If you buy a p-book, it's easy to remember the books you've already read - the book in your bookshelf will always remind you. But how do you deal with e-books?

The more e-books I read, the harder I find it to remember and track the books I've read in the past. This is particularly annoying when I try to find the sequence to a book but cannot remember its title nor its author.

I keep a tabbed spreadsheet that tracks what I've read. Between e-books, p-books and audiobooks I'd never keep it straight otherwise.

I usually try an author with his most popular works and if I like him or her, I read everything he or she writes. Sometimes it is more difficult because I have a title in French or one in English and for the same work they are completely different.

Of course the best way to remember is to savor what I read, to stop and reflect if the work requires it. I did at some point take written notes but mental ones are better. Now I mark pages on the reader. If I come across a book with Marks, it's been read.

An other way is to format for the reader only if you plan to read the book. That way if you see in your collection a book that was fomated for the reader, (you know 16pt text!) chances are you read or tried to read it. Some books are boring or offensive to intelligence.

And best of all... a reading plan. Mine is ready for the next 3 months. Right now I'm reading Asimov's 14 foundation series. :wink:

Huh. I hadn't thought about this. I guess I've just always kinda 'known' what I've read, the same way I always kinda 'know' where I parked the car, I guess. I'll probably start losing both of those before too long, so I guess I should start thinking about some sort of system.

Once, I've read a book for 50 pages, according to title, only to find I had read it in French. It took me that long to recognize it! Ok! I had read it long ago but I can't understand how they let some translators take such liberties with a story... Now add this to the balance and it gets way complicated. I have to cross search all titles in both languages. I love WIKI !

I set up 2 folders on my PC: Unread e-books; and read e-books. I move the unread books a few at a time onto my PPC, and once finished, move them to the read folder on the PC, to conserve PPC storage space.

I have been keeping a list recently. I tend to enjoy following book series in order like Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp books, so if I'm on book 4, I know I read books 1-3! ;-)

But my memory is so bad that it probably doesn't matter much if I read a book before or not. I just think to myself that I'm getting really good at predicting the plot! :)

For p-books, I use Readerware. For e-books, I use a large directory folder with subfolders labeled by author name for organization. Unread e-books are kept in a separate folder labeled 1st Reads. Once read the e-book is placed under the author subfolder. It's not very elegant, but it works for me and keeps from buying books I already have. On my iLiad, I use a SD card on which I have unread books by title, but once read the books are placed in a folder labeled "Read". Haven't found a good way to organize my Sony Reader yet.

I use a simple list, which is how I can say I've read 214 works in the fourteen months since I got my ETI-2, about half of them standalone shorts, the rest mostly novels, plus a dozen or so nonfiction books. Besides what I have read, the list also notes what series I'm following, so I can pick up the next work when I see it.

One thing I note is that I read far more short works in e-form than I would in p-form. I rarely bought collections or anthologies, and I let my magazine subscriptions lapse years ago, but I'll take a chance on a short for free.

Huh. I hadn't thought about this. I guess I've just always kinda 'known' what I've read, the same way I always kinda 'know' where I parked the car, I guess. I'll probably start losing both of those before too long, so I guess I should start thinking about some sort of system.

Yeah, but if your mind is that far gone then you'll really enjoy that "new" book you just found and it wouldn't matter. lol j/k :rolleyes5

That'd be great, Azayzel, then I could have a really small library! :laugh4:

I use listpro. Then i can see what I have read and when I read it

That'd be great, Azayzel, then I could have a really small library! :laugh4:
When you get to read the same book over and over and over... You'll have a guaranteed reservation for 'Padded Cell Hotel' :happy2:

Sounds comfortable too, yvanleterrible! And life is crazy enough for us right now that it actually sounds restful ... should that worry me? :mad:

I use the web-based librarything (http://www.librarything.com/) to keep track of my p-books (for e-books I put the author and title in the filename and keep a copy on my PC). Librarything would work for e-books, and you can even associate a p-book cover with the listing. Since it allows multiple tags per book, you can also store both p-books and e-books.

It would be cool to have something like last.fm, both keeping track of what we've read so far, giving advices with excerpts, showing people with the same interests in reading...

We currently lack real metadata for e-books, something as widely used as ID3 for music files. With good metadata and the right software/hardware, a "last.fm for books" could be possible.

