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

[Hadi_Zulkipli]

I’m not sure how but Simon Hørup Eskildsen seemed to have automated his process for books.

I can’t post links but if you google Simon and Airtable, you will come across his website Sirupsen in the top searches.

[Morgan_Holland]

Hi there! Have you messed around any more with pulling book data from Open Library Books or any other APIs into Airtable?

[W_Vann_Hall]

Unfortunately, I’ve been overtaken by events: I’m in the middle of what is effectively my third home and office move since August, having had two residences sold out from under me in a 4-month period.

Actually, this one is more of a non-move: I’m dumping everything into storage until I figure out my next step. I expect to be an annoying roving houseguest for a while, catching up with distant friends and family I haven’t seen in ages. (My mother’s 96th (!) birthday is coming up, so I’ve promised to spend some time back East.)

The reason I’m bringing this up is that while I’m uncertain what my involvement with Airtable will be long-term, one of my near- and mid-term goals is to work my way through the backlog of unfinished bases and routines I’ve acquired in the past 20 months. (Not to mention trying to rehabilitate my consultancy from damages wrought by having spent most of 4Q 2018 [and 2019 to date] in the back of a U-Haul box truck.) The ‘books read’ base is high on that list.

However, I should mention I’ve lately been leaning more towards integration with Google Books, at least at first. It’s not their best-documented API, but what I’ve found recently leads me to believe it makes available a much larger dataset than I’d thought at first. More importantly, though, somewhere north of 90% of what I read in 2018 was sourced through Google Books, either as Play purchases or uploads, so it only makes sense to start there. I’d like to provide equivalent non-Google functionality, as well, subject to limitations of the source APIs. (Heaven knows I’ll have the time: There is a limit to the number of hours of NCIS a non-nonagenarian can safely watch in a day. :winking_face: )¹

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1. Just kidding: The woman is more active — and far more productive — than I am. She admits, though, to having started to slow down a bit lately. Since she turned 93, she no longer accepts any civic organization appointments or board memberships for terms of longer than a year, and she’s been trying to commit to 4 or fewer meetings a week. Last I spoke with her, she had pared it back to 5, on average — but as her terms on two committees end this month, prospects are good.

[M_k]

Hi @W_Vann_Hall

I was wondering if something was going on with you and after reading the above post, it seems there is or maybe I was being a pain, always bothering you. :slightly_smiling_face:

I often find your posts/replies interesting, so no matter where you post from, you have one member that will be interested.

Mary

PS Your mother sounds like a very interesting lady and quite active for her age, too.

[Hannah_Wiginton]

Hi, there! I wanted to follow up on this. I’ll create a new post also but wanted to let you know. I finally posted my Plant Landscaping Base in case you are still interested!

Airtable

Plant Landscaping Tracker - Airtable Universe

This base includes all the plants we used to landscape around our home. It includes a gorgeous Gallery view of all your flowers and shrubs. ​ I took a...

Have a lovely day!