How do you keep track of your ebooks?

[Tina]

On my iPad I have books in Stanza (for my previously-purchased ereader books) iBooks, Nook, Bluefire and Kindle apps. As I accumulate more ebooks, I'm having a hard time keeping track of them!

How do you keep track of your books? Do you use a spreadsheet, or can you recommend a good app for that?

[[deleted user]]

I just use Calibre on my pc to keep track of my ebooks. It works well with Stanza.

[Alex]

I recommend Calibre just like Ala. It is a powerful and user-friendly free management system which offers an easy solution to managing ebook libraries. I may sound like a shill for them but it is only because of how much I like the program. Best of all is how easy it makes reading on your computer and adding/removing ebooks from your device.

[Tina]

I have used Calibre to convert books to different formats, but it doesn't really work well for me as an ebook database. I need something that will help keep track of where each book is located (ibooks, stanza, etc.)

[terpkristin]

Why not use Goodreads? I have labels for ones that I have on Kindle, audiobooks, and dead tree editions. I believe you can export your information to CSV files (but have never tried nor really thought of cataloging my collections).

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

I still pine for the day where we have one place/platform for all eBooks. I just did an eBook Workshop for faculty and attempted to demonstrate our library's academic ebook content without overwhelming them - impossible. We have over 150k e-books in 12 different platforms, each with their own intricacies and restrictions. Ahhhh.

Anyway, I am like terpkristin. I have a shelf in GoodReads for eBooks since I get them as PDF, in iBooks, Nook app, Kindle app, through NetGalley, through Overdrive, and then the random academic eBook.

I have a preferred eBook platform, which is iBooks. But the breadth of my platforms should demonstrate how many items are not available in that platform.

[Kev]

huh... never thought about keeping track of them beyond marking them as "read" here on Goodreads (and those I don't even specifically tag as ebooks).

I pretty much read and delete on my NookColor unless it's something I specifically plan on rereading/referencing.

[Dan]

Adobe Digital Editions. Mostly.

I like Jenny and terpkristin's idea of tagging them in GoodReads as well. I should start doing that.

[Rashaad]

I have an iPad with iBooks and a kindle app. Honestly I just try to get them all in the iBook format just cause I really like the way the page turns in there, although my ishelf is looking CRAZY packed!

[Sandra]

My nook allows you to make shelves and organize books any way you like. You can also sort alphabetically by title or author or date of purchase. It's pretty cool

[Scorpion12]

I use stanza on my iPhone... it seems to work well so far... it'll glitch occassionally and default to the main book page when it opens... and if I'm in the middle of a book it's kind of a pain.

[Tina]

I downloaded an iPad app called BookCrawler that I'm trying out. It's only $1.99- I have added over 1300 books so far (and not finished yet). I was able to import my Fictionwise book list via .csv. Since I have books in several apps, just using the built-in list in any one app doesn't work for me. I like that I can have all my books in a database on my iPad, and it tells me where it's stored.

[Alex]

If you need a good Android app, Aldiko is a very good and very comprehensive eBook managing and reading app.

[Victoria Evangelina]

I feel terribly old-fashioned but I use an Exel spreadsheet where I also have columns for the Format and Stored At (I have libraries of hard copies at my place, at my Mom's and at various locations in other countries as well as on my i-phone, and two Kindles)...

[Charles]

I keep them in folders (labeled Urgent) in Dropbox.

Organized by Year and then by format.

[Felina]

I have a fun little app on my iPad called iBookshelf. You can add your books on it and put them into categories by design. I have a dead tree category, ebook category and audio category. It's really easy to add books as you can search based on ISBN, title or author and. Most of the information auto populates.

I also have everything separated on GR but the nerd in me that loves to make lists likes to play with the app.

It's free BTW.

[Nimrod]

Not sure what Stanza is, or what format it uses, but if you just stick to ePub files or use Calibre to convert them all to that, you can just use one app for all your books.

Then you can use Calibre to keep track of the books as suggested... Because god knows I won't trust apple to keeping my books safe... Seeing that just earlier today, I found I have to reformat my iPad if I ever want to sync it again... But thats besides the point.

On a separate note, I just found sidebook on the AppStore for free... Let's me read comic book files so may be worth looking into.

[Linguana]

I use Calibre. I'm still amazed at how awesome that program really is.
And Goodreads keeps track of my paper and ebooks for me (if I didn't sometimes forget to add my new books). But mostly, my brain is good enough to remember my most "urgent" to-be-read books. That's all the lists I need.

The Kobo also offers a nice gimmick on the device where you can shortlist books that appear on your homescreen on the bottom. So I mark my next to-be-read books that way and can't forget to read them asap.

[Mel (booksandsundry)]

Rashaad wrote: "I have an iPad with iBooks and a kindle app. Honestly I just try to get them all in the iBook format just cause I really like the way the page turns in there, although my ishelf is looking CRAZY pa..."

You can organise your books into different shelves in iBooks using collections at the top. Just add new collections as catagories you'd like to organise your books by and then use the edit button to move them to the different collections. It made my day when I found that.

[Leesa]

I save books that aren't from the big publishers (they insist on their own folder, it seems) to my desktop. I then add it to Calibre, convert to epub, put it on my ereader.

Then I move what's on the desktop to a folder called "transferred to Calibre." After I'm done with the book on my ereader, I move it off my ereader to a folder called "read but not synced." There are some books I don't want on my ereader by default, and those are in a folder "unread but not synced."

For cataloging, I use Goodreads as a general cataloguer (read, to read, currently reading, comics, ebook, audiobook), and LibraryThing for more detailed cataloging (short stories, genre, fiction/non-fiction, etc.)

[Stuart]

Yet another Calibre user here. I download DRM'ed books through Adobe Digital Editions just to get the ePub file and then copy those into Calibre. Calibre syncs with the Kobo that I use for most of my reading.

I've started buying from Google Books because it's very quick to use and the phone app is surprisingly comfortable to read with. Google Books seems to offer an ePub copy of every book that you buy, so I also download the ePub version of each book through Digital Editions and put it into Calibre as well.