Recently, I spent a fun couple of days putting together a digital bookshelf of all my books with Delicious Library (Mac OS X only).   I particularly appreciated being able to view my Kindle and Kobo ebooks, physical hard copy books (of which I still have a few) and Audible audiobooks all in the one place.  The software includes a barcode scanner, so you can scan in and add physical hard copy books.  Audible audiobooks and iBooks are added via iTunes and I used a drop and drag from the Amazon Manage Your Kindle page to add my Kindle collection.  I had to manually search for and add my Kobo books.  I should note that Digital Library has full iTunes integration so it also includes your iTunes movies and TV shows.  It took me a little while to work out how to include Audible and ebooks on the same shelf – but a quick Google search indicated that I needed to edit my shelf to include both “iTunes Audiobook” and “book” type content.  

Delicious Library can also generate fascinating stats about your library.  For example, I learned that to listen to my entire Audible collection back to back would take me 1,756 hours and 34 minutes!  It would cost me $770 to replace my few hard copy books – the software assumes a zero replacement value for Audible and ebooks and iTunes content as they are stored in the Cloud – and David Eddings is actually my top author, closely followed by Robert Jordan.

Being a collector of predominantly ebooks and Audible audiobooks, I really miss being able to display all those beautiful books on a physical bookshelf.  Of course, Delicious Library cannot quite replicate this, but it comes pretty close.  The display is simply beautiful and the books react when you mouse over them.  Content is linked to Amazon, so you can see immediately details about the books.  I did have to spend some time editing the data slightly so that my series would display in the correct order, but the nice thing is, my bookshelf will now never be out of order.

Reviewing my library in this way brought home my attention to several things; one, the Amazon one-click buy now is DANGEROUS and my TBR list is completely out of control.  Like many bookworms, I am a bit of an impulse buyer and I have so many excellent books waiting on my shelf to be read that I don’t get round to reading before I buy the next one.  So, I have put together a TBR list and will commit to not buying any more books until I have made good headway through it.  I will make some exceptions; I may read the books I have already on pre-order (the ones coming out in August have already been added to the list) and when book 12 of Anne Robillard’s Chevaliers d’Emeraude is available on Kobo I will buy it.  Also, any free books I’m offered to review will be added. My Audible credits may also be used as I wish, although I imagine I will use them to pick up Audible versions of books already in my TBR or to add to Audible series I already enjoy (Dresden Files, Artemis Fowl and Iron Druid).  I have four weeks of nightshift work coming up in a week or two, and I particularly appreciate Audible books to get me through.  Wish me luck with this!