Solving the Reader's Eternal Dilemma

Golly, here we are well into February, and a whole new year of glorious reading. So many great new books on the horizon to look forward to. But what about all those books that came out last year, I hear you ask. I haven’t had a chance to get through them all. What if I forget about them before I get around to reading them?

This is the age-old reader’s dilemma. How to keep track of new books you want to read and how to prioritise them all when there are so many books being published all the time. Do you grab the new books, or wait till you've read previous recommendations - if you can remember them all? Well I suppose you could list them in a notebook, or keep spreadsheets structured according to publishing date, star ratings and recommendations, and tick them off as you get to them. This is great if you like spreadsheets.

Or you can let your library card help you by managing lists via the library Catalogue. You’ve been there before, the library Catalogue, I know you have, looking up books and placing holds. But have you investigated My Lists, which is located in the orange lozenge at the top? Here’s how it works.

On the left of the orange lozenge it says: Log in. You will need to do this first and you’ll need your library card number and password (Ask library staff if you need help with this). So, log yourself in. You’ll know you’ve succeeded when the orange lozenge welcomes you by name.

Further along the lozenge you will find My Lists. If you spot a book on the shelf you might like to read at a later time, or a book you’ve heard about that’s always ‘out’, look it up on the catalogue by typing the title or author into the search bar and click Search. Click on the title you want and a new field will appear. Click on the arrow in the box: Select an Action, then click Add to my lists.

A panel will pop up saying: "The following items were successfully added", followed by the selected title. But there’s still a bit more work to do. Go back to the orange lozenge and click on My Lists again. You will need to put the title into a folder. You can have multiple folders, such as a Mysteries folder, a Romance folder or a New Books folder – whatever you want to call them. If you don’t have a folder yet the newly added book will be in the Temporary List.

To make a new folder go to the blue panel on the left and click the folder icon with the plus sign. Here you can create a name for your list and click Create. Tick the box next to the title you have just added then scroll up to Select an Action. Click the little down arrow and then Move, then select the list where you want to store it.
 

Once you’ve done this a few times, you’ll find this a breeze. And rather than storing newly added book titles in a Temporary List, they will be in the last list you opened. It’s easily done to move them to other lists and add more lists or delete redundant ones as you like.

Using the My Lists option on your Library Account will ensure you can be confident you won’t lose track of those books you want to read – all digitally stored for future reference. When you click on a listed title, it’s easy to see if it’s available and at which library, or take the opportunity to place a hold on it. Everything just where you want it. So throw those spreadsheets and cumbersome notebooks away and give My Lists a go.

9 February 2022

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