Dan Cowsill
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A collection worth
keeping track of.

A private catalogue for a Stephen King collection, built to track editions, browse the shelves, and find what’s missing.

Two pearlescent woodland mushrooms revealing delicate radial gills and fine branching threads below their stems.
Project
Private collection software
Made for
A family collector
Approach
AI-assisted development
Built with
Next.js, TypeScript, Postgres
Access
Private family app
01 / The problem

“Do I already have this one?”

I built this for my mom’s Stephen King collection. A book collection is more than a list of titles. There are different editions, formats, and copies to keep track of. The app separates the works themselves from the editions on the shelf, so it can show both the collection and the gaps.

02 / The experience

A bookshelf and a ledger.

The timeline groups books by decade for browsing. The ledger offers a more detailed view, with edition information and collection status. A book’s details open in a drawer, keeping the collection in view.

New books can be added by title, ISBN, or Amazon URL. Book information comes from Open Library and Google Books, and access is limited to the family’s approved accounts.

03 / The build

From a catalog to an application.

The project grew from a Python and SQLite cataloging pipeline into a full web app. It now uses Next.js and Postgres, with automated tests around the collection and book-adding flows.

It’s a small, personal example of what interests me about AI-assisted development: being able to make useful software for a problem that matters to someone.