MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Managing your library or how you consume books

pwalker8 · 08-29-2010, 08:30 AM

It seems to me that one common assumption that all ebook reader hardware makes is the idea that readers will only have a small number of ebooks on their readers at a time. Ideas such as grouping books by subject or support of series, i.e. being able to sort by series of books in order, either aren't supported or the support is very rudimentary.

I suppose this is reasonable for those who never re-read books, but then again, people who don't re-read books would probably be happier with a library/netflix type system of getting ebooks. By that I mean, some sort of ebook subscription service where for a fix fee, you can read as many ebooks as you like, but can only "check out" x number of books at a time and only keep them for a set period of time.

In the dead tree book world, people who don't re-read books tend to be more oriented towards getting books from the library, or used book shops where they can sale back the books as they finish them. This is how my mother tends to consume books. I suspect that if Amazon had a subscription service where she could get a kindle and for say $10 a month, read what ever she wanted but only have 5 books on the kindle at a time, she would be quite happy.

I tend to re-read books all the time and have a fairly substantial collection of both dead tree books and ebooks. I also like to have all my books available to me on my reader. I want to be able to pull up the books that I haven't read yet so I can pick one to read. I also want to be able to pull up all the books in on a specific subject, say all my Civil War books, or all my economics books so I can pick one. I also want to be able to pull up all the books in a specific series in order. I can do this on my desktop, but not my ebook reader.

In theory, I could do this on the iPad/iTouch/iPhone. Someone could put out a ebook database such as Calibre, I could select a book and the app would invoke the appropriate reading app so I could read it. Right now, no one has written such an app. Perhaps I'm unique in how I like to consume books.

Admittedly this post is a bit disjointed, so to sum it up, I guess the question that I'm raising is what are people's preferences. How many keep all their ebooks on their devices? Do you want something like Calibre (well, preferably something with a somewhat better UI, but something with that capability) on your reader device? Would you prefer a netflix like model for ebooks? Do you have some different way you would like manage ebooks on your device?

08-29-2010, 08:30 AM	#1
pwalker8 Grand Sorcerer Posts: 7,196 Karma: 70314280 Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Atlanta, GA Device: iPad Pro, iPad mini, Kobo Aura, Amazon paperwhite, Sony PRS-T2	Managing your library or how you consume books It seems to me that one common assumption that all ebook reader hardware makes is the idea that readers will only have a small number of ebooks on their readers at a time. Ideas such as grouping books by subject or support of series, i.e. being able to sort by series of books in order, either aren't supported or the support is very rudimentary. I suppose this is reasonable for those who never re-read books, but then again, people who don't re-read books would probably be happier with a library/netflix type system of getting ebooks. By that I mean, some sort of ebook subscription service where for a fix fee, you can read as many ebooks as you like, but can only "check out" x number of books at a time and only keep them for a set period of time. In the dead tree book world, people who don't re-read books tend to be more oriented towards getting books from the library, or used book shops where they can sale back the books as they finish them. This is how my mother tends to consume books. I suspect that if Amazon had a subscription service where she could get a kindle and for say $10 a month, read what ever she wanted but only have 5 books on the kindle at a time, she would be quite happy. I tend to re-read books all the time and have a fairly substantial collection of both dead tree books and ebooks. I also like to have all my books available to me on my reader. I want to be able to pull up the books that I haven't read yet so I can pick one to read. I also want to be able to pull up all the books in on a specific subject, say all my Civil War books, or all my economics books so I can pick one. I also want to be able to pull up all the books in a specific series in order. I can do this on my desktop, but not my ebook reader. In theory, I could do this on the iPad/iTouch/iPhone. Someone could put out a ebook database such as Calibre, I could select a book and the app would invoke the appropriate reading app so I could read it. Right now, no one has written such an app. Perhaps I'm unique in how I like to consume books. Admittedly this post is a bit disjointed, so to sum it up, I guess the question that I'm raising is what are people's preferences. How many keep all their ebooks on their devices? Do you want something like Calibre (well, preferably something with a somewhat better UI, but something with that capability) on your reader device? Would you prefer a netflix like model for ebooks? Do you have some different way you would like manage ebooks on your device?