Keep Track of The Books You Read with This Book Tracker Database in Airtable

 Hannah Wiginton

Category: Airtable | Software
Organize your books this year with this Book Tracker Database made with Airtable. It's an easy-to-use tool and this book organizer will help you stay ahead.

I’ve always loved reading.

My mom has a video of me when I was about 6 years old on VHS (remember those?) reading Bambi.

A couple of years ago, I discovered Airtable. I immediately thought of a hundred different ways to organize my life. Airtable works like a spreadsheet but gives you the power of a database to organize anything.

My #1 I wanted to organize?

My books!!

With Airtable, I knew I could customize exactly what I wanted to track. So I made this awesome Airtable database!

I shared it on Airtable Universe and it’s now been copied over 1,245 times!

It’s currently the #37 most popular template in the Airtable Universe!!

Are you an avid reader too?

This is the book database for you!

I’ve read so many books in my lifetime and wanted a way to start tracking them. Not only the books I’ve read, but the ones I want to read.

This is a Gallery view. It’s a nice visual of all the books.

Airtable Bookshelf Gallery View

Most of the time, I use the Table view.

Airtable Bookshelf Main Table

The database includes fields for a:

  • Title
  • Book Cover Image
  • Author
  • Read Status
  • Genre
  • Synopsis
  • Month and Year Read
  • Your Rating by Star
  • Your Personal Review
  • Own Status

Are you reading several books in a Series? There’s a field to label the name of the series for each book and organize your series.

Some other fields are:

  • Number of Pages in the book
  • Number of times you’ve read the book
  • Year Published
  • ISBN

If you read e-books from your local library, I’ve also included a field for Library Status. This could easily be changed to keeping track of something like where you want to buy the book.

Here’s a look at the single record for each book.

Single Record Bookshelf

The Tables included are:

  • Books
  • Authors
  • Genre
  • Metrics
  • Status

The Metrics, Status and Genre Tables are rollup fields of all your data at a glance.

Metrics

Metrics My Bookshelf Airtable

Status

Status My Bookshelf Airtable

Genre

Genre My Bookshelf Airtable

What’s great about tracking all your books in this database is the ability to create specific views to see only what you want to see.

Airtable Views are Grid, Gallery, Kanban, Calendar, and Form. Each one displays your information differently. With each View, you can Filter and Sort according to your interests.

Grid Views in this database include:

  • All Books
  • Books Read This Year
  • Status: Currently Reading
  • Status: Read
  • Books by Genre
  • My Rating

Gallery Views include:

  • Book Gallery
  • Book Gallery Read
  • Synopsis

Form View is:

  • Add New Book

Right now, I’m just gathering my information from GoodReads to input information like the number of pages, year published, and ISBN.

If you can connect a book API to the database, even better! (And if you can, please show me!)

To get a copy of this database template to use for your own books, first, you need to create an Airtable account.

Then, go to the Book Tracker Database in the Airtable Universe. Click Copy Base at the top. 

Copy Book Tracker Database Airtable

The base will then be copied into your own Airtable dashboard!

Hope this helps you keep track of your books in an organized way!

“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.”

William Styron

About the Author

I help software companies with marketing strategy and implementation. Find out about my services or contact me about your project.

While you’re here, be sure to grab my free list of 90+ Marketing Content Types you can create to market your business.

Follow me on LinkedIn @HannahWiginton or Twitter @hannahwiginton