I've been using this site for awhile now it's
www.anidb.net
and its really neat. You can look up pretty much any series in existence cause their database is humongous. It provides alot of information on most series. Episode listings, synopsis etc.

The funnest part about the site though as far as I'm concerned is the "My List" feature. If you register on the site (which is free) You can compile a list of all the anime you have watched. Then on your userpage it'll tell you how many series, episodes, and percentage of the network you've seen. You can also compare your mylist with other users. You can give anime ratings that add to the community average and see how your opinion compares to the community. You can also make a wish list among a lot of other nifty little things.

To show you what it's like here's my user page....

http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=userpage&uid=163070

and my list....

http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=mylist&uid=163070

I've had a lot of fun with it though. If anyone tries it out and makes a list post your username. I'd love to take a look!

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Man, that would be a great waste of my time. :P Have you tried doing a visual virtual shelf of your physical DVDs of anime yet? That takes forever to get it to look right, but man does it feel good to see all the cover artwork of your DVDs side by side instead of just seeing the spines as usual. Getting the export of HTML to look right is a little tricky though since none of the templates serve up all the info you input in the cateloguing part of the program.

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If you make one let me know. I'd get a kick out of comparing them. I'm a wicked organization nerd. All my games and dvds are alphabetically ordered and all that.

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There are some apps for this sort of thing, they are called media cataloging apps amongst other things. MediaMan is a decent one for Windows, based on the Mac app Delicious Library, but the cracked copies I've had all timed out after a while. I haven't wanted to pay for it yet. For Linux you have stuff like GCStar/GCFilms, and others. I currently have a fun looking one made up in GCFilms but the HTML it exports is horrible compared to the in program look. I think in maybe 5 years these all will look amazing though, which better export support. Not just bland Java that cannot replicate the in program effects, but maybe being Flash driven. So, hoping it gets better or I learn more Flash to make code for myself, I'm holding off doing my whole DVD collection.  

The hardest part I've found is finding scans to match the box you have. I broke my scanner and made due with Google and eBay results, though in time, scans will need to be made from my own boxes. I catalog for a job, which helps somewhat having to catalog at home too.  

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I actually haven't tried any apps for this kind of thing. Though I think a program would be pretty cool too for my personal use. I've just used websites like anidb and anime-planet for my anime, and for my videogames I have made one up on IGN.

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Here are some screenshot urls to give you an idea what they often look like. This is the in program view, which you become used to since it is how you create the databases. The HTML export is basically a screen of cover scans with the links being the photos, which brings up more detailed info. So, you could edit that with a bookcase background I imagine. I've used this app below on my XP box.

http://www.imediaman.com/fileadmin/images/screenshot-1-l.jpg
MediaMan

Below is what I use on my Ubuntu box, though I have GCFilms and GCStar, two similar versions. I have this shiny black shelf color though that will reflect the DVD cases into it, creating a much more realistic picture.

http://home.gna.org/gcfilms/images/screenshots/screen2.png
GCFilms

There are probably some other similar apps worth checking out that could be free and for XP that have gotten better or released since I fiddled about with MediaMan. The Wired blogs have had multiple pieces on these apps and the comment sections usually are ripe with such suggestions fyi. I imagine you will have fun whenever you find something you like, if that ends up floating your boat. I just like being able to see what I normally have hidden on my shelves. My wife and I have two 6" tall >< 3" wide bookshelves for DVDs full, with most of my horror collection on the floor in stacks. They are broken down by genre, with anime near the top. I need more anime though.  

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Yeah I'm more of an anime nerd then anything else. I only have about 10 regular movie dvds. Another 10 or so of regualr cartoons and then around 100 anime dvds then another 10 or so thinpack boxsets.

Thanks for the info about mediaman and such. I haven't had much free time lately working exhausting 45-50 hour weeks and making sure i get enough sleep. I might look into it in the future cause I love that kind of stuff.

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You're welcome. That is a nice anime pile. My wife and I would have a good bit now if we bought everything we wanted, though we're not quite to 100 anime DVD cases yet I don't think. If we bought everything we had available on disc to watch, we'd be into the hundreds though.  

It is just so expensive...

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