New Book Tracker Database

[Hannah_Wiginton]

Are you an avid reader?!

I just posted a Book Tracker Database on Airtable Universe!

Airtable

Book Tracker Database - Airtable Universe

Are you an avid reader? This is the book database for you! ​ I've read so many books in my lifetime and wanted a way to start tracking them. Not only the...

I’ve read so many books in my lifetime and wanted a way to start tracking them. Not only the books I’ve read, but the ones I want to read.

​This database includes a place for Title, Book Cover Image, Author, Read Status, Genre, Synopsis, Month and Year Read, Ratings by Star, Your Review of the book, and Own Status.

​It also includes information like Number of Pages in the book, How many times you’ve read the book, Year Published, and ISBN. If you read e-books from your local library, I’ve also included a field for Library Status. This could easily be changed to keeping track of something like where you want to buy the book.

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The Tables included are:

Books
Authors
Genre
Metrics
Status

The Metrics, Status and Genre Tables are rollup fields of all your data at a glance

​Grid Views include:
All Books
Books Read This Year
Status: Currently Reading
Status: Read
Books by Genre
My Rating​

Gallery Views include:
Book Gallery
Book Gallery Read
Synopsis

Form View:
Add New Book

​Right now, I’m just gathering my information from GoodReads to input information like the number of pages, year published, and ISBN. If you are an awesome person who could connect the GoodReads API or any book API to the database, even better! (And if you can, please show me!)

​Hope this helps you keep track of your books in an organized way!

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.

• William Styron

[W_Vann_Hall]

This book tracker is head, shoulders, and several inches of pectoralis major better than the book tracker I tossed together earlier this year — so I think I’m going to export my data and import it into yours!

My initial motivation for assembling a tracker was one of mental hygiene. It’s often difficult to judge one’s own mental state from inside the mind one is trying to evaluate, but I’d discovered the number of books recently read, annualized, was a pretty effective personal barometer. For years I averaged, when happily relationshipped and satisfyingly employed, 150 – 200 books read or re-read. For a few years there, though, I was averaging 300 to 350 — which, in retrospect, was a period during which I was persistently depressed. (There was one week or so a while back I was reading at an annualized rate of 1,300 books; I don’t recall the details, but I evidently wasn’t very happy.)

These days, I check my projected annual numbers once or twice a week. If i notice them creeping upwards, I crank up my activity level, pay closer attention to my diet, sometimes disappear to the mountains for a day or two — whatever it takes to move the needle downward again. For most of this year, I’ve been reading at an annualized rate somewhere in the range of 185 to 205 — well within my sweet spot.

When I first rolled out this base, back in January, it was the barest of bones: Title, author, start date, stop date. As time has past — and especially since the canary still lives — I’ve slowly broadened the data I keep, gradually adding fields that speak more to reading as a pleasurable activity, and not simply a diagnostic tool. At the rate I’m going, somewhere around the end of the year my base should look very nearly like yours. I’ve decided to cut to the chase, though, and jump straight to the finished product.

Thanks again!

[Hannah_Wiginton]

Thank you!

Your ‘pectoralis major’ comment cracked me up!! haha!

My life does not lend well right now to reading more than a select few each year but this database has given me the motivation to pick up a book in those spare moments I have. Number 1, reading is relaxing to me and gives me a mental break - Number 2, I can be nerdy and track what I read along with all kinds of stats.

I’m finally able to start reading more now than I was 2 years ago when I had a newborn daughter and was completely exhausted. Oh how life changes!

Hope you get to disappear to the mountains AND hit your 200 mark this year!

[W_Vann_Hall]

Hannah_Wiginton:

​Right now, I’m just gathering my information from GoodReads to input information like the number of pages, year published, and ISBN. If you are an awesome person who could connect the GoodReads API to the database, even better! (And if you can, please show me!)

Oddly enough, in looking through the GoodReads API info, it appears those things can’t be done. I could see where maybe there’s a licensing issue in providing you with the ISBN, but it doesn’t appear you can get any book info (other than a list of editions) through the API. I could be wrong, but that’s how it appears at first glance.

[Hannah_Wiginton]

Well thanks for looking. I am not skilled in that area but was hoping there would be some sort of way to pull in information.

I’ll stick to manual for now I guess!

[W_Vann_Hall]

Hannah_Wiginton:

was hoping there would be some sort of way to pull in information.

Ah, but I’ve found a list of 53 book-related APIs out there, and I think possibly the Open Library Books API might be what is needed. Unfortunately, I’ve more experience using Zapier than any other bit of middleware — and that’s one integration tool you wouldn’t want to use for this task, because of its pricing structure.

I’ll try to kick this around some as time permits. Feel free to kick my cage if it’s been a while since I reported back.

[Hannah_Wiginton]

Awesome! I’ve used Zapier for other things but not sure about this one.

Would love to see some sort of easy way to get everything in. I’ll keep tabs on this!

Thanks Vann!

[Barry_Margolius]

Looks like a really useful database for me. I have a book list database that is basically just a spreadsheet of all my books. It has over 600 books in it. I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, but do you have any hints as to how I might export these books and then import them into your database?

Thanks,
-barry

[Jeremy_Oglesby]

This is your best bet if you are on the “Free” plan:

Airtable - Support

Appending data to an existing table with copy and paste

Airtable's copy and paste functions (C and V) are one of the simplest ways to duplicate your data and fields. (To learn more about Airtable's other keyboard shortcuts, see this article.) Copy...

Just do that one field (column) at a time - you can do the whole column at once, so it shouldn’t take too long.

Another option, if you are on the “Pro” plan, is to use the CSV Importer Block.

Airtable - Support

CSV import block

The CSV import block is part of Airtable Blocks, a Pro plan feature. Blocks let you extend the functionality of your bases: you can use blocks to bring new information into Airtable, visualize and ...

First, save a copy of your spreadsheet as a CSV. Then drop it on the CSV importer block - you will be able to tell it which table to put the data into, and then you will be able to match up the columns in your CSV with the fields in your base. If there are any conflicts, Airtable will catch them and let you know. It’s really a very easy process.

Hope that helps!

[Hannah_Wiginton]

Hey @Barry_Margolius,

Agree with Jeremy on this one. That’s how I would do it by copying and pasting your columns.

I will say that if you are on the free plan, you will hit a limit at 1,200 records. Basically, if you use this database as it is right now with Author, Category, Genre, you will go past that limit if you have 600 books (600 books, possibly 600 Authors.)

Good luck. Hope the database works for you!