In a rapidly changing regulatory environment, schools, publishers, and educational communities are under increasing pressure to manage book access in ways that align with evolving compliance requirements while preserving diversity, transparency, and trust.

Bookmarked, the company behind OnShelf, is tackling this challenge with a scalable, AI-powered platform designed for today’s complex educational landscape. Their solution empowers institutions to make informed decisions and helps navigate new barriers without compromising access.

Bookmarked: AI-powered book intelligence built for today’s educational challenges.

In the following interview, Steve Wandler, founder of Bookmarked, shares the story behind the platform’s development—and how book metadata sources such as ISBNdb support their work at scale.

Bookmarked is tackling one of the most complex issues in today’s educational landscape: ensuring access to diverse books while helping schools comply with rapidly evolving regulations. Can you tell us how OnShelf addresses this challenge, who it’s built for, and what core problems it was designed to solve?

“At Bookmarked, we’re addressing a fundamental break in the system — not just a surface-level challenge. Today’s regulatory landscape around books is changing rapidly at every level — federal, state, and local. But instead of building new infrastructure to manage this complexity, the system has tried to simply overlay new compliance demands onto old workflows.

The result? Schools are overwhelmed. Publishers are delayed or excluded. Readers — especially students — lose access to diverse and important stories.

That’s why we built OnShelf.

OnShelf — powered by Bookmarked — is the first scalable infrastructure designed for the world as it is today, not the world as it was. We use AI to analyze book content and policy alignment at scale, giving schools and publishers real-time clarity that legacy systems could never deliver. We make the full context of books visible — empowering schools to act with clarity, and readers to discover more.

We help districts meet new legal requirements with efficiency, and we help publishers reach schools with confidence — knowing that their content is handled securely, and their copyright is respected at every step.

Our main users include:

• School districts and superintendents, responsible for compliance with evolving state laws and board policies.
• Librarians and educators, who need modern tools to manage book collections without sacrificing diversity.
• Publishers and authors, who deserve a transparent, trusted path into K–12 education.
• Parents and guardians, seeking visibility without restricting others’ access.

At the core, the problem we solve is this: Without new systems, old infrastructures will continue to erode — and with them, the opportunity for students and communities to encounter the full breadth of literature, culture, and ideas. Bookmarked creates the critical framework needed to protect books, promote discovery, and build trust — across every layer of education and publishing.”

What sparked the idea for Bookmarked and OnShelf, and how did it evolve into the platform it is today?

“The original idea for Bookmarked — and for OnShelf — came from a conversation with a superintendent who saw what was coming: “We need a better way to help parents make informed decisions without making blanket rules that limit every child’s access to books.”

At first, we thought the solution might be simple — build a system that supports individual choices without mass censorship. But as we listened — to educators, librarians, parents, publishers, and policymakers — we realized the challenge was far more complex than anyone admitted.

This wasn’t just a workflow problem. It was a systemic failure. New policies were reshaping education at every level, but schools were being forced to layer new demands onto old infrastructures that couldn’t support them. And without a better way forward, fear and confusion would continue to shrink access — not because people wanted fewer stories, but because the system simply couldn’t handle the complexity.

Many people saw the difficulty and backed away. Some picked sides. Others did nothing.

We saw a complex opportunity — one that most were unwilling to take on. If we could create a regulatory framework built for today’s reality — one that protected access, empowered discovery, and supported all stakeholders — then everyone could win: Readers, authors, publishers, educators, communities, and the future of literacy itself.

And to do that at scale, we had to build with AI. Books live in an analog world — and if we don’t evolve the systems around them, they risk being left behind. By using AI responsibly and transparently, we’re not replacing stories. We’re protecting them. We’re giving schools and publishers the tools they need to understand content, comply with policy, and preserve access in a world that now demands clarity at scale.

Most importantly, we’re doing it by listening — to stakeholders from all sides of the aisle. We stand firm in the belief that this isn’t a partisan project. It’s a democratic one. Because what’s at stake isn’t just policy. It’s the principle that every reader deserves access to stories — and every community deserves tools that help them navigate complexity without fear.

Bookmarked isn’t just about fixing a broken system. It’s about building the digital infrastructure that books now need to survive — and to thrive.

