What is the best way to mark books as "read"?

[treadlightly]

I've been using Calibre for a while and am just learning how to customize it. It's a fantastic piece of software.

I was wondering how others mark books that they have read. Do you use a tag or a custom column with a boolean flag? I like to sort for books not "read" using tags but I'm finding going back to add the "read" tags a bit cumbersome after reading a few books. I was hoping there was a better way to manage this. Thanks.

[user_none]

Tags and custom boolean column is the most popular way to do it. There isn't really an automated way to handle marking the books... Manually marking them is about the only way. If you only send one book to your device you can set it as read after you send it s you don't forget later.

[Sydney's Mom]

I use a symbol for a tag (so I don't accidentilly have it come up), 0read0. Then, I put a rating in the rating column. I can sort by tags, but seeing the ratings when searching by author is really helpful.

To keep track of what has and hasn't been entered, when I finish a book, it goes into my Already Read file. When I have a bunch there, I pull up Calibre, mark the books, and delete them off my kindle.

[Nyssa]

I created a "Yes/No" custom column & then a saved search off of that column.

[speakingtohe]

I like to have a fair number of books on reader.
I have one custom column for sent and one for deleted.

Deleted column means I have read the book or didn't like it.

When I send books I update the sent column.

Periodically I check the calibre 'on device' column against my sent column, and if the book is no longer on the device I update the deleted column. (Really nice that calibre lets you reorder the way your columns display at will)

Probably more complicated than it needs to be but I have had to reformat my card a few times lately so for me it is worth it

Helen

[Purple Lady]

I use tags, and setting more than one at one time is easy - just highlight all the books you want to add a tag to and select "Edit metadata" as usual. A window pops up that allows you to add a tag to all the books at once.

[pchrist7]

Hi
I'm too lazy, so I use a custom column for read status, getting data from the Kindle.
Have a look at:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=137

[rbur]

I archive all my ebooks on a server for safety's sake. When I load books on my Sony 650, I check to make sure they loaded correctly then I delete them from Calibre.
When I finish reading, I delete from the Sony.
BUT ... I use a app for my iPod touch called "Book Crawler" to track what I have read. The app does a wonderful job of highlighting unread books and because I always have my touch with me if someone mentions a book, I quickly enter it into the database and mark it unread.
For me ... this all works great. No fuss, no clutter.

[zespectre]

I created a "Yes/No" custom column & then a saved search off of that column.

I did this and I created another custom column where I number the next 15 books I plan on reading, of course that set of numbers seems to get "adjusted" at least a frequently as my Netflix queue <grin>.

[Sweetpea]

I've made a custom column containing "unread", "reading" and "read". And at the end of last year I added another column "Year Read", so I can keep track on when I've read books.

[treadlightly]

There's some fantastic ideas here, thank you! I'm starting with a custom Yes/No column for now.