The Activity Log: Everything You Did, Timestamped

Thirty-three actions tracked, one timeline per book, and a feed that remembers what you did last Tuesday better than you do.

What Gets Logged

Every meaningful action you take in Shelvd leaves a trace in your activity log. Not because we're watching — because you'll want to know. When did you add that book? When did you change the price? Who enriched what, and from which provider?

Here's everything that gets logged, grouped by what it touches:

Books

Book created — added manually, via import, or via AI scan
Book updated — any field change, with a diff of what changed
Book deleted — the title, so you can regret it later
Book status changed — from "in collection" to "on sale," or any other transition
Book AI scanned — when a book is created via AI Book Scanning
Book AI enriched — when existing photos are re-analyzed via AI Enrich

Collections

Added to collection — which book, which collection
Removed from collection — same, but sadder

Images

Image uploaded — filename, type (cover, title page, etc.), file size
Image deleted — which image, from which book
Bulk images imported — count and batch details

Provenance & Valuation

Provenance entry added — owner name, type, dates
Provenance entry deleted — how many entries removed
Valuation added — value, currency, source type
Valuation deleted — how many entries removed

Enrichment

Book enriched — from which provider, how many fields applied
Book AI enriched — same, but via AI and your own photos

Export

Export downloaded — format (CSV, Excel, JSON, XML, RIS, BibTeX) and book count
SQLite exported — full database export with book count

PDF

PDF generated — which book, paper size, catalog card or sheet

Account

Account deleted — logged before deletion (because after would be too late)
Settings updated — which settings changed

AI Credits

AI scan credit used — credit source (monthly or purchased), remaining balance
AI credits purchased — pack size and amount

Admin

Admin user deleted — which user, by which admin

The Activity Feed

Your activity feed lives at /activity. It's a reverse-chronological list of everything you've done, with timestamps, icons, and links to the affected books or settings.

Each entry shows:

What happened — "Book updated," "Image uploaded," "Tag created"
What it affected — the book title, tag name, or collection name
When — relative time ("2 hours ago") that expands to absolute on hover
Details — expandable metadata showing the specifics (which fields changed, which provider was used, how many credits remain)

The feed paginates — scroll down and more entries load. Your entire history is preserved, from your first book to your most recent export.

The Book Timeline

Every book's detail page includes a timeline at the bottom — a filtered view of the activity log showing only events related to that specific book. You can see when it was created, when it was enriched, when photos were added, when the condition was updated, and when the price changed.

This is particularly useful for books with complex histories: multiple enrichments from different providers, several rounds of photo uploads, provenance additions over time. The timeline tells the story of the record itself.

What Doesn't Get Logged

Some actions are intentionally not tracked:

Page views — we're not analytics software
Search queries — what you look for is your business
Failed actions — errors don't create log entries
Browsing and sorting — changing your list view or sort order leaves no trace

The principle: if it changes data, it's logged. If it only changes what you see, it isn't.

Privacy

Your activity log is visible only to you (and to Shelvd admins, who can see all logs for support purposes). It's stored in the database alongside your books and is deleted if you delete your account.

There is no way for other users to see your activity, and there never will be. Your cataloging habits are between you and your books.

See also: Statistics · Collection Audit · Settings Guide