Is it possible to have too many ebooks.

Assuming that they're easily replaceable books from reputable sites, cull them. You'll probably find that you're interests change over time. It may be because something more interesting comes your way or it may be because you tire of a particular type of book. This means that you'll probably end up searching your library then the internet for something to read a couple of years down the road. That means that any time spent acquiring excessive numbers of books, managing excessive numbers of books, then searching through your library and not finding anything interesting will all be a waste of your time.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with keeping a few months supply at hand. You may also want to keep freebies that are still under copyright, because there is nothing in copyright law that says that authors have to offer those freebies indefinitely.

[shanghaichica]

No. I've always said you can never have enough books and as e books don't take up any physical space this is even more true for me.

[dandelioncottage]

Originally Posted by shanghaichica

No. I've always said you can never have enough books and as e books don't take up any physical space this is even more true for me.

My feelings exactly.

[maartencoertjens]

I have about 500.000 books, including 70 gigabyte of Russian books.
This was too much as I will have to spend a few years to sort them all and won't have time to read them. But it was a typical case of collector-frenzy fueled by the interweb.

[DrNefario]

I only have a few hundred on my Kindle, and I'm already forgetting some of them. They might not take up any physical space, but they also don't have anything to remind you you own them.

[Turtle91]

No .


It wouldn't let me just say "no"...I got the warning that my message was too short...it has to be at least 5 characters long. Sooo. Here it goes again:

RE: Is it possible to have too many ebooks?



No

[eschwartz]

Anything from Project Gutenberg that you aren't ready to read yet, delete and get it back if/when you ever decide to read it. Anything else, just add into a new library and forget about until you run out of the stuff thats actually interesting.

[ManosHandsOfFate]

Originally Posted by theinfamousj

Someone once said on this forum that s/he was hoarding books for a time in the future when his/her income would be restricted (retirement, I believe). When retired, I know that I will have more time to read the books I have acquired, but also less money to buy them.

I view building up my collection now as a way of saving for my retirement. I don't keep the books on my reader, and I don't stress myself out in trying to organize them now. I just dump them all on to backup media. I know that I will have free time in my distant future to deal with the organization.

You could also take the money you're currently spending on books you don't read and invest it so that you have more money when you retire.

Of course books will cost more in the future so maybe the economics would work out.

But then again, you might also end up with a bunch of books that you're not interested in reading because your tastes have changed. Or you could find your vision is so bad you need to take up a different hobby.

[Breid]

I am an avid booklover, but I think you can have too many ebooks...Project Gutenburg makes it very easy to download lots and lots of free ebooks, more than enough to read in two lifetimes!!. I have decided to only keep unread books on my ereader (I keep a separate backup of my complete ebook library) and to only buy/download freebies to my TBR pile to give me a choice of new reading material depending on my mood, but I like to keep that list fairly short and easily manageable. For me the most important thing is reading the books I have and then moving on to buy some new ones.

[pagansoul]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I have two Mobile Reference Classics, and I like the layout. Is there any place where I can get all of those classics for $20? It would save me quite some time, looking for a version I like when I want to read one.

Why should Calibre get wonky? It just uses a database to save all its stuff. Each book has its own ID, but I expect that it's at least a long integer, which means you'd be able to load roughly 4 billion (4.000.000.000) books.

I expect that your computer will run out of required storage and speed before Calibre runs out of ID's to handle the books. (Except when you add and remove books a lot. I don't know if it re-uses ID's of deleted items. Most database programs don't.)

Mobilereference used to have sales now and again on it's Classic collections. I think they now sell through resellers like iTunes and Amazon to purchase their books one by one for about $1-$5 each. I did Amazon at the start but after the first 5 authors I decided to just go for the group purchase using their site but I can't find that set-up anymore.

On Amazon you can also search under 'Delphi Classics'.

[purple_fishy]

I have about 2000 ebooks in my files right now, the majority of which are classics. I like to keep those because the majority of what I read are classics. I have them somewhat organized into Calibre although I just found out about plug-ins which I think will be even better for organizing. I DON"T accumulate lots of freebies. Just because it's free doesn't mean I want it. I only download freebies that I might want to read later. For example, I don't download any suspense freebies because I won't ever read them.

I think as long as you can still find the books you want and you are not spending hours trying to find it, you can't have too many ebooks!

[Hellmark]

Save them elsewhere. You don't need to have them on the reader, but no point in totally getting rid of them.

[BookCat]

If your hard drive is becoming full, save them onto an external one. I do this with books I've read. Ebooks, unlike pbooks, do not create physical clutter, but having too many on your reader may slow it down.

Ideally (she says hypocritically) have fewer than 50 on your reader and the rest on your hard drive.

[alanHd]

The big problem I have, is that I save my library on a 32g memory stick because I use it across multiple computers and I have run out of space on that. Can anyone recommend a 64g flash drive that wont break the bank and is reliable.

[Katsunami]

If you don't intend to carry those books everywhere all the time, I'd recommend a 2.5 or even 1.8 inch external harddrive.