Shelfy


What is this?

This is a little site to help you find your books.

How does it work?

You upload photos of your bookshelves. We ask robots to identify the words that are written on the spines of the books. In the future, if you can't remember where your book is, search for a word in the title or author and we'll show you where it is.

How do I make an account?

You don't have to make an account. Just provide an email address and we'll send you a magic link which signs you in. The link only works for a few minutes, but once you're in, you're in.

Can I join from my phone too?

Sure, just put in the same email address from your phone, then click on the link we send you.

You didn't recognise all my books!

Sorry. Some book spines are hard to read. We're working on it.

How can I help the robots?

Try to take your photos with good lighting. If you can read all the words on the spines, that's a good start. Crop your photos so they don't include anything around the books. Take the photos face on, not from an angle. The book detection works best when all the spines are in the same orientation.

What else can I take photos of?

We'll try to recognise anything with text. CD covers and DVD covers should work. Racks of spices. Your collection of cereal boxes. In the future we might use robots who are specialised in recognising book spines, but for now they are slightly stupid generalists.

I've hit my upload limit!

We're restricting uploads for the time being. If you really need more, ask us nicely (by replying to the magic link email) and we'll try to sort something out.