01
Where it lives
Found it. Living room, shelf B2.
Describe your library as it really is: rooms, bookcases, shelves. Scan a barcode, a cover or a whole shelf, and every book gets an address.
A home library app for iPhone
The books you chose to live with.
A library is not a reading log. It is the outside of a mind. You have read more than your shelves hold; what stays is a choice.
You are what you keep.
Shelf of Mind keeps the choice: where each book lives, who borrowed it, how long it has waited and why it stays. Private by default. Public only if you want it to be.
02
Who has it
Lent in March. Due back on Friday.
Note who borrowed what and when it should come back. A quiet reminder on the day, and nothing else. If you allow it, friends you follow back can ask to borrow a book.
03
Why it stays
Unread is not unfinished.
Read, reading, not yet. Signed copies, first editions, gifts. The unread books get their own name and their own place: the antilibrary.
The antilibrary
積ん読
Tsundoku: the pile you have not read yet.
“Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan, on the library of Umberto Eco
Read the essay →Plainly, what it does.
- Add books fast. Barcode, batch scan, cover photo, a photo of a whole shelf, or CSV import.
- Your own places. Rooms, bookcases and shelves, named the way you name them at home.
- Lending. Who has it, since when, and a reminder on the return day.
- Collector's details. Signed, first edition, special edition, gifts and inscriptions.
- A public page. Optional. Your library at shelfofmind.com/u/your-name.
- Your data is yours. Export everything at any time. No ads, no tracking.
Free for your first 150 books. Pro removes the limit. In English, Deutsch, Español, Français, Nederlands and Türkçe.
The Journal
All entries →Shelf of Mind: a series
A call for shelves
Five questions, one photograph of your shelves, and the books that stayed.
11 October 2026
Words for it
Tsundoku, or the pile
The Japanese have a word for the books you buy and do not read yet. It is older than you think.
11 October 2026
Essay
Unread is not unfinished
On the antilibrary, and why the books you have not read may be the most important ones you own.
11 October 2026