I use the web-based librarything (http://www.librarything.com/) to keep track of my p-books (for e-books I put the author and title in the filename and keep a copy on my PC). Librarything would work for e-books, and you can even associate a p-book cover with the listing. Since it allows multiple tags per book, you can also store both p-books and e-books.

Me too. I have been using it to record what I have been reading, ebooks included.

I have a folder on my PC with all ebooks by author, as I add one to my reader, I move the book into a seperate folder marked already read.

What I am going to do is move all the read books to a new directory (only the icon is a folder) and as I remove books from the reader I'll move them into the same directory.

For the past few years I've been using a spreadsheet to keep track of what I read each year. When a new year starts I just add a new tab for the year & start a new list. I haven't seen any need to specify whether it was a pbook or an ebook.

I wrote libprs500 to let me do this conveniently with a nice searchable metadata database and every book in multiple formats. Now whenever I start a new ebook, i first load it into libprs500 edit the metadata, convert it to LRF and then transfer it to the reader, all in about 5mins, and I have the book and its associated metadata forevermore ;-)

If you buy a p-book, it's easy to remember the books you've already read - the book in your bookshelf will always remind you. But how do you deal with e-books?

The more e-books I read, the harder I find it to remember and track the books I've read in the past. This is particularly annoying when I try to find the sequence to a book but cannot remember its title nor its author.


But why would you *care* if you've read it before? I mean, every book re-read is an old friend come to visit. I've got dead-tree and ebooks numbering in the thousands, and I'm constantly re-reading my old friends - as well as reading/meeting new ones. :)

Derek

One of the benefits of "advancing middle age" that I'm finding is that increasingly poor memory allows one to enjoy books afresh, because I've forgotten the story :).

But why would you *care* if you've read it before? I mean, every book re-read is an old friend come to visit. I've got dead-tree and ebooks numbering in the thousands, and I'm constantly re-reading my old friends - as well as reading/meeting new ones. :)

Derek

Don't care if you read it before? You should only need one book then!

:book2:

There are occasions on which one feels like reading something new, and other occasions on which one wishes to re-read an old favourite - eg for me, re-reading Dickens is like meeting an old friend all over again. It certainly doesn't have to be "all one" or "all the other"; there is a middle ground.

That is, I think, one thing that defines great literature - the quality that you can repeatedly re-read it and get something new and pleasurable from it.

i use folders on my mac.
ebooks\lastname, firstname\
since i like series, i usually have a limited number of authors i read. those are labeled with specific color (oh, it's great to have a mac). if i am missing books, i usually download a JPG of the cover, and name it appropriately and give it a gray color.

and all the unread books of my favorite authors are on my p1i smartphone. so whatever is on my phone is unread. once read, i delete.

e-z!

another cool feature is that when i open an ebook, if it starts at page one, it is unread. if it is on the last page, i probably read it already and just forgot to delete it.

Don't care if you read it before? You should only need one book then!

:book2:

Didn't say that! I like reading different story lines! :D

Derek

I am currently just using mobipocket as my reader so I know this limits the books I can read. But for now I am using the "Reading List" options undet the DETAILS part of the "eBook" menu on the menu bar.

Since a book can be in several "reading lists" at the same time it seems to work well enough.

I am using:

Reading
Unread
Read
SciFi
Mystery
Biography
Sports
Reference

And a few other "lists" I find useful for me...

It seems easy enough to remove and add a book to a list. Then when in the mood to read something new...simply display a list of books for that list. Which I want to check on if I read a book I simply need to "DETAILS" of the book...

Or even easier...the LAST READ date field on the same DETAILS screen for the book. ;)

For now that should be fine. When I have time I'll whip up a Foxpro, Access or whatever DB and stick the info there...but for now this is simple enough for me to keep track. But, yeah, tracking ebooks might be harder then pbooks I guess...

I keep track in much the same way with e books as with p books, I don't. I have never kept p books other than Buddhist texts from the last 4 years. I suppose that is why that thing I wont mention on this thread for fear of derailing this discussion (you know, that thing that starts with a D and ends with an M) has just gone straight over my head.

I suspect I will keep e books longer than p books because storage is so cheap and takes up almost no space. I bet that within 2 years I will accidentally repurchase at least 1 e book I already have:oops2:.

A friend just introduced me to http://www.goodreads.com/. Perhaps this is a good solution for some people. I'll give it a shot.