Re: Tips on using Org-mode to manage a reading list

[William Denton <wtd@pobox.com>]

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On 16 May 2022, Sébastien Gendre wrote:

> My goals are to:
>  * List books and articles I want to read
>  * Track books I have to buy and which I already own
>  * Track books and articles I have read
>  * Take notes on books I have read
>
> The following is what I plan to do.
>
> The idea is to use an Org-mode heading for each book and the
> properties of the books become the ones of the Org-mode heading. The
> synopsis of the book can be in the body of the heading.

I use Org to track my reading, but keep less information, so a simple table is 
enough.  In 2015 I wrote up how it looked:

https://www.miskatonic.org/2015/01/01/reading-diary-in-org/

The basic annual reading list is still the same, but I'm doing a lot more with 
the data now, using R to generate charts and other analysis.

Your plan looks very much like something I saw on Planet Emacslife¹ a week or 
two ago ... but now I can't find it because it scrolled off the bottom.  Maybe 
someone else here saw it?  Or is the one who wrote it?  It was someone using 
properties to store information about the books and then using a column view to 
display all the information in a table.

Could you fit everything into a table?  That's simpler than using properties. 
But if you need lots of bibliographic detail, I guess that's the best solution 
in Org.

If you were willing to look outside Org then I'd recommend Zotero,² which is 
designed to keep track of all that; there are Emacs tools to talk to Zotero, or 
you could dump a BibTeX file and use Org's citation system.  If I were doing 
what you want to do, I'd keep basic lists in tables in Org, keep notes on books 
in structured headings grouped by subject and then chronological order, and use 
Zotero for bibliographic management.

Good luck!  Whatever you get started with, it'll be easy to refine and adapt in 
a month or six depending on what you need.

Bill

¹ https://planet.emacslife.com/
² https://www.zotero.org/

--
William Denton
https://www.miskatonic.org/
Librarian, artist and licensed private investigator.
Toronto, Canada