I noticed last month that Delicious Library 2 was released by Delicious Monster, and this was anotherapplication I was anxious to try out.  Delicious Library can best be described as an application that lets you easily catalog all types of items like your music collection, DVD’s, software, and more.  Why is this useful you might ask?  Well first off, having a complete inventory of items is very important if they were to ever be stolen or destroyed.  Keeping a detailed record of your items is essential for insurance recovery.  Secondly, if you are like me, you have some type of OCD where you need to keep a strict record of everything you own.  Regardless of the reasons, Delicious Library is the most efficient way I have found to accomplish this task.

The UI of an application is always something I instantly scrutinize, and Delicious Library has an impressive design.  The most noticeable is the bookcase-like window that not only has an attractive appearance, but makes browsing the libraries efficient.  There are a few ways to add items, one of which is manually adding them.  Just select the type of item, such as ’software’, and type the title in.  It will then search a database and if it’s there, will present the choices from which you can select.  I had no trouble finding and adding various items in several of the categories.  For the few items which weren’t found, it was simple to add a blank item and enter the relevant information from there.  You can also search for items and have an option to buy them from Amazon.com too.

Another way to enter items is to scan the barcode with an iSight or compatible DV camera.  You can also enter the UPC, ISBN, or ASIN codes in manually, but if you have a camera, that is the way to go.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a camera that works with my Mac, but several trusted sources have confirmed that this feature works great.  I might just go buy a camera just because I have a lot of items to enter, and I want to get this done quick.  Delicious Library will also catalog your iTunes library and sort them by type, such as music or videos.  Clicking an item in the library you can see details from the Amazon database like the rating, synopsis, reviews, and more.  

Organizing your libraries are a snap using shelves, and iTunes-like “smart” shelves which lets you easily create shelves based on certain criteria.  Delicious Library also helps you keep track of loaned items by adding your friends, and dragging items to their section.  This will also add a category to iCal with calendar entries about the loan.  This is great for those forgetful friends or to know where and who has your items.

Once you have your collections done, you have some other options on what to do with them.  You can publish to a local folder, to your .Mac account, FTP, or to iWeb ‘08.  Configuring these settings were a breeze and I opted to publish my collection to my .Mac account.  You can choose to publish all your items, or just selected shelves, and there are two themes included for publishing.  I had no issues publishing and the end result was a beautiful site on my .Mac account where I can keep track of my library from virtually anywhere.

There are many other features that makes Delicious Library 2 a blast to use, but there just isn’t enough space to talk about them all.  If you need to keep accurate records and inventory of your media, toys, etc., then Delicious Library is all you will ever need.  There is a trial version available, and the full version will only set you back $40.