How do you manage your 'reading list'?

[NatCh]

Does anyone else find the phrase "twitter bot" amusing?

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by NatCh

Does anyone else find the phrase "twitter bot" amusing?

(me raises hand)

[DixieGal]

"Twitter Box" is a perfectly crapulent word. What's so funny?

[NatCh]

It's the sound of it, that's all. Try saying it aloud to yourself several times. People will stare.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by NatCh

It's the sound of it, that's all. Try saying it aloud to yourself several times. People will stare.

And they won't for crapulent?

Dale

[NatCh]

Probably not the same way, besides, "crapulent" only came up as a comment on the discussion of "twitter bot" so it's a whole different discussion. Hmmm, this keeps up, we'll need more threads.

[Elsi]

Back to the original question.

1. On a large external hard drive, I keep the master copy of each eBooks. I use the operating system's normal directory hierarchy to keep up with where the book came from:

/eBooks

/Amazon

/Baen

/Gutenberg

/Manybooks

/MobileRead

/Munseys

2. I copy the master directory with all its subdirectories onto a 2G thumb drive that lives in my backpack. So far, it's been big enough to hold all the books I've downloaded. At some point in the future, it will probably have to be limited to books I'm likely to read "soon".

3. I transfer active books into the main memory of the Kindle and put the potentials and already-read books onto the 2G SD card in the reader. Since the Kindle doesn't support directories, the books are simply "there". Before I start to read a new book, I use the Kindle's content manager to make sure that the book I'm reading is in main memory. (I've heard that it runs the battery down faster to read directly from the SD card.) Periodically, I delete the already-read books from the Kindle unless I think I'll read them again soon.

4. I maintain a couple of text files in my laptop:

* All eBooks

* Books I want to buy/read; both p and e

* Series lists; one per author

* Master list of books read

* Books read in 2008

I transfer these to the Kindle, updating it periodically.

[astrodad]

Originally Posted by Elsi

Back to the original question.

4. I maintain a couple of text files in my laptop:

* All eBooks

* Books I want to buy/read; both p and e

* Series lists; one per author

* Master list of books read

* Books read in 2008

I transfer these to the Kindle, updating it periodically.

I like the idea of keeping the series list and the master list of books read. I'd still like something I can take with me or access from multiple computers, but thanks for the response!

[Elsi]

Originally Posted by jplumey

I like the idea of keeping the series list and the master list of books read. I'd still like something I can take with me or access from multiple computers, but thanks for the response!

"take with me" -- well, my laptop goes everywhere I go. But, have you thought about Google docs? You could access from any computer and export to a file that could be put onto your reader. If your reader has network access, maybe you could directly update from the reader. My Kindle doesn't support JavaScript & I'm not sure how much the Google docs stuff depends on JS.

[Ortep]

I do it the 'easy' way. I simply use Mobireader on my PC. That is my 'master' library. On my Cybook I have only a couple of dozen books. I manage them by using Mobireader on the PC

[TallMomof2]

I have a directory on my hard drive (with an external backup):

\eBooks Library
\Fiction
\Magazines
\Non-Fiction
\Biography
\SF

Under each subheading I sort by Author, last name first or title for Fiction and SF. I know that SF should be a sub category of Fiction but SF is a large enough category to stand on its own. Magazines are sorted by name and then date. Non-Fiction is just a dump except for the subcategory of Biography.

Each file is renamed as AUTHOR_Last_Name_Title.* Magazines are renamed TITLE_DATE.*

I also keep a spreadsheet with all my books (thanks Fictionwise for doing this automatically) that I massage and convert to a file that I keep on my Kindle. That way I can keep track of books I've read and figure out what I want to read next. The file lists books by:

\Genre
\Author
\Series
\Publication Date

This system took a lot of time to set up but it's trivial adding new books and maintaining the list.

[Daithi]

I'd like to address an area of content management not already covered by previous posts -- If you have hundreds of books on your reader, how do you navigate through them all to get to the book you want to read?

I have a Kindle with a bit over 500 books. I like the thought of having an entire library in the palm of my hand, so if I had 5,000 ebooks they would all be on my Kindle. In any event, you have to hit 'next page' quite a lot to get to a book title you want to read. If any of you are in the same boat as me, there are some short cuts to get to your book faster.

Instead of pressing 'next page', press the letter key with which the authors name starts (my books are sorted by author). This will take you to the first author whose name starts with the letter you pressed. From there I normally just press 'next page' a couple of times.

You can also enter numbers, so if you enter 32 it will take you to the 32nd page in your list of books. One caveat, you need to press the '3' and the '2' very quickly. If you press the two numbers too slowly the Kindle will take you to the last number pressed (i.e. page 2 instead of 32). I haven't tried pressing two letters (i.e. 'ST' for Stephenson) but I'm guessing that would probably work.

I look forward to the time that the Kindle software is upgraded to handle folders or has some others means of navigating large lists of books.

[astrodad]

Thanks TallMomOf2 for sharing.

As for Daithi's content management questions and speaking as a Sony Reader owner, I can do most of what you're describing now.

You can also enter numbers, so if you enter 32 it will take you to the 32nd page in your list of books. One caveat, you need to press the '3' and the '2' very quickly.

The Reader makes you hit the 'Enter' button after pressing in the page number, but not in the list of authors. However, the Reader groups the authors by their name so you can get to them pretty quickly.

I look forward to the time that the Kindle software is upgraded to handle folders or has some others means of navigating large lists of books.

I think the use of tags on the Reader is a great way to accomplish this, and using libprs500's tagging feature to create collections on the Reader is a snap.

Back to my original question of managing a reading list. I like LibraryThing a lot, and I am thinking of importing my library from Delicious (so that my reviews are useful for LT's Recommendations feature) and then using it's tagging system. Plus it can read Amazon wishlists as well.

[RobbieClarken]

I use a Facebook application called Visual Bookshelf to keep track of my books. It lets you add books from your LibraryThing account or manually by ISBN or Amazon search. Then you label books as 'reading now', 'want to read' or 'already read'. The downside is you need to login to Facebook to access it... however having it in Facebook allows you to easily recommend books to friends and see what they are reading.

[MickeyC]

I use a database I designed in Access to track the books I have on my reader, the one's I've read and my wish list. I also wrote a SQL statement that automatically sums and displays the number of books on the reader plus the number that I've read.

I find this very useful especially when I'm getting towards the end of a book and need to decide what to upload next. I designed the main report to sort by Uploaded and read, Uploaded and not yet read and books on the wish list.

I also wrote VB code that shows read books outlined in green, uploaded but unread outlined in black and the wish list in red.

I uploaded a copy onto this onto this Forum Section for anybody who wants to try it for themselves. I designed it as I stated above but this version has only a few books listed so you can check it out. I you want to use it, just delete those books and add your own.

It's a free download. If anybody's interested but can't find it, shoot me a note and I'll send you the link.