Touch How do you organize your shelves?

Larken · 11-29-2011, 09:24 AM

I've used a Nook for a while, both classic and STR. I've never really utilized the shelving function but am trying to get more organized. I'm curious about how you all organize your shelves. I am attempting to organize by author, but then I get an author who has written several different storylines. David Gemmell is a good example. He has the Drenai series, the Rigante series, the Jerusalem Man series, etc. In that instance, how do you sort shelves by author and show which book belongs in which series and the order in which it should be read in the series? I'm using Calibre as well. I wasn't sure if that would be accomplished with a combination of shelfs and Calibre or what. Let me know what you think.

tecweston · 11-29-2011, 02:40 PM

I have a shelf called "I'm Reading" that I use most of the time, for the three or four books I read simultaneously at any given time. Whenever I click "library" from the menu it takes me back to that shelf so I never use the home menu to navigate.

I also have a shelf for "samples," and a shelf for "unread" books, so that if I'm looking for something new to read I can easily browse stuff I haven't opened yet.

Hoyt Clagwell · 11-29-2011, 05:45 PM

I have lost my shelves on 3 occasions and they are kind of a hassle to create so now I just keep one for currently reading.

astrangerhere · 11-30-2011, 05:42 PM

I have shelves that correspond to my calibre tags. I have for example a classics shelf, a Sherlockiana shelf, a noir shelf, etc etc.

kevn57 · 12-17-2011, 12:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tecweston

I have a shelf called "I'm Reading" that I use most of the time, for the three or four books I read simultaneously at any given time. Whenever I click "library" from the menu it takes me back to that shelf so I never use the home menu to navigate.

I also have a shelf for "samples," and a shelf for "unread" books, so that if I'm looking for something new to read I can easily browse stuff I haven't opened yet.

Thanks great tip, I just got a NST and wondered why their was no list of books, I opened recently, but your post fixed that problem for me.

RHWright · 12-20-2011, 10:52 AM

Had a fairly complex set for my original NOOK, but since I changed to the NST I basically just have 2: Reading Now, Reading Next

Guns4Hire · 12-28-2011, 03:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Larken

I've used a Nook for a while, both classic and STR. I've never really utilized the shelving function but am trying to get more organized. I'm curious about how you all organize your shelves. I am attempting to organize by author, but then I get an author who has written several different storylines. David Gemmell is a good example. He has the Drenai series, the Rigante series, the Jerusalem Man series, etc. In that instance, how do you sort shelves by author and show which book belongs in which series and the order in which it should be read in the series? I'm using Calibre as well. I wasn't sure if that would be accomplished with a combination of shelfs and Calibre or what. Let me know what you think.

The order of a series or any real sorting is extremely weak om the STR, I think we are screwed unless we root the device. You cant sort by file name properly because the list feature in the library uses too big of fonts and the folder icon is too large, so having calibre send the file like {author_sort}/{series}/{title} - {series_index} - {authors} is worthless. Shelves work ok but again sorting is weak so figuring out what book is next in a series is impossible within the STR. So rooting is really all there is for us types.

That's pretty much where I am at at this point just not sure where to start (yet) since I know squat about Linux..

toddos · 12-29-2011, 07:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guns4Hire

The order of a series or any real sorting is extremely weak om the STR, I think we are screwed unless we root the device. You cant sort by file name properly because the list feature in the library uses too big of fonts and the folder icon is too large, so having calibre send the file like {author_sort}/{series}/{title} - {series_index} - {authors} is worthless. Shelves work ok but again sorting is weak so figuring out what book is next in a series is impossible within the STR. So rooting is really all there is for us types.

That's pretty much where I am at at this point just not sure where to start (yet) since I know squat about Linux..

Maybe it's because I don't load my whole library on my reader at one time (why would I do this? I'll load ~10-20 books at a time and that's more than enough), but I have no trouble using list-view sorted by author with a calibre plugboard to prepend series. I use "{series}{series_index:0>2s| - | - }{title}" for epub/NOOK_COLOR (because the STR is NOOK_COLOR to Calibre, not NOOK) and it works just fine. Books by the same author are sorted alphabetically by title, so for example "A Song of Ice and Fire - 04 - A Feast for Crows" correctly lists before "A Song of Ice and Fire - 05 - A Dance with Dragons" where they would be out of order if I didn't use the plugboard.

