Books, eBooks and LibraryThing

I Love Books. 

I want to make sure there is no doubt in anyone's mind that I not only like to read but I love books. Growing up my mother and I were members of the Doubleday Bookclub,the Literary Guild and the Book of the Month Club. My summers were rated by how many books I read and sometimes how many times I reread a book. I admit to reading Gone With The Wind at least three times during 8th grade and high school.

Memory Lane - circa 1960's

During my high school years I discovered Richard Brautigan's classics which included "Trout Fishing in American" and  "A Confederate General At Big Sur". I  wrote a paper on James Baldwin's "The Fire Next Time"  and "Giovanni's Room" followed by  Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "A Coney Island of the Mind". My best friend chose Edward Albee so I was emerced in "Tiny Alice" and the "American Dream".

Read farther and you will see what brought on this trip down memory lane!

Fast Forward 2011-2012

During the last year I have been debating the advent of eReaders.The number of bookcases and boxes of books in my house has pushed Chuck to the edge and he strongly suggested I find an eReader. So on this blog and EverydayGenealogy.com I have documented how I chose the Kindle over the Pandigital and Nook eReaders.

While I have learned to embrace the Kindle there was still the issue of all the books lining bookcases and filling boxes in the house. Over the years I heard fellow genealogists talk about LibraryThing.com and casually thought about entering my genealogy books 'in the cloud'. The thought of putting ALL my books up there was a bit daunting.

Scanners, LibraryThing and Tori

As Tori is fond of telling me and all my friends and family know - Tori Rules.  Since she was a small child she has had a fascination with cash registers and scanners. Not the scanners we use to scan pictures or documents. Tori's love is barcode scanners like those used in libraries, warehouses, Home Depot and virtually every department store in the world. She will find the self checkout in any store and make me go through it whether I have one item or twenty.

After another shopping trip and Tori going on and on about how much she wanted a scanner I told her to see if LibraryThing supported scanners and if they did I would buy one.  About 10 minutes later she had all the information and was THRILLED that they did.

Her next assignment was to go online and do some price comparisons. The girl was MOTIVATED! She was a bit sad to find out the the local electronics stores were considerably higher than Amazon so she would have to wait a few days for her scanner.

ISBN Numbers, Bar Codes and All The Others

As promised LibraryThing works great scanning books that have barcoded ISBN Numbers. The scanner as advertised has a handy stand or can be held for quicker scanning. Below is a video of Tori explaining to me how it worked after she had scanned two or three books.

Later she took her laptop and started some serious scanning on my two of my bookcases.  Here is where we come into 'All The Others'. The books my friends and I were reading in high school do not have 'standard' ISBN numbers that we are used to seeing in the the 21st century, let alone barcodes. They have a Library of Congress Category Card Number buried in the copyright information.

Some quick research explained that the ISBN number started between 1967 and 1970 and was enhanced in 1974. My books from the 1980's and 1990's have an ISBN number on the back or as part of the copyright, but certainly not a barcode.

Tori scanned 230+ books that day from two of my bookcases and one of her bookcases. I went back this week and hand entered 100 books that either did not have an ISBN or had one but did not have a barcode.

eBooks vs Books

One thing I have learned during this scanning adventure is how much I LOVE books: holding them, leafing through them and the memories they hold.  An eBook would not have brought back the same high school memories like seeing my best friends name in the Edward Albee book in her handwriting. I have not seen her in decades, but I felt just as close to her in that moment as I did in 1970.

Tori tells me that in her 6th grade class the students are allowed to bring eReaders to class. She is deciding if she will use her iPad or buy a Kindle Fire with her Christmas money.  It will be interesting to see her grow up in the 'eBook' world.

Take Care,
Pattie

My eReader, a New House and Everyday Genealogy

We are back from Las Vegas where we had a great time celebrating Chuck's 60th birthday. Chuck's brother Bill hosted an extraordinary birthday dinner on Friday evening. The entrees ranged from prime rib to lobster and the wine was flowing.

