Managing a Shared Kindle Library

I belong to a family of readers.  In my immediate family, we have 3 Nooks, 8 Kindle devices, and 2 iPads, not to mention the Nook and Kindle applications on our smartphones.  With the Kindle devices, we can share our Kindle books together as a family, as long as the same book isn't on more than 6 of the devices at one time.  That isn't as challenging as it sounds since we all have very diverse reading interests.  I tell the family to just send their finished books back up to the "Cloud" when they are finished reading them, and that way it ensures that books are freed up for the next person.  Of course, if it is a book that they want to keep on their device for reference, they are welcome to do so.

People who do the "shared" Kindle library have different methods of managing them.  When it comes to the purchasing of books, you have to have your "shared" library under one account.  If you decide to let anyone in your shared group purchase books, then they will have to be able to access your account, including the password.  There are some other workarounds, though.

Purchasing Options:
1.  My daughter buys an online Amazon gift certificate and then emails the code to me, along with the list of books that she wants me to purchase for the Kindle library.

2.  You could add books that one of your group wanted and they could reimburse you via Paypal.

3.  With a "trusted" family member, they could add their credit card to your credit cards on file and then, when they want to purchase some Kindle books, they could go in and change the 1-click settings to their credit card, make the purchases, and then go back and change the 1-click settings back to your default credit card.  This option should be reserved for TRUSTED family members.  I have one family member who uses this method and she always texts me first to let me know that she is going to be ordering some books within a few minutes so that I don't accidentally go up on Amazon and order something else while things are set to her credit card.  Then she texts me as soon as she has set things back to my default.

4.  You could have members email you with books that they want added.  You could then add them on your own dime and each month, email each person the total that they owe you and let them reimburse you as mutually agreed upon.

Keeping Track of Titles Read:
The challenge has come about with trying to remember who has read what!  As the "librarian" for our little Kindle library of 800+ books and growing, I had begun creating a Google document each month of all the new titles that I'd added that month.  I would include a short synopsis of the title and also assign a genre category to each book for those who wanted to quickly scan through for only "action-thrillers", for example.
Then, at the end of the month, I'd send out a link to the document to all of the members of our family library, letting them know that it was available for viewing.

My brother came up for a short visit this past weekend and he suggested that I try creating a spreadsheet instead.  I could put all of the info from the past monthly documents into this spreadsheet and then include a column for us to "check" as we read a title.  We sat down together and came up with the columns that we thought would be important (genre, title, author, description, and then a spot for each of us to check off when we'd read the title).

I'm creating this in Google docs and will "share" it with the group so that any of them can "edit" it.  Thus, they'll be able to go in and mark books read but they'll also be able to change the sorting of the books. For example, if they want to search by "author", they can have the spreadsheet rearrange everything alphabetically by author.  (And that makes me realize that I need to go back in and edit the authors' names so that they are "last name, first name".)

My hubby suggested separating the spreadsheet into Tabs with a tab for each Genre.  Once I have the books all entered, he'll help me get this set up in that format.

This will also make things easier when we find ourselves searching for that next book to read from our library.  We can find the genre that interests us and then scroll through and browse through the descriptions until we find one that strikes our fancy, checking to make sure we haven't already read it.  Yay!

Hope you find some of these suggestions useful if you, too, are finding your Kindle library expanding at alarming rates and especially, if you are sharing your library with others.  Happy e-reading!

A Touch of Class

My belated Christmas present from my daughter arrived last week - a handmade leather case from Oberon for my Kindle Touch.  Prior to its arrival, I was using a case made by Lightwedge called the Verso Prologue Antique Case, seen above.  There was nothing wrong with that case.  It was quite nice, in fact.  But Oberon cases are a work of art.

These Oberon cases are all handmade out of leather in wonderfully unique designs.  This one that I chose is called the "Celtic Hounds" design.  It is actually a "sleeve" instead of a case.  In other words, my Kindle Touch slides into it.