Ubermensch · 01-01-2012, 09:43 PM

Because I love to have everything with me, I keep all my library on my Nook. So, to keep things organized, I created a shelf for non-read books.

Guns4Hire · 01-02-2012, 05:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by toddos

Maybe it's because I don't load my whole library on my reader at one time (why would I do this? I'll load ~10-20 books at a time and that's more than enough), but I have no trouble using list-view sorted by author with a calibre plugboard to prepend series. I use "{series}{series_index:0>2s| - | - }{title}" for epub/NOOK_COLOR (because the STR is NOOK_COLOR to Calibre, not NOOK) and it works just fine. Books by the same author are sorted alphabetically by title, so for example "A Song of Ice and Fire - 04 - A Feast for Crows" correctly lists before "A Song of Ice and Fire - 05 - A Dance with Dragons" where they would be out of order if I didn't use the plugboard.

I don't keep my whole library on either of my devices but i do load 50-ish books on there. I like variety and so no matter where I am or which device I have I can read depending on my mood.

Ill take a look at that plugboard.

azazel1024 · 01-04-2012, 02:37 PM

I do it generally by author. However, in some cases it is author/series.

For instance I have a whole slew of David Weber books, but I also have a couple of books in a series that David Weber cowrote with another author (Steve White), which the other author (Steve White) cowrote the last two books in the series, but not with David Weber. Since I don't have any other books by Steve White, I just shelve the two books at the end of the series with David Weber, as that is how I think of the books as belonging (Sorry Steve, you are good author an old, but that is how the chips fell).

Same thing with some other author's stuff. However, with every other instance I have multiple other books by an author, so they have their own shelf as well. Example I have a shelf of David Drake stuff, but he cowrote a bunch of stuff with Eric Flint, so that cowritten stuff is included with David Drake, but it is also on Eric Flint's shelf too.

I don't have any shelves, 11 total with about 130 odd books between them. I have probably another 20 books currently on my Nook which aren't shelved as it is odds and sods from other authors (A Heinlien book here, an Orson Scott Card book there, etc). With the exception of Tolkien, I don't have any shelves with less than 7 books in it. Calibre generally keeps the folders straight in main memory/SD card for easier access.

At some point I'll load up most of the rest of my library from Calibre, which would be maybe another 100 books which would involve another 2 shelves and about 50 or so extra books not sitting on shelves. Since most of my books (not on shelves) are either Sci Fi or Fantasy (95%) it doesn't make a lot of sense trying to organize it beyond misc, which goes on to a micro SD card, which would mean losing the shelf with a reboot of the Nook, so I am not even bothering with the other stuff.

diremommy · 01-26-2012, 05:14 PM

I got my Touch back around September, and while I love some things about it, the pain in the behind of sorting and shelving the books has the Nook mostly in the drawer and me reading everything on my Kindle.

Has there seriously not even been some kind of app created similar to the Calibre Kindle Collections Manager for the Nook Touch? Might rooting it give me better shelving/sorting/collections options?

I'm one of those people who likes to throw a bunch of stuff onto her device and then sort by genre or author, but having to go through EVERY SINGLE BOOK EVERY SINGLE TIME is really irritating.

azazel1024 · 01-27-2012, 10:49 AM

Under the main library you have sorts for author, title and most recent. You can also go in and view your file folders. As you mentioned Calibre, that will automatically setup folders based on authors and I think if you play with it, you can setup top level folders for genre, then by author within those folders, or even just dump the files in to the genre folder they belong in.

So if you want to look for a book by genre, you go look under the file option in your library. If you want to do title/author/date sort, go to main library. If you want to do some other kind of setup, load it on to your shelves that way.

Though shelves are broken in that rebooting (and some claim just hooking to your PC) will remove all items from your shelves that are stored on your micro SD card. I have found rebooting does this. Though I only have roughly 150 books loaded on my nook and I am only using about 50% of the unreserved memory space (I have about another 20 books that I don't care to have sorted on to shelves on my micro SD card). So it is going to be awhile before I run out of space to store books that can be effectively sorted on shelves.

It won't lie, it would be nice to have the nook ST setup so that there can be a meta data tag to place it on a certain shelf that way Calibre can automatically set the metadata tag so that new books you load go right to shelves you have setup.

