How I Keep Track of Each Book I Acquire [2020 Discussion Challenge - #6]

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How I Keep Track of Each Book I Acquire 

[2020 Discussion Challenge - #5]


I began thinking about this as I received more review copies and purchase more books. Each of the books align with my goals and  I can meet the stipulated review deadlines.

It is a simple method, but it has worked for me. It all started when I would forget about a book I purchased.

Leveraging the suite of Google products, I created a mock database of my books.

I was inspired to do this several years ago by another blogger who uses an MS Access database. I didn't go with this one because I don't have my laptop with me at all times and I desired something "mobile". (Full Disclosure: I would prefer to use Access, since I can use SQL to query my database and retrieve the next set of books to read. That being said, I still can employ my love of programming by importing my spreadsheet into SAS Studio and use PROC SQL (I don't like data steps) to select my next set of books.)

While I have tinkered with the form over the years, some fields have remained the same.
  1. Date Obtained
  2. Publication Date
  3. ISBN/ASIN
  4. Title
  5. Author
  6. Genre
  7. Format
  8. Source
  9. Likert scale (1 to 5) - How bad do I want to read this (Explanation: ARCs always get a 5 and there are some books that I want to read, just not right now so they get a 1 or a 2)
Some other fields I have added include:
  1. POC author (Y/N)
  2. Was this recommended (Y/N)
  3. If recommended, by whom?
  4. Narrator 

Your Turn! -- How do you keep track of your books? Do you only use Goodreads? Do you create a Access database?



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