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

Harry Potter, Genealogy and eReaders

Harry Potter

It was a year late, but Tori finally got to Harry Potter! She and Chuck road the rides while I made sure we had pictures and souvenirs. Tori decided to try Cornish Pasties at Harry Potters which she said were good, but not as good as Nan's. We all tried the ButterBeer but after one sip Chuck and Tori decided they needed a soda - I was the only one who liked it!

It was a good day.

Catching Up on My Genealogy

Since Clayton moved out I have been transitioning the bedroom into an office for myself and a bedroom for Tori's visits. The easy part is rearranging and buying furniture. The hard part is gathering up all the genealogy paperwork that I have not transcribed and filed for two years!

What I had not realized is that even though I had been doing genealogy research while Clayton was living here I had not kept up with my filing and transcribing. I kept finding folders and envelopes and notes that I thought I had entered into my database but had not.

While I was in the midst of all of this filing and data entry I realized that I also had to update many Findagrave.com memorials! Oh and then if there were newspaper articles to transcribe they also had to be sent to the Barrington Rootweb.com group!

The deadline for all of this is Wednesday when I leave to visit mom. The data entry and posting to the various websites will be done, the filing may not...

eReaders and Me

I have been struggling with which eReader to use and frankly what to use it for! That may sound strange but it has been quite a struggle. I have written an entire article on my Everyday Genealogy blog,but the bottom line is I like the Kindle best.

Take Care,
Pattie

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!

Electronic Books - Really?

You may or not know, but I have hundreds of books. I like looking at them, holding them and reading them. Recently Chuck asked me why I was still buying them - couldn't I just read them electronically?

I ignored him, after 40 odd years I've become pretty good at it! But, it has been on my mind. Yesterday my friend Pam brought her "Nook" to our genealogy meeting and let me try it out. While I didn't fall in love with it, I saw Chuck's point. Maybe I should at least test drive the notion.

After reading about the Kindle, Nook, Sony eBook, etc I decided not to purchase a device at this time, but borrow Clayton's iPad. He loaded the Kindle reader onto it and I purchased my first ebook, "You Never Give Me Your Money, The Beatles After the Breakup". It seemed fitting I would buy a book about one of passions, The Beatles, for my test. What isn't there to love about the Beatles! I was also pleasantly surprised that there were a number of books by F. Scott Fitzgerald (another passion)at no cost since the copyright has run out.

So, while it is raining in Tampa I will be working on my "Secret Genealogy" project and see if I can fall in love with electronic books while reading about a group that produced awesome vinyl.