Monday, October 22, 2012

Adding Exclusive Shelves at Goodreads For Better Organization

I took some time to organize my shelves at Goodreads a bit better after learning that it was possible to create new exclusive shelves. This meant that my To Read shelf could be broken up into smaller shelves! I had actually noticed this possibility months ago but didn't pursue it at the time, and then I forgot all about it.

Anyway, I rediscovered that I could break up my "to read" list into different shelves. There are different opinions about the best way to do this. Many Goodreads members like to use their To Read shelf for books they already own, with a different shelf for those they don't actually have in their hands yet. That's perfectly logical but not how I wanted to organize mine.

I had a pretty long list of books on my To Read shelf. The problem was that it was a mixed bag that included everything from I have to read this!!! to the more uncertain I might want to read this someday, but I might not.

I didn't want to try to renumber them in a futile attempt at prioritizing them, so I decided to make three new exclusive shelves:

1. must read (I really, really want to read this.)

2. to read if time (I want to read this, and although it's not a priority at the moment, that could change.)

3. undecided (I'm not sure about it yet. It could end up on either of the above shelves or neither. Sometimes this is because no summary is included on the book's page.)

Granted, I could have accomplished this by adding non-exclusive shelves instead, but I already have plenty of those. I do wish I'd thought to add an Available on Goodreads shelf for books available directly through the site's e-reader; I'd have to go back through them all again to that.

Did I manage to get all the books exactly where I wanted them? Probably not, but it's pretty close. Considering how many I designated as Must Read--and how many books I'm always adding--I'm sure I'll have to go through this again soon.

Are you on Goodreads? If so, have you divided up your To Read list, or do you like having them all on one shelf?

2 comments:

Gayle Crabtree said...

Thanks for the article. I'm still learning about Good Reads. Probably a single shelf will do me for awhile.

Lisa Resnick said...

Everything is just gorgeous! Love the coloring!
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