What I Read on My Summer Vacation

Fall is right around the corner, but there’s still enough time in these last few days of summer to kick back and enjoy another book (or two or three!). Whether or not you have a reading goal, it can be fun and useful to keep track of what you read or listened to this summer whenever you log into your My CPL account.

First, check if your CPL Borrowing History is enabled; this allows you to see your list of borrowed items (and click on their links in the CPL catalog), along with the date you checked them out.

After logging in, click on "My Library Dashboard." Any number greater than zero next to Borrowing History means you’ve enabled it. If not, follow these quick steps to enable your Borrowing History. Please note that any items you checked out before enabling Borrowing History will not show up in your list, nor will the items you checked out in the hoopla and Libby apps.

Borrowing History is your gateway to some cool features available when you’re logged into your CPL account.

You can click on the flag to the right of the title to mark the titles you’ve finished reading (or listening to) as "Completed." Or, from the Completed drop-down menu, select "For Later" or "In Progress." Clicking on one of these three options places each item on another virtual shelf of the same name, respectively.

While scanning My Library Dashboard, you can quickly navigate to each of these shelves. On each shelf, you can add or remove items from your list. To add, click on the blue "+ Add a title" box; to remove, click on the "Manage item" drop-down menu and select "Remove from Shelves."

The Completed shelf is a great place to rate how well you liked each item using a five-star rating system. If you have more to say about the title, you can write a review that can be seen by other library users (click on the "Comment" bubble) or only by you (click on "Private note" under the drop-down menu).

Save it for another day. Have you ever returned items you just didn’t have time to finish or even start? Take heart; with Borrowing History, easily find and save those items to your For Later shelf, allowing you to check out, place a hold or keep items on that shelf until you’re ready to pick them up again.

Just like the other virtual shelves on My Library Dashboard, the For Later shelf allows you to add items from the CPL catalog you’ve never checked out before but would like to, add items you’d like to read again, remove titles you’re no longer interested in, make public or private comments about the title, add tags (genre, tone, theme and personal tags) and even add quotes from the book.

Your CPL account makes it easy for you to choose your privacy settings, giving you control over whether or not you want to let other library users view items on My Shelves and any of your comments/reviews. You can even customize privacy settings for each of your shelves and comments as well as individual titles in your My Shelves. When you’re logged into your account, either click on "My Settings," or navigate your way to Privacy: My Shelves to view and change your privacy options.