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One of the first things you'll notice when you begin to use ScoutPal is that it will slow you down. Significantly. However, there are some things you can do (along with practicing and reducing your formatting options) that will speed things up.

1. Look at the back of the book first for the ISBN number. This is quicker than opening the book to the copyright page. Often, it's printed on the dust jacket above the bar code or somewhere near the bottom. Note that there are instances when this ISBN doesn't match the ISBN on the copyright page, so be alert to the title that comes up in the search (it may be different) or, if the ISBN on the dust jacket doesn't deliver any results, be sure to check the other number as well.

2. Set your format options to allow for multiple ISBN entries. Entering three or four numbers, for example, then fetching results will be quicker than repeating this procedure for every book. Some experimentation will give you an indication for what works best for you, but you can select any number from 1 to 30. Take it from me: 30 is way too much.

3. In my formative years, I worked as a bartender/manager in an intensely busy night club, and cocktail waitresses would often come to the bar with orders for half a dozen or more drinks, sometimes as many as 9 or 10. If they had to take the time to write their orders down, it slowed them down, and they made less money. Since they also shared a portion of their tips with bartenders at the end of their shift (the amount they gave you depended on how good a job they felt you did for them) it was very much to a bartender's advantage to eliminate the need for them to write anything down at all. This was easy to do with 4 or 5 drinks, but 10 - no, definitely not. However, I was motivated to learn how to make this happen, and I finally came up with a pneumonic technique that worked exceptionally well for larger numbers. I hope I can explain it - and don't ask my why it works! Split the number into two groups, memorize - that is, make a mental snapshot of - the first group as you would any group of numbers, then silently repeat the other group over and over again in your head, as though you were talking to yourself - "6,7,8,9,10 ... 6,7,8,9,10 ..." and so on until you're done with whatever the task is. Apparently, these things happen at two different places in your brain, probably because one step is visual and the other aural? Anyway, it works great with LCCN's and ISBN's as well and eliminates the need to glance back and forth between the book and your number pad. For me, it speeds things up considerably, and I'm able to do other things as well, like returning a book to a shelf and grabbing another.

4. If memorization isn't your forté, learning to enter numbers on your cell phone pad without looking at it may be. Practice some, and you might be surprised at how quickly you can pick this up, not to mention how accurate you can be.

5. If a book has both an ISBN and a LCCN, type in the LCCN. There are fewer digits, sometimes four fewer. Do keep in mind, however, that, unlike ISBN's, LCCN's are not edition sensitive. They often apply to first and later editions of the same title, which may or may not have comparable values.

6. If you can afford it, get a scanner attachment. Using a bar-code scanner that attaches to your cell phone speeds things up considerably. At the time of this writing, unfortunately, the scanner previously offered by ScoutPal has been discontinued by the manufacturer. Dave informs me that he's working on his own design, also that another company will be introducing another model soon, so hopefully this situation is only temporary.