![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
On library clearouts and ebooks
Feb. 10th, 2011 06:04 pmI'm in that skittish stage where I've just finished a book I really liked (Appetite for America) and thus no other book holds my interest for more than a couple of pages.
My pattern used to be putting the book back in the TBR shelves to see if I like it when I'm in a different mood; usually I don't give up until I've bombed out of it for the third time.
But in the era of ebooks, I'm promptly setting it aside to regift or go to The Book Thing. I can download a sample electronically if I think I may want to try it again. (In fact, I'm downloading samples right, left, and upside down; I love the ability to really get a flavor of the book before I buy, rather than relying on back cover copy, page 1, and page 44. Yes, that is how I decide if I want a book while standing in the store.)
Of the ereading platforms, I get the most range of possible titles out of Kindle-for-the-ipad, but what I really prefer is iBooks. A book I buy (or upload into) iBooks is automatically downloaded to both Tubso and Bissonomy without any extra effort on my part (as opposed to the Kindle platform, which makes me go into my account and manually download every book to both machines... and back out of the platform before I download the next). Also, Kindle gives me only the options of sorting by "latest," alpha by author or alpha by title.
I think in groups. By having all my ibooks in iTunes for management, I have the same capability to edit all sorts of metadata about them as I do for songs, including (and especially) changing the genre. So instead of the publisher-determined genre, I can sort my iBooks as "fanfic - Sherlock," "Regency Bodice Rippers," "History - Forensics," "History - Tudors," and whatever else I can come up with. This is how I sort my books on the actual shelves, so I appreciate being able to do so electronically... and I *don't* appreciate that I can't do it in any other platform.
My pattern used to be putting the book back in the TBR shelves to see if I like it when I'm in a different mood; usually I don't give up until I've bombed out of it for the third time.
But in the era of ebooks, I'm promptly setting it aside to regift or go to The Book Thing. I can download a sample electronically if I think I may want to try it again. (In fact, I'm downloading samples right, left, and upside down; I love the ability to really get a flavor of the book before I buy, rather than relying on back cover copy, page 1, and page 44. Yes, that is how I decide if I want a book while standing in the store.)
Of the ereading platforms, I get the most range of possible titles out of Kindle-for-the-ipad, but what I really prefer is iBooks. A book I buy (or upload into) iBooks is automatically downloaded to both Tubso and Bissonomy without any extra effort on my part (as opposed to the Kindle platform, which makes me go into my account and manually download every book to both machines... and back out of the platform before I download the next). Also, Kindle gives me only the options of sorting by "latest," alpha by author or alpha by title.
I think in groups. By having all my ibooks in iTunes for management, I have the same capability to edit all sorts of metadata about them as I do for songs, including (and especially) changing the genre. So instead of the publisher-determined genre, I can sort my iBooks as "fanfic - Sherlock," "Regency Bodice Rippers," "History - Forensics," "History - Tudors," and whatever else I can come up with. This is how I sort my books on the actual shelves, so I appreciate being able to do so electronically... and I *don't* appreciate that I can't do it in any other platform.