OnShelf helps districts manage books with policy clarity—powered by accurate metadata from ISBNdb.”

What role do books play in your business and personal life?

“To be honest, I didn’t grow up loving books. I wasn’t the kid buried in a novel. I was the kid who felt like school didn’t work for me — and books were part of that. Reading felt like a struggle. I didn’t connect with the books I was handed, and over time, I just assumed books weren’t for people like me. So I stopped trying.

Now, years later, I see how big that gap really was.

My daughter, on the other hand, is a massive reader. She once told me she could fall asleep on a pile of books and be happy. And I get it now. She remembers the first book she loved — The Hunger Games. I can’t say the same. But she’s the one who helped me find the first book I actually wanted to finish.

And yet even after that, I realized something else: Finding the next right book is still hard. There are so many books. So many titles. So many choices. And no real system to help you navigate them unless you already know what you’re looking for. That stuck with me — and it’s a big reason why Bookmarked exists.

We talk a lot about book bans, library budgets, publishing trends… but underneath all of it is a basic, painful truth: It’s still way too hard to find a book you’ll actually want to finish.

The systems around books are outdated. The people who are supposed to help make those decisions — librarians, educators, even parents — are overwhelmed. Everyone’s guessing. And when it’s a bad guess, people just stop reading.

That’s the problem I care about solving.

I want books to be easier to find, easier to trust, and easier to connect with — whether you’re a lifelong reader or someone who’s never had that “first book” moment. And I believe we can do that with data, transparency, and real-world context.

That’s also why I believe so deeply in working with publishers — not around them. Their stories deserve to reach the right readers. Their copyrights deserve protection. And their work deserves a future that doesn’t get buried in bureaucracy, confusion, or fear. We built Bookmarked to be part of that solution — not just for schools, but for everyone who still believes in the power of a great book at the right moment.”

How does book metadata—such as the data provided by ISBNdb—support the functionality and goals of OnShelf?

“ISBNdb is a core layer in how we power Bookmarked and OnShelf.

At the center of our system is a simple goal: help the right book reach the right reader — in schools, in libraries, and in communities navigating increasingly complex policies. To do that at scale, we rely on clean, trusted metadata. ISBNdb gives us that foundation.

We use it to enrich and validate every title in our system — pulling structured identifiers that serve as the primary standard for working across the broad network of stakeholders in the book world. That data anchors everything we build on top of a book record, from policy alignment and reconsideration history to pre-purchase evaluation and discovery tools.

For publishers, that metadata accuracy matters. It ensures their titles are represented clearly and consistently — and gives our system the confidence to connect those books with schools faster, and with fewer barriers.

ISBNdb helps us move quickly, responsibly, and at scale. It’s part of the infrastructure we’re building to make sure that the books people work hard to create can actually be found — and read — by the people who need them most.”

As the landscape around book access and education continues to shift, what are your long-term goals for Bookmarked and OnShelf?

“We believe people need to read more books. Full stop.

But for that to happen, we need to make it easier to find the right ones. And right now, the systems around book discovery — especially in education — aren’t built for how people actually choose, approve, or connect with content anymore.

That problem is getting worse, not better. New policies and evolving regulatory requirements are bottlenecking the entire ecosystem — making it harder for schools to buy books, for publishers to sell books, and for readers to access books. It’s breaking the current infrastructure.

Our roadmap is about fixing that.

We’re building the infrastructure books need to move freely — from publisher to shelf to reader — with transparency, context, and trust at every step. We’re using AI to support faster, smarter decisions about what goes where — without adding more friction to a process that’s already under strain.

And while we’re starting in education, we know this isn’t just a school problem. There are millions of books in circulation — and more being published every day. Finding the right one shouldn’t be a matter of luck, privilege, or politics. We’re building the infrastructure to make sure it isn’t.”

Summary

At ISBNdb, we’re proud to support innovators like Bookmarked, who are building modern infrastructure to meet today’s challenges in education and publishing. By integrating trusted book metadata into tools like OnShelf, we help developers, educators, and publishers organize, evaluate, and distribute books responsibly and efficiently. We look forward to seeing how Bookmarked continues to evolve its impact and help more readers connect with the stories that matter most.