Shelf Help Create a free account

On any phone or computer

Photograph your shelves to catalog your books

Then find any book in seconds, and lend it with reminders. For families, churches, schools and groups.

Create a free account See how it works See pricing

Free for up to 200 books · No card needed

How it works

Three things it does

  1. 01 / 03

    Add your books in minutes

    Photograph a shelf and add the books it finds in one go, or scan their barcodes.

  2. 02 / 03

    Find any book in seconds

    Type a few letters, typos and all, and it shows the book’s shelf.

  3. 03 / 03

    Lend a book and get it back

    Note who has it. They get an email before it’s due and if it runs late.

Features

What Shelf Help does

Choose one, or use the arrow keys

A whole shelf read from one photo: 12 books to check and add 1 2
  1. One photo, whole shelf
  2. Add them all at once

01 / 09

Photograph a shelf

It reads the spines in one photo, and you add them in one go.

Who it’s for

For homes, churches, schools and groups

Gold line drawing of a family reading by the fire in their living room: a mother in a wing chair, a father and child on the sofa, a grandfather with a book, a child on the rug and a sleeping dog.
Three generations of a family reading together on a sofa, in front of a home bookshelf.

01 / 02 · At home

Families

Every shelf in the house on one list, and a link the family can browse.

A small group of adults sitting together in a bright living room, talking.

02 / 02 · A shared shelf

Churches and small groups

Helpers keep the lending shelf. Loans get due dates, and email reminders if you add an address.

And any shelf you look after

  • Classrooms and school libraries
  • Homeschool co-ops
  • Book clubs
  • Sunday schools
  • Small offices
  • Community groups
  • Care homes

Pricing

Free to start, Plus if you need more

Start free. When your library passes 200 books, move up to Plus.

Pay for Plus

Free

$0

For one home library

  • 1 library of up to 200 books
  • 20 shelf photos a month
  • Barcode scanning, search and spreadsheets
  • Lending, with up to 10 reminder emails a day
  • Edit with 2 others
  • Family share link
  • Your last 50 versions kept
Create a free account

No card needed

Recommended

Plus

$7 a month

For big and growing collections

  • Unlimited libraries, books and shelf photos
  • Shelf check-ins: see what’s new, gone or moved
  • Invite anyone to edit
  • A year of versions: everything from the last month, then one a day
  • Everything in Free
Choose Plus

Billed from the day you upgrade

Founding member

$99 once

Everything, lifetime membership

  • Unlimited libraries, books and shelf photos
  • Everything in Plus
  • Paid once, never renews
  • Limited to 500 places
Become a founding member

Cancel any time and keep every book. Export any time.

Prices include any sales tax or VAT.

Questions

Common questions

  • Who can see my library?

    You and people you invite. Share links show books, never borrowers. Cloudflare runs the site, its robot check and its email. Stripe takes payments. Your browser asks Open Library for book details, covers and suggestions, sending some titles, topics and authors but never your name or email. Shelf photos go to Google’s Gemini, which may use them to improve its products, so photograph only your books. We keep them until you delete them.

  • What if I stop paying?

    You move to Free; no book is deleted. Extra libraries become read-only, shelf photos drop to 20 a month, and your last 50 versions stay.

  • Do borrowers need an account?

    No. Just their name, and an email for reminders.

  • What if a photo misses books?

    Say roughly how many are there; it says how many it missed, and shows any spine it can’t confirm.

  • Can my family help?

    Yes: invite them by email to edit. Free includes 2 others; Plus, any number.

  • How will it show on my statement?

    As LINK.COM* SHELF HELP. Stripe handles our payments and receipts.

Contact

Write to us

Start free

Catalog, find and lend your books

Start small; add the rest later.

Create a free account

Free for up to 200 books · No card needed

Gold line drawing of a woman at her front door handing a book to a friend, her child beside her holding another book and the dog looking up.