Originally posted April 30, 2010 by Cindy O'Neal
Organize Your Library
They may be electronic books, and they may not use a lot of hard drive space, but if you do any book hunting outside of Amazon, like Manybooks.net, Gutenberg, or any of the other sites to find wonderful books for free or low cost, your list of books will grow. You might as well get them organized before your list gets too hard to manage. Amazon will only store books you have purchased through them. You are on your own when it comes to your personal files and books you obtain from other sources, free or otherwise for your Kindle. There are plenty of places out there, so your personal list of books can end up being quite impressive, and a bit of a mess if you don't take control right away.
Create a folder
Begin by creating a new folder on your Desktop (your main computer screen). Hopefully it isn't too crowded and you can find an empty area to right click with your mouse and choose the words New Folder. You will see a new folder appear with the words New Folder all nice and highlighted. Immediately begin typing the name you want to use for your new book collection folder. Once you have that done, you can left click anywhere else on your main screen to lock in your changes. To open your new folder, double click it. You can create other folders inside this folder if you want to organize your new books even more. You can even add folders as you go along, and as you need them. There is no perfect way to organize your folders. My advice is to organize your folders so YOU are comfortable knowing where everything is. That's why they call it a Personal Computer after all. It is your stuff, and your rules.
Where to keep your books?
If you are a bibliophile, like I am, keep your folder on your Desktop in front of your face at all times so you can pour through the contents any time you want. If you prefer, drag this folder to your Documents folder and let it take its place in that list of folders and files. Wherever you finally decide to put it, make sure you can easily find it, because this is where all the books you download and save are going to go in the future. It is much easier when you have everything in one place. This will make backing up a breeze too. Right click on the folder any time and choose Send To, and send a copy to a blank CD or a thumb drive, anything you choose. There is comfort in knowing you have a copy of this folder (and any other personal files that may mean something to you) somewhere else in addition to your main computer. Don't be one who has to learn about Mr. Backup the hard way. It isn't pretty.
Drag Files to Folder
When you download your book files, you can choose to download them directly to your folder, or download them to your Desktop, then left click and drag them to your book folder. When you let go of the left mouse button, they will be there.
Different Folder Views
When you have your book folder open, check the top of the folder window for the word View and Details (Windows XP). In Windows 7 or Vista, look for an additional Views button to click. You can choose Details with that too. When you find it, click on the different view choices for the folder to see each. I personally like the Details view because it lines up the files alphabetically by file name. You can left click each column header to sort each column any way you like.
Worth Repeating
Make sure you understand and have your computer set up to view your File Extensions.