When I'm ready to read, I slip my Touch out and read it naked....well, the Kindle is naked, not me.  I'd forgotten how tiny and lightweight these Kindles are because I've always used them in cases.  It's a very freeing experience to read one that isn't weighted down in a case.  Of course, that means that I have to be careful to not sling it around carelessly or drop it but I'm a pretty careful person with my e-readers.

Once you slip the Kindle into the sleeve, there is a flap that folds over the top of the opening and it is secured magnetically.  I had a twinge at first, wondering if the magnet would cause any problems but it has not.  On the back of the sleeve, on the other end of the tab, is a stamped pewter buckle.  I noticed that they have revised the design just a tad and the top of the sleeve now is scalloped and this pewter buckle has a celtic knot design on it.  Cool!

The Kindle Touch in its new sleeve is the perfect size to slip into my purse when I'm heading out the door.  The sleeve protects it just fine.

I highly recommend any Oberon product.  I've purchased cases for other Kindle products from them in the past and they are still just as beautiful as the day I unpacked them.

All Fired Up

I ran into the Head of Dietary Services today at my mom's nursing home.  The first thing he said when he saw me was, "Hey, guess what I got for Christmas!"

"A Kindle Fire," I replied.

"Yes," he said, looking surprised that I'd guessed so quickly.

"I got one, too," I laughed.  "Aren't they great?"

"I love it," he answered.  "Well, I just had to tell you because you're the one who got me started with Kindles in the first place."

Yes, I had.  He'd been at a caregivers' meeting I'd attended last year and he saw me sitting there reading my Kindle before the meeting started.  One thing led to another and soon I was extolling the virtues of e-readers and the Kindle, in particular.  He had his own Kindle within a week and he got his wife one later that year.

I'm telling you, once you've used a Kindle, you are quickly hooked.   Goodness, I'll even expand that to include Nooks.  These e-readers are just fantastic little techno-doodads.

There's no better illustration of the passionate nature of e-reader aficionados than an obituary I read in the paper yesterday.  It said, in part....

   ".....loved to read anything she could get her hands on.  After she purchased her Kindle, she never left home without it."

Amen, Sister!

The Mystery of Fire

Several days ago we headed off with a full van and kids in tow to Ohio to see Laura's extended family and to transfer some belongings that we'd been storing here to family heading back to Texas.  But first we made a quick detour to the neighborhood post office to mail off some packages.  I dashed into the PO, did my business and headed back to the car where I settled into my seat and took out my Kindle Fire, ready to lose myself in a good book.  Yikes!  The Fire appeared to be as dead as a doornail, even though it had worked fine and had almost a full charge just the night before.

"Stop," I yelled  in a panic.  "We have to swing back by the house so I can get another Kindle.  There's no way I'm making a long car trip without something to read."

We backtracked and I ran into the house, grabbed my Kindle Touch and its charger and dashed back to the van and off we went.  The Touch was working perfectly.

When we got to our destination and had brought everything into the house, I was griping about the Fire not working and gave it another try and lo and behold, it worked perfectly.  What in the world?

The next day before we headed off to the next family's home, I checked out my Kindle Fire once again and it was working fine.  Great!

We carried our luggage out to the car, got in and started off.  I pulled out the Fire and took it out of "sleep" mode.  What in the world?  Again it was blank and appeared to be dead as a doornail.  I was beginning to think that just the slightest bit of cold temps were causing it to lose its charge.  Back I went to my trusty Kindle Touch.

At the next house, we unpacked and I visited with folks for awhile and then thought to check the Kindle Fire.  Voila!  It turned on without a hitch.  What was happening?  It worked fine that night and yet again, passed a quick test the following morning.  This time, I put it in my purse and carried it out to the car that way, thinking it would stay warmer in there, rather than in a computer bag.

We hopped in the car, waved our goodbyes and started off for home.  I took some sips of coffee, slipped off my shoes and pulled out the Kindle Fire.  Yup, you guessed it.  Nothing, nada, zilch!  Now I was seriously getting perturbed.  I envisioned having to call up Amazon Tech Services and go over the whole crazy story.  OK, if the cold was the problem, maybe I could speed up the warming process.  I slipped the Fire between my legs.  The Commander glanced over at me and rolled his eyes.

