Everything your library needs.
Nothing it doesn’t.
Shelfwise is the catalog, self-checkout and holds system built for libraries run by volunteers — and sturdy enough for the ones that aren’t. Live in an afternoon at 200 books. Still comfortable at 50,000.
No card required · Your data stays in your own database
Live today at Crossroads Bible Church
A catalog people actually browse.
Covers, descriptions, genres and topics — searchable, filterable, and fast on a phone in a church foyer. Members place holds, join waitlists and save books for later without picking up the phone or catching you after the service.
- Search by title, author, keyword, genre or item type
- Availability shown per copy, live
- Place a hold or join a waitlist in one tap
- Works the same on a phone, tablet or desktop
A back office that answers questions.
Loans, overdues, holds and waitlists on one screen, over any date range, always compared against the previous period. No spreadsheet exports, no month-end ritual — just the number you came for.
- Active loans, overdues, ready holds and waitlist at a glance
- Daily loan trend against the previous period
- New patrons, loans per patron, on-time return rate
- Every action scoped to your library alone
Depth when you need it.
Out of the way when you don’t.
Every book, properly catalogued
Cover, blurb, publisher, ISBN, category, physical copies and condition — plus how many times it’s been borrowed, and what to read next.
Built for a thumb
Not a desktop app squeezed onto a phone. Every patron screen is designed mobile-first.
Holds, waitlists & renewals
Members place holds from any phone, get an email the moment a book is ready, and a nudge before it’s due. Two free renewals on every loan.
Families & young readers
Group members into families and tag children by grade. Parents log books for their kids from one account, with a clean history per person.
Bulk import by ISBN
Paste up to 1,000 ISBNs. Shelfwise pulls title, author, cover, description, publisher, year and page count from Google Books, with an Open Library fallback.
Patron scoring
Every member gets an A–F grade from engagement, on-time returns and account health. F-grade patrons pause automatically until they speak to a librarian.
Curated collections
Hand-pick books into Featured, Advent, Theology Picks — anything. Drag to reorder what greets members on the home page.
Branded to your library
Your name, logo, banner and accent colour. Text and icon contrast flips automatically, so the back office stays readable on any colour.
One platform, every size of library.
Every library gets its own subdomain, branding and admin team. Run yours like it’s the only one — we’ll handle the multi-tenant plumbing.
Church libraries
From a 200-book foyer collection to a 20,000-volume seminary library. Categories tuned for theology, biography and missions, and family accounts that match how parents actually borrow.
Schools & reading programs
Track student checkouts, link them to parent families, and run year-long reading challenges across grades — from a co-op shelf to a full district library.
Community & multi-branch
Run a single library out of a foyer, or stand up a separate tenant per branch and manage them all from one platform console.
Flat monthly pricing.
No per-book, per-checkout or per-user charges at any tier. Cancel whenever you like.
Starter
- Up to 150 patrons across all families
- 1 librarian account
- Mobile-first catalog with covers and search
- Holds, waitlists and email notifications
- Two free renewals per loan
- Self-checkout kiosk
- Bulk import up to 1,000 ISBNs
- Patron portal with history and saved books
- Email support
Community
- Everything in Starter
- Up to 1,000 patrons
- Up to 5 librarian accounts
- Curated collections with drag-to-reorder
- Branded theme — logo, name, accent colour
- A–F patron scoring with auto-pause
- Submit-a-request inbox
- Date-range analytics dashboard
- Custom genres, topics and item types
- Priority email support
Custom
- Everything in Community
- Unlimited books, patrons and staff
- Dedicated subdomain
- White-label option
- Migration from an existing system
- Live onboarding with your team
- Quarterly check-ins
- Phone + SLA support
Common questions.
Do I need any tech skills to run Shelfwise?
No. If you can use Gmail, you can run Shelfwise. Adding books, patrons and holds is point-and-click, and bulk ISBN import does the heavy lifting at launch.
Can I import an existing catalog?
Yes. Drop in a list of ISBNs and Shelfwise pulls everything else from Google Books or Open Library. Manual entry is quick too — roughly 20 seconds a book.
Does it work on phones?
Every screen, patron and admin, is mobile-first. Parents log books from the pew, librarians run checkouts from a tablet, and the catalog is built for a thumb.
Where does my data live?
In your own Supabase project — you own the database. Shelfwise runs as a Next.js app on Vercel or any modern host, with row-level security on every table.
How long does setup take?
A small church library is usually live in an afternoon. We help with your subdomain, branding and seed data, then you bulk-import books and open for business.
Let’s get your library online.
Sign up and you’ll have a working catalog at yourlibrary.tryshelfwise.com today. Larger systems can book a call and we’ll plan the migration together.
Questions? hello@tryshelfwise.com