And or a nook application for your Windows/Mac that allows you to manage your shelves and content through your PC without needing something like Calibre (though I do really like Calibre).

It was kind of tedious to go through and create the 9 or 10 shelves I have right now as it meant needing to go through about 20 odd pages of books 9 or 10 times to select the ones I wanted to put on the shelves. Probably only took me 20 minutes to setup though.

diremommy · 01-28-2012, 03:02 PM

Yes, I have just noticed that ALL my shelves have zero books on it. All my books are on my SD card. If it's going to be like this any time I have to re-set, I guess I won't bother with the shelves thing.

How many books SHOULD the Nook hold in it's own memory space, if they aren't B&N books? Guesstimated, I know there's no exact number, lol.

I have been noticing that my Kindle gets slower the more books I pack on it, so I decided to actually start to USE my Nook, to lighten the Kindle's load, so to speak.

What would make the process a LOT easier for me would be to be able to:

a. when editing shelves, switch how the books list from ABC order to by author name. More often than not, an author sticks with one genre, so if I could sort that way, it just seems like it would be easier.

b. if there were an "unshelved books" option, just to double check that everything actually IS shelved. My eyes tend to glaze over when scrolling down the screen, and I'm sure I miss books. An alternative to this would be the option to have books not show up on the list while shelving, if the book has already been placed on a shelf.

So Calibre can set up folders seen on my Nook itself, or just in Calibre itself? I need to play a bit more. I'm not so tech minded, it took me ages to add screensavers to my Kindle and try the Collection manager. Of course, with my Nook, I tried to do all those things first thing. SS's were easy, Shelves, not so much, hehe!

Of course, in a perfect world, there would be a Nook Shelves manager for Calibre, that works just like the Kindle Collections Manager, and all books are sorted onto my Nook with one touch of a button!

azazel1024 · 01-30-2012, 10:52 AM

Guesstimate based off the size of most of my epubs, roughly 500 books. My average epub size is maybe 500-600kb, somewhere in that range (some as small as 200kb, some as big as 1.2mb). So with a little less than 250MB of user accessible storage, that gets you somewhere in the ballpark of 500 books. If you use Calibre though, it'll be a little less. It uploads a thumbnail folder with thumbnails for each epub, that I guess the nook can read. The images aren't big, but it adds something like 15-50kb per file.

Maybe call it 400 books on the low end unless yours are big?

At any rate, I have a fairly large wallpaper folder (around 20 images, about 300-400kb an image) as well as somewhere around 150 books in main memory and I have 150MB free of the ~250MB total. I have about another 30 books on the SD card and 3 books in the non-user accessible storage space since I bought them from BN.

A) My Gods that would be nice to have the option of that, especially once you get in to the big lists

B) It would also be really nice, but just A above would do most of what I'd want in B (easy enough to check under each author that all of their books are checked for the shelf in question)

Calibre will setup folders on the nook itself when you transfer files over to it. When in your library, select My Files and go to either main memory and books or SD card and book and the files will be sorted in their respective author folders the same way Calibre stores them on your harddrive (so make darned sure in the file meta data in Calibre that all books for an author really have that authors name, and not some derivation of it, otherwise you'll get multiple folders for the same author). I am 99% sure you can change this default behavior of Calibre so that you can sort them in to Genre folders and then author folder within the Genre.

11-29-2011, 09:24 AM	#1
Larken Where's the backlight?? Posts: 52 Karma: 2089116 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Indianapolis, IN Device: Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 and Kobo Glo HD	How do you organize your shelves? I've used a Nook for a while, both classic and STR. I've never really utilized the shelving function but am trying to get more organized. I'm curious about how you all organize your shelves. I am attempting to organize by author, but then I get an author who has written several different storylines. David Gemmell is a good example. He has the Drenai series, the Rigante series, the Jerusalem Man series, etc. In that instance, how do you sort shelves by author and show which book belongs in which series and the order in which it should be read in the series? I'm using Calibre as well. I wasn't sure if that would be accomplished with a combination of shelfs and Calibre or what. Let me know what you think.