"I'm trying to warm it up, " I attempted to explain.

Didn't work.  I unzipped my coat and put it inside my jacket and zipped it back up.  Surely it would warm up against my body.  Nope!

Alright.  Time for the heavy artillery!  I turned on the seat warmer and slipped it under my thighs.  If that didn't warm it up, I was ashamed of the darn thing.  After a suitable period of time, I tried to bring it out of its deep sleep.  Nothing doing!

In frustration, I pushed the button again and again.  I noticed that a green light was coming on at the bottom of the Kindle when I'd push the button but still nothing was showing up on the screen.  All of a sudden, I thought I detected a faint glimmer of some words on the screen.  I whipped off my glasses and peered at the screen.  It said, "Do you wish to turn off your device?"  Turn it off?  Heck, I just wanted to turn it ON!

I touched the "Cancel" button and lo and behold, my screen lit up and my Fire was lit up like a ...well, like a Fire should be.  Hmmm, a faint niggling suspicion was starting to form at the back of my brain.  I slipped my glasses with clip-on sunglasses back on.  Huh?  The screen was suddenly completely black.  I took off the clip-on sunglasses.  The Fire was on and the images were right there.  On/off.....on/off.....Every time I put on my clip-on sunglasses, the screen went completely black.  Every time I took them off, my screen was on and  working great.

Ah-ha!  Apparently, my Kindle Fire hadn't been malfunctioning at all.  The culprit was my clip-on sunglasses.  They were polarized in such a way that they completely blocked out the Kindle Fire's screen.  Of course, since I had them on when I was outside and in the car, I was only seeing a blank screen but since I didn't have them on inside, the Fire would seemingly come back to life once we were inside a house.  Mystery solved.  I am SO relieved and boy, am I glad that I didn't have to confound Amazon (and reveal my total idiocy) by calling Tech Services.

Like a Sugar Addict in a Bakery

The day I saw the announcement that Kindle owners could now join the ranks of ebook device owners who were borrowing ebooks from their local libraries, I headed (well, via the internet) straight to my local library to see if it was so.  The good news was that ebook borrowing WAS coming to my local library via my Kindle BUT Overdrive was still in the process of setting up the feature at libraries around the country and they didn't anticipate it would be available at my library until sometime in October.  Bummer!  However, I went ahead and let the rest of the family members in our "Kindle Family Group" know, in case their libraries already offered the service.

It wasn't long before my daughter-in-law emailed me to say that she had successfully borrowed a book electronically via her library in Texas.  I was feeling a little left-out until I did the proverbial slap on the head and thought to myself, "Hey, I can just borrow a library book on my Nook."  So I migrated back to my home library's website and noticed that there was now a graphic up there indicating the borrowing program for Kindle devices was apparently working.  Oh, boy....that was only 2 days after my initial peek at their system.

I decided that I'd poke around the e-holdings to see what was available and try borrowing something just to see how hard or easy it was.  Oh, my......I was amazed at how much was available.  Many of the bestsellers were "checked out" but you could place an electronic hold on a copy.  I know that library consortiums purchase licenses that dictate how many e-copies of a book can be checked out at one time.  Therefore, it makes sense that there would be a wait for more popular titles.  This might come as a surprise to some of you.  Many of my friends have told me that they just assumed if it was an e-copy, that it could be checked out by an unlimited number of borrowers and there would never be a wait again for popular titles.  Um.....wrong!  The good news is that you can place a "hold" on an ebook and when a copy is available and you are next in line, they notify you to check it out.

I settled on "7 Personality Types" by Elizabeth Puttick.  There was a copy available so I followed the steps to check it out (which were VERY self-explanatory) and then as a final step, it popped me over to Amazon's website where I had to check into my Amazon account and then tell it which Kindle to download it to.  The final step was to walk over to my Kindle, turn on the wireless, and within seconds the book appeared on my Kindle.  When I go up to my Amazon account again and click on "Manage My Kindle", the title is up there with the words "Public Library" next to it.

