--- title: Why can't TinyCat manage multiple copies of a book? Metadescription: TinyCat has no copies management, so lending two copies of a title means cataloguing each as its own record. Why that happens and the per-copy fix. Display description: TinyCat has no copies management - the Copies field predates lending and never connected to it, so to lend two copies of a title you catalogue each physical copy as its own record. author: Dan Edwards author_role: Founder author_url: https://danedwardsdeveloper.com author_linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-edwards-developer published: 2026-07-15 --- Token estimate: ~1,500 # Why can't TinyCat manage multiple copies of a book? By **[Dan Edwards](https://yourbooknest.com/contact)**, Founder. TinyCat has no copies management. To lend two copies of the same title, you catalogue each physical copy as its own record - a separate entry, entered by hand, with its own barcode. It is not a setting hidden in a menu. It is how the underlying data works. TinyCat runs on LibraryThing's catalogue, where the Copies field is a number you note for your own reference - a leftover from the personal-cataloguing days, long before lending existed. That number was never wired to circulation, so the lending side cannot see it. This is the question librarians keep asking on the LibraryThing forums, year after year: do I really have to enter this book more than once to lend more than one of it? The answer from TinyCat's own staff is yes. ## What that means at the returns desk The workaround is a duplicate record per copy, and the cost lands later, in ordinary use: - Each copy is entered by hand. One teacher on the LibraryThing forums described creating 27 separate records for a single title. - Every duplicate is a full catalogue entry, so it counts toward [your plan's item ceiling](/articles/tinycat-pricing). A shelf with lots of duplicates reaches the limit well before the number of distinct titles would suggest. - Edits do not propagate. Fix a misspelled author on one record and the other copies keep the typo. - The records are near-identical, so when a copy comes back, closing the right loan is a manual match rather than a glance at the screen. None of this is a discipline problem. The most careful volunteer cannot tell two copies apart when the catalogue was never built to. ## Why it isn't a setting you can switch on TinyCat's staff have said plainly, and more than once, that copies management is not built. It sits on the roadmap and has for years. The Copies number is inherited from LibraryThing and has no connection to lending, so there is nowhere for a second copy's loan to live except a second record. It is the shape of a catalogue that later grew a lending feature, not of a system designed to lend. That heritage is also TinyCat's strength. Its LibraryThing catalogue data is genuinely deep - covers, series, disambiguated editions - and the tool is simple and inexpensive. The depth is exactly why the gap is easy to miss: a small library runs happily for a year and only hits the copies wall when the second copy of something popular arrives, or a donor drops off three of the same title. If you are weighing up lending on LibraryThing more broadly, [whether you can use LibraryThing to lend books](/articles/can-i-use-librarything-to-lend-books) covers the wider picture. ## What copies management actually looks like The structure that works keeps one record for the title and hangs a separate copy under it for each physical book, then attaches loans to the copy rather than the title. A return closes one copy's loan and touches nothing else. A donated third copy is one new line under the existing title, not a re-catalogued duplicate. The full model - items, copies and loans - is in [how to track multiple copies of the same book](/articles/how-to-track-multiple-copies-of-the-same-book). ## How Your Book Nest helps Your Book Nest is built on that structure, so multiple copies are the normal case rather than a workaround. Add a title once, then give it as many copies as you own. Each copy is tracked in its own right, with its own status and history. Every copy gets a generated three-word code, like `oak-bat-tree`, printed on its label. Read it off the cover and type it - no scanner needed, and no LibraryThing account - and the right copy comes up, so the which-copy question never reaches the returns desk. Copies you bring across keep their existing identifiers too: a free-text barcode field holds whatever is already stickered on the book, in any format. Moving over is a catalogue export and import, and from the first day every copy stands on its own instead of as a duplicated title. The home page is a live demo - add a book, give it two copies, and lend them to two different people, with no account and no card. ## Q&A **Q: Can TinyCat handle multiple copies of the same book?** A: Not as linked copies. You can record a copy count on the LibraryThing record, but that number does not connect to lending, so to check two copies in and out separately you enter each physical copy as its own catalogue record. TinyCat's staff have confirmed copies management is not built. **Q: How do I add a second copy of a book in TinyCat?** A: You catalogue it again as a separate entry, with its own barcode, and tell the two apart by hand - many libraries add "copy 1" and "copy 2" to the title. Each entry is a full record, so a title with five copies is five records to create and keep in step. **Q: Does each copy count toward my TinyCat item limit?** A: Yes. Because every copy is a separate record, every copy counts against your plan's item ceiling. A collection with lots of duplicates reaches the limit well before its number of distinct titles would suggest. **Q: How do I move from TinyCat to software with copies management?** A: Export your catalogue and import it into a tool built on an items-copies-loans structure, such as Your Book Nest. From the first day each physical book is its own copy under one title, so returns, overdues and shelf counts stay correct without duplicate records, and existing barcodes come across in a free-text field.