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How to Create a BookShelf To Track Books in Obsidian
The easy setup guide using the dataview plugin
Previously I used to track books using Notion. But once I moved to obsidian, I wanted to make something similar on obsidian so that I don’t have to go back and forth between Obsidian and Notion.
Since, I keep all of my book notes in obsidian, having a book tracker and the reading list inside of obsidian itself is much more helpful to create a frictionless workflow.
With the help of the dataview plugin, it was possible to create a reading list and book tracker in obsidian. In this article, I will explain step-by-step how to create a reading list and track books in obsidian.
Plugins we’ll need: Dataview, Book Search
Step 1: Install Book Search Plugin
This is not mandatory, but using this plugin helps to auto-populate the data field of books. Go to community plugins, install it and then enable it.
Click on hotkeys and assign a hotkey preferable to you. I’ve used Alt+B.
Step 2: Configuring Book Search Plugin
Select the location where you want to keep the new book note. In my case, I use a reference folder to keep all my book notes.
I want the following text to be inserted in every new note:
**Title:** {{title}}
**Author:** {{author}}
**Type:** #litnote #book #todevelop---
This is like using a template for a new file. The #litnote and #todevelop are the status of the note. You may want to avoid it, but make sure you add #book inside your notes. This will be used by dataview plugin in the next steps.
