How to Create a Book Inventory
The beautiful Brooke Stone, herself, recently asked me to ponder a redesign of her current “Must-Read” book list. Coming along successfully, this particular log format can be beneficial to your everyday life.
THE PROBLEM – Brooke is a bookworm with many lists of must-reads. When Brooke enters a bookstore, she finds multiple books of interest, takes a picture with her phone, and enters it on a Word document later. Such a method would seemingly work, but Brooke also has found other peoples’ must-read lists, which she wishes to merge with her own. So many books—too many lists. Brooke wanted a singular new design to help her keep track of her many must-reads, so I got to work.
THE SOLUTION – An environmentally friendly digital booklog. After exploring my options, I found that a simple Excel spreadsheet would do the trick. Why Excel, you ask? Not only is a spreadsheet a linear, grid-system, it also condenses loads of information into one, easily navigated screen-shot (versus scrolling for hours on a Word document, or panicking over your lost notebook).
TO CREATE A LOG –
1. Open a new blank spreadsheet.
2. Create four column titles: Title, Author, Date Completed, and Rating (1-10).
3. Using the “Sheet” tabs at the bottom of the document, create as many worksheets as necessary to cover various genres of reading. For example, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Autobiographies, and How-To Reads. To create more worksheets, click “Insert”, then “Worksheet”. Edit the name of the specific worksheet by clicking on it. Use the arrows to scroll through your worksheets.
4. Once a book is finished, record the date, your personal rating, and finally cross it off your list (literally)! In the formatting palette, find “Fonts” and then click the crossed-thru “ABC” button.
5. Personalize your book log. Highlight the books you loan to others, or distinguish by color those books that are not immediate must-reads.
6. You may need to create multiple Book Logs to accommodate all types of reading, if some fall under a work-related category, while others are for personal enjoyment. You decide what works.
Remember, such a log is interchangeable and can be tweaked for other uses: a workout log (separate sheets by muscle groups), a recipe log (separate by food group or ingredients), or a magazine or song log. Now, it’s you’re turn. Good luck, and happy organizing!
Post Authored by Kristen Evensen
Praxis 