My library system has some video tutorials on how to use the Overdrive borrowing system but I found a great post on a fellow blogger's website this morning with two short videos that talk about borrowing on the Kindle and also how to return your library books early (if you finish before the borrowing period is up).  Here is the link to The Digital Reader .  Both videos were produced by libraries and should answer your questions.

I already have hundreds of books in my digital library and I've bought a good many of them.  Others have been free courtesy of Amazon and generous authors.  This new borrowing service opens up even more possibilities.  I feel like a kid in a candy shop.....a sugar addict let loose in a bakery and even better, it's fat-free!  Whee!

Incidentally, that personality book I checked out?  It's probably the most accurate book I've ever read for nailing my personality and I've read a LOT of books on personality types, including many on the Myers-Briggs model and the Enneagram model.  I'd highly recommend it.  Why not see if your library has an e-book copy of it to borrow? 

Related articles

• Kindle books now available in libraries (i-programmer.info)
• OverDrive works on the Kindle! (henricolibrary.wordpress.com)
• Kindle library lending: good deal for everyone? (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Borrowing Kindle E-Books: A Hands-On Guide | PCWorld (pcworld.com)

Baby Bowling

Have you wondered what we do for entertainment here with a toddler and no Nickelodeon TV or public libraries or playgrounds nearby?  Well, we go "baby bowling."  Actually, a person becomes quite adept at making up their own entertainment.

One of the things that Mika enjoys is actually her own version of "baby bowling."  Every day the staff brings bottled water over for each of us so we end up with empty water bottles daily.  Usually we boil water and refill the empty bottles and them put them in the refrigerator so that we'll have extra water available.  However, we also like to keep some empties around so that we can set them up on the floor for Mika to plow into.  She LOVES to kick them over.  We call it "baby bowling."

Lina likes to sit by the pool and sometimes I join her with my Kindle in hand.  I'm not much of a sunbather, though so I usually give up pretty quickly and head back to the apartment.  Jason likes to sit and read non-fiction back in the unit.  Laura likes to read, too when she doesn't have her hands full with Mika.  We all take turns with Mika, trying to give Laura a bit of a break but when she gets to a certain level of fussiness, only "Mom" will do.

Jason, Lina, and I have laptops here so I guess you could say that they are a form of entertainment.  Actually, in the evenings a laptop IS our form of entertainment.  Jason and Lina brought DVDs with them and we pick out one to watch and then put it on the computer.  We all gather on the couch and watch a movie that way.
We brought books for Mika from home and take turns reading them to Mika.  When she tires of that, we take turns walking her around and around inside the apartment.  She enjoys this immensely.  Yesterday, at breakfast, I discovered how much she enjoys being walked up and down stairs.  Whew!  Now THAT is a good cardio-vascular workout.

Crocheting, reading and sudoku on the Kindle, and people-watching kind of rounds out the entertainment for me.  Oh, and let's not forget the other form of entertainment.....watching it rain in the afternoons or evening since it IS the rainy season in this part of the world.

I'm not going to know what to do when I get back to the States and my hundreds of TV channels.  Well, actually I DO know what I'll be doing.  I'll be catching up on all my favorite shows that the Commander has been recording for me AND I'm going to be knitting up a storm AND I'm going to be spinning.  Until than, I think I'll go grab my Kindle and start a new book.

Another E-Reader Convert

The Commander and I traveled down into Maryland this weekend to meet up with our daughter and son-in-law to celebrate her birthday together.  I have to admit that I almost started to hyperventilate as we took the exit ramp to get to the restaurant that we were going to meet them at.  You see, this is the same exit ramp that we used to take on our way down to Bethesda for my chemotherapy.  The same two fast food places are still there at the bottom of the ramp where we'd stop on our way down for a quick breakfast.  I can still remember the feeling of dread that would wash over me, realizing that I was halfway to the hospital, knowing what waited for me.  Isn't that nuts?  That was 20 years ago and something like this can still trigger those feelings as if it was yesterday.  Luckily I pulled it together and we went on to have an enjoyable dinner with our family.

