Export: The Good, The Bad, and The Weird discussion

Now that I've learned better to use this a source ...

I use the file mostly for books I have but have not read. I could always get that group on Goodreads.

Now I can sort by both title and author - more easily see that I have multiple books by one author.

AND

select books published within a certain time frame
select books within a specific page range with the sort.

I can see books on more than 3 shelves that I designate
I can see books I have that are one additional shelf but not on another

And with each new export, I can find where new errors have crept in.

I like this "think positive" thread! You're right — the export file has a different view into my book data, and it's easier to see some things in the export file versus using the Goodreads website.

My positives:

It's easy to see the books that I've reviewed — I just sort on the Reviews column. More importantly, I can also see my private notes without clicking multiple times for each book.

I can quickly sort my most-read books using the Read Count column. I reread a lot of books, but it turns out that there are a few that are my top favorites. I admit that I didn't need a spreadsheet to learn this, but it's nice to know that the computer agrees with me. It gives me confirmation for the books that I must always keep.

Like you, when I compare each export file with the previous one, I can see the errors (almost) as soon as they happen. As long as I delete the Average Rating column first (because that value always changes even when nothing else does).

And last but not least, I can see that I have some really bad shelf names. Plus too many shelves. My next project is fixing my shelves so that my export file is easier to use.