01-28-2012, 03:02 PM	#14
diremommy Zealot Posts: 136 Karma: 14452 Join Date: Dec 2009 Device: Zenpad S 8, iPad mini 2	Yes, I have just noticed that ALL my shelves have zero books on it. All my books are on my SD card. If it's going to be like this any time I have to re-set, I guess I won't bother with the shelves thing. How many books SHOULD the Nook hold in it's own memory space, if they aren't B&N books? Guesstimated, I know there's no exact number, lol. I have been noticing that my Kindle gets slower the more books I pack on it, so I decided to actually start to USE my Nook, to lighten the Kindle's load, so to speak. What would make the process a LOT easier for me would be to be able to: a. when editing shelves, switch how the books list from ABC order to by author name. More often than not, an author sticks with one genre, so if I could sort that way, it just seems like it would be easier. b. if there were an "unshelved books" option, just to double check that everything actually IS shelved. My eyes tend to glaze over when scrolling down the screen, and I'm sure I miss books. An alternative to this would be the option to have books not show up on the list while shelving, if the book has already been placed on a shelf. So Calibre can set up folders seen on my Nook itself, or just in Calibre itself? I need to play a bit more. I'm not so tech minded, it took me ages to add screensavers to my Kindle and try the Collection manager. Of course, with my Nook, I tried to do all those things first thing. SS's were easy, Shelves, not so much, hehe! Of course, in a perfect world, there would be a Nook Shelves manager for Calibre, that works just like the Kindle Collections Manager, and all books are sorted onto my Nook with one touch of a button! Last edited by diremommy; 01-28-2012 at 03:32 PM.

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11-29-2011, 02:40 PM	#2
tecweston Comic book artist Posts: 553 Karma: 1760679 Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Detroit Device: Nook Glowlight, iPad, iPhone	I have a shelf called "I'm Reading" that I use most of the time, for the three or four books I read simultaneously at any given time. Whenever I click "library" from the menu it takes me back to that shelf so I never use the home menu to navigate. I also have a shelf for "samples," and a shelf for "unread" books, so that if I'm looking for something new to read I can easily browse stuff I haven't opened yet.

11-29-2011, 05:45 PM	#3
Hoyt Clagwell Not an Addict Posts: 301 Karma: 5678807 Join Date: Mar 2011 Device: The blue one next to the fish.	I have lost my shelves on 3 occasions and they are kind of a hassle to create so now I just keep one for currently reading.

11-30-2011, 05:42 PM	#4
astrangerhere Professor of Law Posts: 3,638 Karma: 65526796 Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Chapel Hill, NC Device: Kobo Elipsa, Kobo Libra H20, Kobo Aura One, KoboMini	I have shelves that correspond to my calibre tags. I have for example a classics shelf, a Sherlockiana shelf, a noir shelf, etc etc.

12-20-2011, 10:52 AM	#6
RHWright Addict Posts: 219 Karma: 2617122 Join Date: Oct 2011 Location: North Carolina Device: NOOK ST, Nexus 7	Had a fairly complex set for my original NOOK, but since I changed to the NST I basically just have 2: Reading Now, Reading Next

01-01-2012, 09:43 PM	#9
Ubermensch Connoisseur Posts: 83 Karma: 507230 Join Date: Aug 2011 Device: Nook STR	Because I love to have everything with me, I keep all my library on my Nook. So, to keep things organized, I created a shelf for non-read books.

01-04-2012, 02:37 PM	#11
azazel1024 Groupie Posts: 182 Karma: 346596 Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Ellicott City, MD Device: Nook simple touch, iPad 2	I do it generally by author. However, in some cases it is author/series. For instance I have a whole slew of David Weber books, but I also have a couple of books in a series that David Weber cowrote with another author (Steve White), which the other author (Steve White) cowrote the last two books in the series, but not with David Weber. Since I don't have any other books by Steve White, I just shelve the two books at the end of the series with David Weber, as that is how I think of the books as belonging (Sorry Steve, you are good author an old, but that is how the chips fell). Same thing with some other author's stuff. However, with every other instance I have multiple other books by an author, so they have their own shelf as well. Example I have a shelf of David Drake stuff, but he cowrote a bunch of stuff with Eric Flint, so that cowritten stuff is included with David Drake, but it is also on Eric Flint's shelf too. I don't have any shelves, 11 total with about 130 odd books between them. I have probably another 20 books currently on my Nook which aren't shelved as it is odds and sods from other authors (A Heinlien book here, an Orson Scott Card book there, etc). With the exception of Tolkien, I don't have any shelves with less than 7 books in it. Calibre generally keeps the folders straight in main memory/SD card for easier access. At some point I'll load up most of the rest of my library from Calibre, which would be maybe another 100 books which would involve another 2 shelves and about 50 or so extra books not sitting on shelves. Since most of my books (not on shelves) are either Sci Fi or Fantasy (95%) it doesn't make a lot of sense trying to organize it beyond misc, which goes on to a micro SD card, which would mean losing the shelf with a reboot of the Nook, so I am not even bothering with the other stuff.