We enjoyed a nice buffet and then it was time for Laura to open her present.  Since she had hinted that she might want a Kindle (first time she's ever shown an interest in an e-reader), of course I couldn't resist presenting her with one.

Unfortunately, there was a short shipping delay up on Amazon if I had decided to go with the graphite colored Kindle so I went ahead and ordered her a plain vanilla white Kindle.  I just wasn't sure that the other color would get here in time. 

I also gave her a list of all the books that are currently on my Kindle account.  Since the Kindle is currently registered to my account, she can access any of my titles.  We're a 4-Kindle family and all of us can thus draw from the pool of titles that we purchase since they are all registered in my account.  It's been particularly nice for our son and daughter-in-law over in Asia since they can email me what titles they'd like downloaded to their device and within a matter of a few minutes, they have books to read.  Of course, if Laura wants, she can always take her Kindle off my account and register it to her alone.  It's up to her. 

I had brought my own Kindle along to show her the nifty cover that I have for it (the one that Amazon designed with its own pull-out light) and to show her some of the features of the Kindle.  She told me that she also has a co-worker who has a Kindle (another multi-Kindle owner) and he has been raving about the Kindle to her for months now so she'll have another person to help her out if she needs a few pointers.

Just imagine -- that little device can hold 3500 books.  I still find that almost unbelievable.  I know she'll really enjoy it at home and on trips.  In fact, by the time we arrived home, there was already an email waiting for me from her with a list of titles that she wanted me to order and have downloaded to her device along with a gift certificate to cover the cost.  Yes, I think she's definitely getting into the Kindle spirit of things.

Five Fun Faves From My Week

It's time for Friday's Fave Five again - a time when we reflect on the things that were highlights from our past week.  Here's what made my week's highlights.

1.  I finished another pair of fingerless mitts.  These are from the pattern "Fronds" designed by Monica Jines.  I knit them up from Sanguine Gryphon's Bugga yarn.  I love that scarlet color and the yarn was yummy to knit up.  I'm loving these fingerless mittens.  They are such fast projects and I'm already wearing fingerless mitts on cool mornings when I have to head out early.  I can still grip my steering wheel with no problem but my hands stay warm.

2.  We're attending a film premiere tonight.  Doesn't that just sound so posh?  Yes, we're heading off to the big city to attend a film premiere and the after party.  But this one actually has substance.  The proceeds from this premiere will benefit Servants to Asia's Urban Poor, the organization that our son and daughter-in-law work for.  There will also be a small store set up with goods made by the women being helped by this project.  The film itself documents women in Kolkata who are learning to support themselves and their families through a fair trade program in textiles.    If you'd like to read more about it, you can go to this site and click on "Threads of Hope."

3.  I enjoyed a lovely fall walk this week from my house to the local Barnes and Noble, thanks to my car having to go to the service department unexpectedly.    I've always thought I could walk that far but just never did it because it was so easy to drive over there.  This time, I HAD to walk because I had a hair appointment in that shopping center that I needed to keep.  The weather was beautiful and there was a fresh breeze so I really had a nice walk and got some good exercise, too.

4.  I'm grateful for blessings from unexpected sources.  As I was walking, I found myself remembering back to a day some years ago when I was working at the reference desk at a small country library.  A farmer had walked in, still wearing his work overalls, and come up to the desk.  He asked me if I had a copy of the poem "October's Bright Blue Weather."  He explained that he'd been out plowing in his field and as he was enjoying the lovely fall weather, he'd been reminded of that poem that he'd learned so many years ago in school.  I was able to track it down for him.  I've thought of it many times since whenever I look up on a clear Fall day.  The poem was written by Helen Hunt Jackson and here's the first stanza:

O SUNS and skies and clouds of June,
        And flowers of June together,
    Ye cannot rival for one hour
        October's bright blue weather; 