I had most mornings to myself since I am neither a gambler nor a night owl. I enjoyed eating a leisurely breakfast with my paperback and then splitting my online activities between my laptop and eReader. My eReader was up to the task and in retrospect I probably could have left my laptop at home. I discovered that I could listen to the Genealogy Guys podcasts directly off the website on my eReader. So, as long as there is Internet access I will not have to download them in advance.

Now that we are back home it is time to help Clayton get moved into his new house. Tori has picked out the colors for the interior and tomorrow we will be looking at everything from carpeting to shower rods!

Oh and Chuck informed me that I had to have a Clearance Sale on the remaining "Everyday Genealogy 2011 Desk Calendars". We have reduced the price to $5.99 including standard shipping - A bargain for 365 tips on you genealogy research. Visit http://www.everydaygenealogy.com to order yours!

Take Care,
Pattie

Las Vegas, Birthdays and My eReader

Las Vegas & Chuck's Birthday


I'm writing this from a coffee shop in Las Vegas. I've been coming to Las Vegas regularly since I married Chuck in 1971. Our honeymoon was of a bowling touranment in Los Angeles, Disneyland and then my first visit to Las Vegas. During our trip in 1972 I saw Jack Benny perform at the Sahara. On our trip in 2009 I saw the Cirque presentation of The Beatles 'LOVE'. I miss the Las Vegas of 1974 - slots were slots not video games. And personally I am not convinced that bigger is better when it comes to casinos.

The reason I am in Las Vegas is to celebrate Chuck's 60th birthay. We had a fabulous dinner last night hosted by his brother Bill attended by Timona, Bill's wife, and his daughters Stacy and Brenda with their respective spouses. Everyone had a great time trying different wines, appetizers and then trying to eat their entrees! Just a word to the wise, if restaurant says that their side dishes are large enough to be shared, believe them!

eReader

Preparing for the trip I charged my 'almost' best friend, my eReader. I have bought and started reading two eBooks on it, but keep forgetting to finish them. There is something that still pulls me to my paper and hard copy books and the eReader sits forgotten.

I had read online that the eReader was great for watching movies. I decided to ask my son to load a couple on the SD card. As before, the first and second attempt to load a MPEG4 failed. The instruction manual did not have any information on trouble shooting so I will have to deal with this at a later time.

I also practiced two features I had never tried: Notes and Highlighting. I have recently downloaded more FREE books on Google Books so I wanted to make sure I knew HOW to highlight and make Notes before I started reading.

My next task was making sure I had my 'Favorites' updated and setting up my email accounts. I was quite excited because it appeared I would not have to bring my laptop on the trip - WRONG.

Since the eReader does not have 'Word' or 'Text' capabilities I thought I could get around it my using Google Documents. I was disappointed that the version of the browsr on the eReader did not support creating a Google Doc. I will write the vendor to see if this going to added in a firmware update.

I did load the eReader with three January podcasts by Drew Smith and George G. Morgan (The Genealogy Guys) to listen to on the plane. Marathon listening of George and Drew can be addicting.

My eReader and I still have a few more rounds to go, but it is getting easier to use. The downside is that if a new firmware version is available to allow me to use Google Doc I will have to set everything up again. Firmware updates take the eReader back to 'factory settings' and to date I have not seen a way round this. Mmmm I wonder if Carbonite would work on my eReader. More Research!

Take Care,
Pattie

P.S. The picture is from Chuck's first birthday.

Everyday Genealogy Desk Calendar

eBooks, Used Books and Me...

eBook or paperback. Amazon or Barnes and Noble. To be or not to be. The great philosophical thoughts of the ages.

Now that I have started using my eReader reader (Pandigital + Barnes and Noble) I am faced with the reality of my addiction to used books on Amazon. I received gift cards for both Amazon and Barnes and Noble over the holidays and found myself torn between the two retailers.

