Simple enough for a 200-book
church library.
Robust enough for 50,000.
Shelfwise is the modern catalog, checkout, and holds system that grows with your library. Start with a single shelf in an afternoon — or migrate an entire system and unlock the depth you need. Same clean UI, no enterprise bloat.
Trusted by Crossroads Bible Church and growing.
The depth bigger libraries need.
The simplicity smaller ones love.
Same clean UI whether you run 200 books or 50,000. Power features unlock when you need them and stay out of the way when you don't — so a volunteer librarian on a Sunday morning and a full-time cataloguer on Monday both feel at home.
Browse-friendly catalog
A clean, mobile-first catalog with covers, descriptions, genres, and topics. Patrons can search, filter, save books, and place holds without picking up the phone.
Self-checkout kiosk
Stand a tablet at the door and let members check out their own books. Library card, name, or email is enough to identify them. Holds are fulfilled automatically.
Holds, waitlists, and renewals
Members place holds and join waitlists from any phone. They get an email when a book is ready and a reminder before it’s due. Two free renewals on every loan.
Families and kids
Group members into families and tag children by grade. Parents log books for their kids from one account, and you keep a clear loan history per person.
Curated collections
Hand-pick books into Featured, Christmas, Theology Picks, anything. Drag to reorder which collections appear on the home page — no admin training required.
Bulk import by ISBN
Paste up to 1000 ISBNs at once. Shelfwise fetches title, author, cover, description, publisher, year, and page count from Google Books with an Open Library fallback.
Patron scoring
Every patron gets an A–F grade based on engagement, on-time returns, and health. F-grade patrons are blocked from new holds until they speak with a librarian.
Branded to your library
Set your library name, banner blurb, logo, and admin theme color. Text and icon contrast flips automatically so the back office reads cleanly on any color.
One platform, every size of library.
Every library on Shelfwise 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 — small to seminary-scale
From a 200-book parlor library to a 20,000-volume seminary annex. Categories tuned for theology, biography, and missions; family accounts that make sense for parents with multiple kids.
Schools, colleges, and reading programs
Classroom-to-college: track student checkouts, link to parent families, and run year-long reading challenges across grades. Scales from a homeschool co-op shelf to a full K-12 library system.
Community libraries + multi-branch networks
Run one library out of a foyer, or stand up a separate tenant for each branch and let your central team manage them all from one platform console.
Pricing that scales with you.
Start small, grow naturally. One flat monthly fee at every tier — no per-book, per-checkout, or per-user charges. Cancel anytime.
Starter
- Up to 150 patrons across all family accounts
- 1 librarian / admin 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 at a time
- Patron portal with loan history and saved books
- Email support
Community
- Everything in Starter
- Up to 1,000 patrons
- Up to 5 librarian / admin accounts
- Curated collections with drag-to-reorder
- Branded admin theme (logo, name, accent color)
- A–F patron scoring with auto-block on poor standing
- Submit-a-request inbox for book suggestions
- Date-range analytics dashboard
- Custom genres, topics, and item types
- Priority email support
Custom
- Everything in Community
- Unlimited books, patrons, and librarian accounts
- Dedicated subdomain (shelfwise.yourlibrary.org)
- White-label option (your logo, no Shelfwise branding)
- Migration assistance from an existing system
- Live onboarding call 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; bulk ISBN import handles the heavy lifting of a launch.
Can I import an existing catalog?+
Yes. Drop a list of ISBNs and Shelfwise pulls everything else from Google Books or Open Library. Manual entry is fast too — about 20 seconds per book.
Does it work on phones?+
Every screen — patron and admin — is mobile-first. Parents log books on their phones, librarians run checkouts from a tablet, members browse the catalog from the pew.
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 baked into every table.
How long does setup take?+
A small church library is usually live in an afternoon. We help you configure your subdomain, branding, and seed data; then you bulk-import books and you’re open for business.
Let's get your library online.
Sign up in 60 seconds and you'll have a working catalog at yourlibrary.tryshelfwise.com today. Larger systems can book a call so we can plan the migration with you.