For those with large (500+) libraries...

[ficbot]

Someone posted in another thread about having 25k in books. Just wondering for those who have 'large' libraries of ebooks (more than 500 books) have you read them all? Is that a goal of yours?

For me, I am at about 800 books, and I have officially read a third of them. But I am only counting in that tally the books I have actually read on an e-device. Of the remaining two thirds, a good portion of them are books I read in print and have replaced a print version with an electronic. Another fair-sized section are classics I mean to get around to one of these days. I have a large assortment of freebies from the Sony store. So of the un-read books in my collection, only a small number (probably 50 or so, if that) are books which I actually paid for and have not yet explored.

So, how about the rest of you e-hoarders?

[dyrinn45]

i just bought my nook last saturday, and between books i have bought and PD ebooks i have 147 loaded on my nook so far. I have only read 4 or 5 so far.

[GA Russell]

GhostHawk did me a great favor and gave me over 300 books. I intend to read at least one of each author, but it is not likely that I will read every book.

[Boston]

I have a large library that with few exceptions consists of books I want to read and plan to read at some point.

However, given that I have the 3 boxes of paper books that I never got to*, the reality is that I won't ever get to read all of them unless people stop writing

* and those are the ones I decided to keep after weeding through the ones I had to admit I would never get to.

[calvin-c]

Note that, although I plan to *start* reading every book in my library (900+, no idea at present how many I've already read) I don't expect to finish all of them. Based on the books I've 'read' so far, I estimate that 10-20% won't live up to my hopes and I won't bother finishing them. Mostly I buy based on the synopsis-which is why it drives me crazy when a 'synopsis' only says things like "Another great book from XXXX", or only has quotes from reviews, etc. (I've found that you can't believe reviews. Either my tastes are wildly different from most or most reviewers say whatever they're paid to say. Not sure which it is, but I've definitely learned to ignore anything said in a review, that doesn't really synopsize the book.)

[Logseman]

Me, I'm a collector of media content. In the moment I possess 1,25 TB of capacity to fill with every worthwhile media at hand. So far Ihave only 700 GB occupied with content, mostly animated films and series (I'm an otaku ^^). But I intend to keep loading movies, music, videogames, ebooks, manga, comics, and so on, until those 1250 GB get filled. And once they do, I'll expand the space, ideally with 1 TB more. I have watched perhaps a third of the anime and some of the animated series, but as you can guess, my goal is not to consume it all. Eventually I'd like to get a content consumption device other than my PC, but I don't count on it coming soon. The iPad is a promising concept, but I'll wait until a company friendlier to different formats offers its proposal. My iTouch won't let me see any of the video I've gathered, for example.

Once that I've set up that idea, you can guess that having something like 6 thousand books at the moment is just the dog's biscuits for me. I intend to acquire many more, if possible.

[TGS]

I may not have read all of the books I own - about 2000 - but I know what's in them. Most of them are non-fiction and it is very rare that I would read one cover to cover.

[fjtorres]

I'm a firm believer that nature abhors an empty hard drive (or flash card). ;-)
I'm the sort that has bought the Black Mask collection 5 times (Rocket ebook, MS Reader, MobiPocket (twice) and most recently, the 25,000 volume version in ePub.
Plus, I downloaded the Gutenberg library DVD image and ran the prettifier on it to produce my own LITs with proper Metadata (a weak spot of the Black Mask Collection.)

On the commercial side, I've bought all the BAEN webscriptions and a few dozen volumes at Fictionwise, Amazon, and Powells, over the years.

Bottom line is that I can arguably claim to legally own between 25,000 and 40,000 ebooks. And they all fit on one 16GB flashcard.

While I would like to think I'll live long enough to read all of them I don't expect to. Its not my intent. The idea of having such a collection is simply access; that if on a moment's whim I'm in the mood for some SF, Fantasy or classical theatre, I can just hit the right directory on my ebook reader and get on with it. No muss, no fuss. Just do it.
To me an ebook reader is more than just a book reader, its a personal library.
(Mind you, I do intend to make a serious dent in it before I'm done, say 10-20%. That much I can do.)

Plus, I'm covered in case an asteroid impact ends civiization as we know it.

A while back Jerry Pournelle said that the day would come when we would not just buy individual ebook volumes but entire libraries (on disc). He even talked of the "Library of the Month Club". That day is pretty much upon us, no?
If not here, real.soon.now.

[MargaretLake]

I own between 1,200 and 1,500 paper books. Yes, I've read all of them. When I got my Kindle, I got rid of my paper TBR pile. I knew I'd never want to read another paper book again. I've since changed my mind about that since some of my faves (Hello, JKR) aren't available as e-books.

Over the last 10 years, I've probably donated about 5,000 paper books, most of which I had already read.

[radius]

Originally Posted by ficbot

Someone posted in another thread about having 25k in books. Just wondering for those who have 'large' libraries of ebooks (more than 500 books) have you read them all? Is that a goal of yours?

I'm a bit surprised that you would consider 500 books to be a "large" library. I think if you read so few books, a dedicated reading device seems like overkill.

Personally, I used to read every e-book I got. But since the e-ink readers have come out, the good folks at Mobileread have been adding books to the library faster than I can read them. Combine that with my re-reading of some books that I originally read on paper (like the ERB, HR Haggard, AC Doyle etc omnibuses that HarryT has assembled) I am starting to doubt my ability to keep up with the free e-books I find interesting, let alone catch up on my reading list.

I delete books off my Sony as I read them, and I have 289 outstanding at this moment

[Ravensknight]

I have around 800 books in my Calibre library, and about 60 of them are unread.
Most of the read ones, though, I have read in pbook format over the last 20 years. It was really only about 3/4 of the way through last year that I seriously started reading ebooks instead of pbooks.

[BongoBong]

Originally Posted by radius

I'm a bit surprised that you would consider 500 books to be a "large" library. I think if you read so few books, a dedicated reading device seems like overkill.

Really? I maybe read a book a week, which im sure is slow compared to many here (and can differ greatly depending on how busy I am) but I would guess more than the average person. But at a book a week that 500 would be about 10 years worth of books!

edit. Although I guess I am only 23 so 500 books seems like a lot!

[Laine]

I found I had to organise my reading list because books slipped through the gaps.

I use my phone to keep a check. Every month I list the ebooks I buy and mark them off when I read them. I keep Harlequin and Regency Reads in seperate lists. And for some reason I don't list Baen - I just buy them to support the company and if I don't read them I don't mind.

Some months go well. e.g. November - 26 read out of 26 bought. However Harlequins that month 11/24. Regency Reads 0/5. So that's a total for that month of 37/55. (Not counting Baen.)

At the moment I'm finding I can't buy much that interests me so I''ll be catching up on last year's books.

I buy a book that interests me, then before I get to it I buy another one that interests me more. I did the same with paper books.

[PKFFW]

Until recently I had a pbook collection of around 600 and I've read every one of those. Of course I had read more as well, from the library or borrowed from a friend or ones I had bought but given away. I've gotten rid of most of them but haven't replaced them all with ebooks as yet so my collection is much smaller now.

As for ebooks, I've got 34 and have read all but the final 3 Dresden novels. I'm saving them for my upcoming honeymoon to Fiji. I figure there will have to be some time we are so exhausted from other activities that I can think about doing some reading.

I'm very much a buy what I want to read as I am ready to read it and I keep a list of all the others that I want so I can buy them later.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[jabberwock_11]

I have a little over 500 ebooks and I would say that I have read about 3/4 of them. I like having complete collections of any series that I may start, but I would not download an ebook if I did not at least PLAN on reading it.