I keep track of loaned books, in the same way that I keep track of everything else. 3×5 cards. I have several boxes of them, and all have dividers. In the “Book Box” I have lists of books that I have read and loved, books that I want to read…and books that I have loaned out. I right down the name of the book, who I lent it to, and the day that I lent it out. If I can’t find a book, the first thing I do is head to my “Book Box” to see if I loaned it out. Hope this helps!

I have not done a lot of loaning of books yet – so far no space for a nice big book case – all my books are in boxes in the basement – not easy for someone to come over and say – oh, can I borrow that one. But, for the rare books I do loan out, I write down who took what book and the date – that way I know if it has been on loan for 2 weeks or 6 months. Once it gets to be a long time, I will ask for it back. I would hate to lose a book.

My question though – do you write your name in any of your books? I have not yet – I always think I might sell them at some point in time and wonder if that would affect their re-sale value??

There are a few books I really love, some from my childhood and some women’s outstanding travelog…those I don’t give out. Too difficult to track them.

My husband’s college housemate lent him a huge book of all of Shakespeare’s plays, when he was taking a Shakespeare class. Somehow it never got back to the roommate before he moved away. We still have it, over 20 years later.

One horror story . . . my brother-in-law who borrowed a copy of one of my favorite books. He ended up taking it with him to fight forest fires and completely destroyed it! He replaced the copy, but it was not the same one that was ruined. I was so frustrated! I had THAT copy for a reason . . . it was the movie cover. My husband then realized that I had other copies of the book and he was wondering why I was so angry when I had multiple copies. I tried to explain to him that the cover art was different . . . one was hardcover, one paperback, etc. He just didn’t get it! Am I the only one that likes to have multiple copies of her favorite books?!?!

Also, I do loan or I did to family, but one family member had the book in their hands for two minutes and the first 20 pages are no falling out, and again this was an expensive book, that costs more money, because the binding is better quality. Other family members crack spines, bend pages, spell,…… shudders. I don’t lend out books, if I do its only certain books that are lent out.

Overall, I’m a book packrat, I keep almost all my books, unless I bought a book and disliked it a lot, then its hauled to the used bookstore. If the book is well loved/worn if I by it used thats fine, if its well used/worn because I’ve re-read it 50 times, again thats fine. If I loan it out and the person I loan it to doesn’t respect it then I get angry.

That having been said, I fret about books that I loan to others until they return back to me.

I used to simply keep a mental note of who I had loaned books to, but I now keep track in a book database program that I was sent for review from Collectorz.com. The program is the Pro version of BookCollector.

Nat at Book Line and Sinker has posted recently about a system she uses in her classroom for borrowing books and the book embosser she uses to label her books (which, by the way, I am not-so-secretly coveting).