The Big Bookcase: Building a Web Catalog for Books, Movies, and Games You Own

The Big Bookcase is a passion project for people who collect media because they love owning it. Physical discs on a shelf, digital games in a Steam library, ebooks on a Kindle: all of it deserves better than a spreadsheet or a store launcher.

We're building a web catalog inspired by Delicious Library, the classic Mac app with the wooden shelf and cover browsing. It's not an official sequel. It's a love letter from collectors who want that feeling back on the web, in 2026, whether your library is physical, digital, or both.

Who this is for

This is for Delicious Library alumni who still think about that shelf view. For people with a Blu-ray cabinet, a Steam library of 400 games, or a Kindle collection that outgrew the app.

It's for collectors who've tried Goodreads, Letterboxd, and spreadsheets and come away thinking: these track what I consume, not what I own. The Criterion edition. The indie game you bought on launch day. The ebook you keep coming back to. Those deserve a catalog that feels like a library.

What we're trying to build

At its core, The Big Bookcase is a personal library you can browse: covers on wood, items grouped the way you'd group them in your home or on your hard drive. Click a movie, see its details. Mark something as loaned. Add notes about where you found it or why it matters.

We want books, films, and games in one place, physical and digital. Not because every collector has all three, but because a lot of us do, and no modern app treats that as normal the way Delicious Library once did.

Barcode scan and bulk import are on the roadmap. We're talking to waitlist signups first to learn how people catalog today and what would actually get their libraries moved in. We're building in public, with early access opening when the shelf is good enough that DL fans would want to use it.

What makes this different

We're not building a social network. No feed, no reviews race, no pressure to log everything you've finished this year. Your library is private by default, and you decide if any shelf is partially or fully public.

We're not building a marketplace or an investment tracker. Your collection isn't a portfolio. When you want to sell an item or give a physical object away, we plan a simple way to announce that without exposing more than you choose.

We are trying to rebuild the feeling: open the app, see your shelf, know what you have. Browse it the way you'd browse the real thing: cover out, spine by spine, shelf by shelf.

How we're building it

We'll be direct: AI coding assistants are a major part of how we design, write, and ship this project. The landing page, the app UI, the database work: heavily AI-assisted. We think you deserve to know that.

Your collection data is separate. Using AI to build the product is not the same as feeding your catalog into a model. Waitlist answers and future library data are stored for this service, not sold for training.

It's a small independent effort: no studio, no pitch deck. Just collectors who think the web deserves a proper shelf again.

Where we are now

There's a working preview of the shelf UI: browse movies and books, open a detail panel, favorite items, track loans. The public product isn't ready yet. We're validating with collectors first: what you own, what you miss about Delicious Library, what would make you switch.

If that sounds like you, join the waitlist and tell us what you collect. We read every answer. It shapes what we build next.