada, and just ordered one -- not least b/c it appears I'll be moving back to the US / Seattle this year and need to get my library catalogued, enfin, before it disappears in moving boxes. I had to laugh (wryly?) at the problems with shipping to France, Israel, Canada, etc., especially Canada. You'd think, with free trade and all between the two of us (US & Canada), that mailing this gadget wouldn't be a problem. Yet from Canada you still can't order software or games or appliances from Amazon, for example (only books), and it's a mystery as to why Customs Canada inspects some things and lets others through without touching them.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my CueCat arrives soon! Thanks, Tim & Abby!
re: Christopher Stansfield---if you don't have a PS/2 port on your computer, you can get adapters that let you plug it into the USB port for about $5--10---see TigerDirect.com and various other places. Once you get it plugged in, it should work just like a normal keyboard.
Drat! I forgot to get one of these from you at CIL. Any chance of implementing support for scanning via iSight camera for Macs?
i enjoyed using the cue cat for about 200 books but now the red light has quit and so i guess my cat has died. Any remedy
You might ask on the CueCat group. But, ultimately, we probably have to send you a new one. Send us an email?
I've had a cuecat in a junk drawer for years. Couldn't bring myself to toss it. I decided to join LT because I already had the cuecat and imputing info would be easy. Mine was not USB based but an adapter fixed that. Thanks for giving me amunition against my wife's attempts to make me throw stuff away.
In case anyone else just got their's and is scratching their head because LT can't find any of the codes ... I just figured out that most of my older books, while they do have ISBNs and they do have barcodes, the two don't actually match up! So when you scan the bar code, you don't actually get an ISBN! If you look at the numbers at the bottom of the barcode, you'll notice that they don't actually match the ISBN.
The UPC barcode has a subset of the ISBN buried in it. See Zarf's book scanning project for more information.
I suspect that LT could do the UPC to ISBN conversion the same way Zarf did, with a translation/lookup table. (And yes, I'm the Christopher Davis who suggested using the dual-barcoded books as Rosetta Stones.)
This might sound like a stupid question but if I get it shipped via US to Aus, it wont make a difference for usage will it?
No, it should be fine. There are issues—and solutions to issues—with some European keyboard configurations, but I don't think Australian keyboards have umlauts where g's ought to be, or whatever...
I ordered cue cat several months ago on line, using my master card, and the $15 was deducted from my account, but absolutely nothing else has happened. No email response and no c cat.
gwbond@comcast.net
We'll dig this one up. I'm guessing you're one of the ones that came back which didn't have a working email. About 1/100 come back because PayPal has an old address. Reply by Monday. The "dead letter" pile is back in Portland.
Cue Cat works out of the box with Vista. It's a Great Input tool.
Finally I'm entering all those books in my catalogue that were unindexed on my bookshelves.
Suggestion:
If Cue Cat recognised an ISBN number, and no data are in the current various libraries, I'd like to add the option of automatically adding the ISBN number to My Library without further data. That way I wouldn't have to go through all my books to verify they're all included. I would also be able to periodically search on those ISBN number for their additional data (or in the end enter them manually).
Thanks for Library Thing and Cue Cat. A life improvement tool.
Thanks,
Eduard
Thanks. That would take some re-thinking of how we operate. We store full records, not just ISBNs. But maybe it could add a book with the title [Waiting for book data] or something.
Just a question about these "unmodified" :cuecats: Now that the original company is dead (or so I've read) is there any concern about the serial number that's embedded in these things, and them sending profiling information off to who knows where?
Just curious...
This is a pretty old comment thread, but I thought I'd mention that I've been able to get a CueCat to work with my Ubuntu machine (Jaunty).
I performed the hardware modification (directions are available online) and was having some trouble getting things working in X (I run GNOME).
The issue was that the caps lock was on. I turned it off, and the scanner worked without a hitch.
This CueCat sounds like just the thing for me to catalog my extended library of thousands of books. Is it still available?
Yes! :)
Forgive me if this is covered elsewhere, but is it possible to attribute a bar code to a title in LT? I have a book here that has a readable bar code but is not found when I enter it into the Add Books field. But the title is on file and I can add it manually by typing the title into the search field.
I just got mine too and it's going to save boat loads of time. Plus it's really really cute, so you can't beat that.
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