Why store your ebook collection on your ereader?

[WashWest]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

I used to keep everything on my Kindle. Then I had to set it back to factory settings, and didn't bother to load everything again. Now, I have about 200 books on it. I used to have over 1,000 books on it.

I just don't bother to take the time to delete books, and besides, the more books I have on the device, the more options I have. I'm not always near WiFi, and I never know what I might want to read. The ability to have an entire library in my pocket was one of the selling points of the e-reader.

This pretty much describes my attitude: it's nice to have a lot of books but I'm not going to spend a lot of time being comprehensive. On my first device (K3), I kept everything organized, deleted books when I was done, etc. Now on my third device, I just load books when I get them or feel the urge to re-read them. I don't try to keep everything on there.

[Blossom]

My problem is my reading taste changes so often so every 6 months or so I have to clean off books I thought I would read soon. I have about 88 books on my Kindle which is way too many I like to keep it around 50.

Thanks to Amazon's Personal Document Cloud I get 5 GB to keep my books available in case I change my mind. There really no reason to keep many books on your Kindle as you can download them whenever needed and unlike Amazon's Archive Items which I couldn't find anything with 5000+ books from them, on the Personal Documents Cloud I put only the books I will read this year. When the first of the year comes. I delete everything and start over.

[hrosvit]

Originally Posted by Breid

I am very possibly representative of a minority viewpoint on this forum, but I am puzzled by other folks' desire to store thousands of ebooks on their ereaders. I am building my collection and add all my purchases to Calibre, which I backup regularly. But I only keep my to be read books on my ereader, and as I currently have 40 titles on that shelf, I reckon that will keep me in reading material for at least a month.

I am wondering if I am a slow reader, or if other folks have a higher 'must store' threshold than mine?

[image by Abhi Sharma / flickr]

You know what I'm puzzled by? Logarithms. And how exactly Rob Schneider became a star (not Steve Guttenberg - I know that was the Stonecutters!).

But it never occurred to me to be puzzled about other people's reading or storage habits.

For the record, I constantly re-read, and carry everything I can with me. That is the single best reason for changing from pbook to ebook, in my opinion - I can carry 10,000 books in the space that one book used to occupy. I often am overcome with the desire to go back a read a specific paragraph, page, chapter, or entire book that I've read before. Now, I can do that, wherever I am.

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by hrosvit

You know what I'm puzzled by? Logarithms. And how exactly Rob Schneider became a star (not Steve Guttenberg - I know that was the Stonecutters!).

But it never occurred to me to be puzzled about other people's reading or storage habits.

For the record, I constantly re-read, and carry everything I can with me. That is the single best reason for changing from pbook to ebook, in my opinion - I can carry 10,000 books in the space that one book used to occupy. I often am overcome with the desire to go back a read a specific paragraph, page, chapter, or entire book that I've read before. Now, I can do that, wherever I am.

Just so - I have an eLibrary not an eReader...

[hrosvit]

Originally Posted by elcreative

Just so - I have an eLibrary not an eReader...

I like that; I may borrow it!

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by hrosvit

You know what I'm puzzled by? Logarithms. And how exactly Rob Schneider became a star (not Steve Guttenberg - I know that was the Stonecutters!).

But it never occurred to me to be puzzled about other people's reading or storage habits.

For the record, I constantly re-read, and carry everything I can with me. That is the single best reason for changing from pbook to ebook, in my opinion - I can carry 10,000 books in the space that one book used to occupy. I often am overcome with the desire to go back a read a specific paragraph, page, chapter, or entire book that I've read before. Now, I can do that, wherever I am.

Lately I have been wondering about other people's reading/storage habits. Not why, but how.

I have 3 readers I use regularly and seldom read the same book on two at once. (occasionally I will switch to the Sony when the Kobo formats the book really badly) but I usually have different ones going on each reader.

One for in bed, one for balcony or table/chair reading, and one for the bus. But if I am really enjoying a book on the bus reader for example, I will just take it to bed till I finish the book

Readers are cheap enough for me to want to get another one since the new ones are coming out. I don't have to justify the expense, I spend more on things that are bad for my health weekly

What I would like is a system that would keep all my readers valuable to me but would not take up the time and energy of a part time job.

So I am interested in threads like this and more often than not I learn that one tiny little invaluable thing that makes me say why didn't I think of that. Some of them from yourself if memory serves me correctly

Helen

[MaxLV]

Why do I keep my entire e-book library on my e-reader? Because that is what it was designed and manufactured to do, and what I bought it for, and my computer is the backup 'device' for my e-reader, not another e-reader.

[DiapDealer]

Calibre is my library; my device is my book-bag.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by GoSharks

You must be deadly with the remote!!!

What is this thing of which you speak?

Don't own a TV. No need for a remote.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Calibre is my library; my device is my book-bag.

Yabut... It's a huge book-bag. Fill it up.

[DiapDealer]

You can't make me.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Istvan diVega

I don't understand the question.

Whyever would you not store your whole collection on your reader? SD cards are cheap as chips and where's the drawback in having all your books to hand, rather than just some of them?

For the same reason that you have different to read shelves. The reader is the highest priority shelf. Also I always have network connection through my phone.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by tompe

For the same reason that you have different to read shelves.

I don't see that analogy working. You can have virtual shelves on one reader. You don't have different houses for each of your shelves, do you?

Also I always have network connection through my phone.

Always is a long time. Many of us find connectivity far from ever-present and assured, even if we were all in favor of depending on cloud storage, which not all of us are.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Calibre is my library; my device is my book-bag.

Exactly the way I see it too. I am down to 55 now on my Kindle. After I posted I cleaned off some of the books I changed my mind in reading any time soon.

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Calibre is my library; my device is my book-bag.

My three-terabyte external hard drive is my library. It contains all my books, music, and movie/TV videos. (Properly backed up, of course.)

Calibre is my card catalog and 'fetch-it' program, that delivers to my e-reader.

As a collector and hoarder I have hundreds of thousands of e-books. If I read 6 books per day for the next 127 years, I'll begin to put a dent in the collection. I have too many other hobbies to read more than 3 a day...

In the meantime, I keep between 300-400 on my reader at all times, loaded from my TBR list. I figure if I can't find something I feel like reading out of 400 books that "I" originally chose, I'm doing something wrong! With 400 books on my Kobo, there are 79 pages of just book titles. I could spend an hour just reading the list, trying to decide what to read.

Sure, I 'could' keep more on the reader. There's room. I 'could' fit more furniture into my living room. I 'could' stuff more food into my fridge. There is room. I just don't feel the 'need.'


Stitchawl