How do you keep track of what e-books you've already read?

[Hadrien]

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.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

I use the web-based librarything 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.

[brifan]

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.

[JSWolf]

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.

[AnemicOak]

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.

[kovidgoyal]

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 ;-)

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by TadW

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

[HarryT]

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 .

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

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!

[HarryT]

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.

[mores]

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.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

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

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

Derek

[brecklundin]

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...

[HappyMartin]

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.

[cherdman]

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.