5.  Our family is about to become an all-Kindle family.  I can blog about it here because I know that my daughter never reads my blog.  Yes, her birthday is early next week and when I asked her what she was hoping for, the Kindle was actually one of the first things she mentioned.  I was thrilled that she was finally ready to make the leap to e-books.  We still love hardcover books but these are so wonderful in that they are saving countless trees and they are also really helping publishers AND authors, believe it or not.  I find myself buying many more books for my Kindle than I used to buy in hardcover (and I used to buy a LOT of hardcover books).  And beginning authors are finding the e-publishing format to be much easier to get their books out in front of the reading public than trying to find a mainstream publisher to purchase their books and then print them.

If you'd like to write about your own Friday's Fave Five, visit Susanne's blog at Living to Tell the Story.   She hosts us each Friday and it's a great way to reflect back over your past week or to focus on the week to come.

Podcast Blues

I don't know about you, but I enjoy listening to podcasts when I'm out driving in the car for longer than just a few minutes about town.  It helps pass the time and the miles just fly by.  Plus I never fail to learn something useful.  I download my favorite podcasts onto my iPhone and then plug the phone into my car radio system and listen to it over the car stereo.

Here are my favorite podcasts to date:  A Prairie Home Companion, Kindle Chronicles, NPR: Your Health, NPR: Technology, and Buzz Out Loud.  There are a lot of other podcasts that I'd like to subscribe to BUT I find them almost impossible to listen to.  Let me explain.

I'm discovering that so many of the podcasts out there are produced with terrible sound quality.  There might be several people on the "panel" and one person's voice might be coming through loud and clear while the rest of the commentators' sound levels are very low.  So I find myself constantly adjusting the sound levels on my radio.  One minute I'm straining to hear and the next minute the podcaster is blasting over my speakers. I know that some people are interviewed via Skype, which can have "iffy" connections at times.  There's no getting around that.  But if you are doing a podcast in a room, please invest in the best sound equipment you can find and afford and realize that most non-commercial microphones are not made to pick up voices clearly unless you are close to that microphone.  If you are in doubt at all about how your voice levels are coming across, LISTEN to your podcast after you record it, at a normal playback level.  You might be astonished at what you are NOT hearing.

Other podcasters sound like they are speaking with a mouthful of oatmeal.  I mean, come one, folks.  If you feel that you have something valuable to say, for goodness sakes' please enunciate.  Have you ever tried to actually listen to yourselves after you record your podcasts?  I'm amazed at the way folks mumble, slur their words, swallow their words, you name it, I've heard it.  Now granted, I started out in the Army being trained as a radio broadcaster but a podcast is basically a broadcast and you are using it to communicate.  If you can't be understood, then you might as well be spitting in the wind.

Closely related to the problem of those who can't speak clearly, are those podcasters who spend a lot of time in their podcasts "laughing" at inside jokes.  If I want to listen to 2 minutes of conversation followed by 5 minutes of laughing and snickering between the commentators, I'll just head over to a friend's house.  There is nothing wrong with the use of humor in a podcast but there is an art to how to use it.  If your audience isn't participating in the joke or can't see what is funny, then you've pretty much lost your audience.

Another "killer" for me is a podcast that just rambles aimlessly.   I don't want to listen to someone "read" a podcast word-for-word.  Ugh!  But there should be a logical flow to a podcast with an introduction, transitions between subjects, and a wrap-up, or conclusion.  Just sitting around a microphone randomly picking things out of the air, so to speak, smacks of laziness or sloppiness to me and it definitely says "amateur."

If you want to listen to a podcast that is the epitome of a professional, well-produced podcast, listen to the "Kindle Chronicles."  It's a classy, informative, and well-organized podcast and it never fails to entertain and educate me. 

God bless you if you are considering getting into the podcasting arena.  It's a fascinating thing to do.  I'm not trying to discourage you.  But there are so many podcasts done poorly out there.  However, if you keep the things I've written about in mind and try to produce the most professional podcast you can, you can be an asset to the podcasting community.