Helpful Tools for Adding Books by ISBN

If you have a sizeable personal library or if you often find interesting books in libraries or bookstores that you want to add to Citavi, you may want to consider investing in a bar code scanner or using a smartphone scanner app.

Adding ISBN Numbers with a Bar Code Scanner

Citavi works with two types of scanners:

• Bar code scanners which connect directly to your computer and scan in real time. These scanners don't need drivers. Just plug one in and proceed as described in: Adding a Book by ISBN Number.
• Scanners with internal memory, such as the OPN-2001:
  
  These scanners let you scan bar codes independently of a computer. When you get back to your computer, Citavi reads the contents of the scanner all at once. These scanners must have drivers installed and only models explicitly supported by Citavi can be used (Symbol-Motorola CS1504, Opticon OPN-2001, Scanndy, or SmartScanndy).

Importing a List of ISBN Numbers from a Bar Code Scanner with Internal Memory

1. Scan the ISBN numbers with your bar code scanner. The numbers are stored in the scanner.
2. Connect the scanner to your computer.
3. On the taskbar in Citavi click ISBN, DOI, PMID.
4. Select Bar code scanner memory.
5. Click Read scanner memory and select your scanner. The Options menu may appear, so that you can select the connected scanner.
6. Citavi searches the selected catalogs for the ISBN numbers in the scanner.
7. Click Add to project to add all the references found to the current project. To only import selected references, select these and then click Add to project.

Information on current scanner drivers can be found in our FAQs.

Adding ISBN Numbers with a Smartphone

In your app store you can find free applications that allow you to scan barcodes. You can use these apps to take a photograph of the ISBN barcode. The program then converts the barcode into the ISBN number.

1. Send the scanned ISBN number to yourself as a text file or by e-mail, or save it in an online note-taking tool.
2. Switch to the computer on which Citavi is installed.
3. Open the list of scanned ISBN numbers and copy the contents to the Clipboard.
4. Open the Citavi project you want to add the references to.
5. Click ISBN, DOI, PMID and select Text from Clipboard.
6. Click Paste from Clipboard.
7. After Citavi has finished searching for the bibliographic information, click Add to project.