01-26-2012, 05:14 PM	#12
diremommy Zealot Posts: 136 Karma: 14452 Join Date: Dec 2009 Device: Zenpad S 8, iPad mini 2	I got my Touch back around September, and while I love some things about it, the pain in the behind of sorting and shelving the books has the Nook mostly in the drawer and me reading everything on my Kindle. Has there seriously not even been some kind of app created similar to the Calibre Kindle Collections Manager for the Nook Touch? Might rooting it give me better shelving/sorting/collections options? I'm one of those people who likes to throw a bunch of stuff onto her device and then sort by genre or author, but having to go through EVERY SINGLE BOOK EVERY SINGLE TIME is really irritating.

01-27-2012, 10:49 AM	#13
azazel1024 Groupie Posts: 182 Karma: 346596 Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Ellicott City, MD Device: Nook simple touch, iPad 2	Under the main library you have sorts for author, title and most recent. You can also go in and view your file folders. As you mentioned Calibre, that will automatically setup folders based on authors and I think if you play with it, you can setup top level folders for genre, then by author within those folders, or even just dump the files in to the genre folder they belong in. So if you want to look for a book by genre, you go look under the file option in your library. If you want to do title/author/date sort, go to main library. If you want to do some other kind of setup, load it on to your shelves that way. Though shelves are broken in that rebooting (and some claim just hooking to your PC) will remove all items from your shelves that are stored on your micro SD card. I have found rebooting does this. Though I only have roughly 150 books loaded on my nook and I am only using about 50% of the unreserved memory space (I have about another 20 books that I don't care to have sorted on to shelves on my micro SD card). So it is going to be awhile before I run out of space to store books that can be effectively sorted on shelves. It won't lie, it would be nice to have the nook ST setup so that there can be a meta data tag to place it on a certain shelf that way Calibre can automatically set the metadata tag so that new books you load go right to shelves you have setup. And or a nook application for your Windows/Mac that allows you to manage your shelves and content through your PC without needing something like Calibre (though I do really like Calibre). It was kind of tedious to go through and create the 9 or 10 shelves I have right now as it meant needing to go through about 20 odd pages of books 9 or 10 times to select the ones I wanted to put on the shelves. Probably only took me 20 minutes to setup though.

01-30-2012, 10:52 AM	#15
azazel1024 Groupie Posts: 182 Karma: 346596 Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Ellicott City, MD Device: Nook simple touch, iPad 2	Guesstimate based off the size of most of my epubs, roughly 500 books. My average epub size is maybe 500-600kb, somewhere in that range (some as small as 200kb, some as big as 1.2mb). So with a little less than 250MB of user accessible storage, that gets you somewhere in the ballpark of 500 books. If you use Calibre though, it'll be a little less. It uploads a thumbnail folder with thumbnails for each epub, that I guess the nook can read. The images aren't big, but it adds something like 15-50kb per file. Maybe call it 400 books on the low end unless yours are big? At any rate, I have a fairly large wallpaper folder (around 20 images, about 300-400kb an image) as well as somewhere around 150 books in main memory and I have 150MB free of the ~250MB total. I have about another 30 books on the SD card and 3 books in the non-user accessible storage space since I bought them from BN. A) My Gods that would be nice to have the option of that, especially once you get in to the big lists B) It would also be really nice, but just A above would do most of what I'd want in B (easy enough to check under each author that all of their books are checked for the shelf in question) Calibre will setup folders on the nook itself when you transfer files over to it. When in your library, select My Files and go to either main memory and books or SD card and book and the files will be sorted in their respective author folders the same way Calibre stores them on your harddrive (so make darned sure in the file meta data in Calibre that all books for an author really have that authors name, and not some derivation of it, otherwise you'll get multiple folders for the same author). I am 99% sure you can change this default behavior of Calibre so that you can sort them in to Genre folders and then author folder within the Genre.

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