Guides

Practical, plain-English help for the library of one.

Short, honest walk-throughs for solo and small-library staff — written from the desk, not the manual.

How to Find a Dewey Number Without OCLC

Three free methods for getting Dewey Decimal numbers when your library isn’t an OCLC member: open records, title/author search, and classifying by analogy.

~6 min read

What Happened to OCLC Classify?

OCLC discontinued Classify on 31 January 2024, and no free service replaced it. What it did, why WebDewey isn’t the same, and the free ways to find a Dewey number now.

~4 min read

Setting Up Koha: A Free Library System You Can Run Yourself

A staged, newbie-friendly tour of standing up Koha, the free and open-source library system — even if you’ve never touched a server. The secret: you don’t do it alone.

~12 min read

How I Use AI in a One-Person Library

Everyday ways a solo librarian leans on an AI assistant — turning a photo of a book into catalog text, building learning tools for students, and the prompt habits that make it work.

~7 min read

Take a Module and Make It Yours

Download any learning module, customize it with an AI assistant, and put your own version online for students — free, no coding, with a full GitHub Pages walkthrough.

~8 min read