There is nothing more fun than seeing how many used books I can buy with a set amount of money. Browsing my Wish List on Amazon and then looking at Amazon's suggestions based on my browsing and buying habits is like letting me loose in a candy shop. For my $35 gift card I bought 5 books and one new movie!

I decided to apply my Barnes and Noble gift card to my 'e' account on their website. I do not quite understand why I had to designate it for 'eBooks', but I did not read all the disclaimers that closely. I knew I would find something I wanted. This is where the fun is limited - NO USED BOOKS! Mmmm an entire industry gone! I decided to search for Christmas and genealogy related books. While there were many Christmas books, there were not a lot of bargains and to my dismay there was only one genealogy eBook. The experience was not a lot of fun.

I do have two 'new' books to read on my eBook but I also have those 5 'new' books arriving from Amazon. I tend to pick up the paperbacks quicker than the eBook, so I may never finish George W's book "Decision Points" or start Elizabeth Edward's "Resilience". But I have started reading my newly arrived paperback "The Roosevelt Woman" from Amazon.

I do need to start working on my genealogy again, so reading may become a luxury. And there still are a few Everyday Genealogy Calendars left to sell!







I recommend "The Roosevelt Women". It has a great family tree to help the reader understand the relationships and it written in a very easy to read style.

The Continuing Adventures of my eReader and Me

Oh that eReader of mine! I have been working with it for the last week trying to decide if I was going to keep it or send it back. At one point I was VERY happy I had bought the 'extra' warranty because I almost threw it against the wall.

Then I started thinking - why did I have to read books with it? That was when it became fun.

I am going to have a vendor table at the Florida State Genealogical Society Conference to sell my pet project "Everyday Genealogy - the Desk Calendar" and was trying to come up with display items. AH!!!! My eReader supports jpegs and has a 'Slide Show' option.

Since my friend Pam Treme and I will also be promoting our 'Technology Tamers' training programs I set about gathering jpegs. For Everyday Genealogy I collected the various jpegs I have for the calendar and the iPhone app. For Technology Tamers I went into our PowerPoint Presentations and saved various pages as jpegs (an option in the Save As feature in Powerpoint).

Within an half hour I was loading these jpegs onto my eReader and WHAM I had a slide show. The eReader has options for the speed of the slide show and the transitions. And best of all my eReader came with a stand. I now had a display for my vendor table.

So, what else is my eReader good at doing - besides reading books? It also has a web browser so I decided to set up some of my favortie genealogy websites (Mmmm www.everydaygenealogy.com) to help answer questions that may come up.

Last but not least, I did load some books - mine and Pam's. The eReader can import PDFs that you, the everyday person creates. Pam and I have both created Family History Books and Pam has created work books for some of our classes. Now we will be able to show these books at our vendor table without carrying them around.

So, I guess I'll keep the eReader - I may even read a book on it one of these days!

eReaders and that Calendar Project

A while back I wrote about my ambivalence towards eBooks and eReaders. I did download the Kindle reader onto my son's iPad but never managed to actually read the one book I purchased online. I later just ordered it from Amazon and read it.

Last weekend I was channel surfing and saw that QVC had an eReader as a TSV (Today's Special Value). While I was watching the demonstrations and listening to the testimonials from the viewers I realized I had to buy one. Not because I wanted to read the latest David Baldacci best seller electronically or because I really needed to cut down on the number of bookcases in the house. That was all too practical! It was those PDF's that are floating around my laptop, blackberry and other workstations.

PDF's have become the 'new' newspaper. Not only are genealogical societies cutting costs and using them to distribute their newsletters but the majority of old books I download from Google Books are in PDF form. I also PDF larger documents (e.g. pension files, family memoirs)so I can read them later. So, for 5 easy payments and the ability to try it until January 31 I bought it.

My new Pandigital eReader should arrive Friday or Saturday - about the time a semi will be delivering 2500 calendars to my doorstep. You might have heard of it - Everyday Genealogy? It goes on sale this weekend!