I have to admit I'm not in love with the new PBS format.  Most of the time I have to "sneak in for a second" to look at any requests I might have or to list a book on my BIR list.  Now not only does it take longer to navigate to My Account, I'm being held hostage until I "star" the books I've read.  There are a lot of books on my BIR list and, seriously, if I wanted to rate them I would have done it as I entered them.  The site just doesn't seem as friendly (at least to me) as before. It's started to feel more like work than a quick and pleasant diversion.

I absolutely hate the new "available for request" on the home page.  I don't want pictures of half naked people and titles about sex popping up on my computer screen when my children are around.

Why don't you put the Your Account page as a destination in your address file at the top in the control header.  That's how I bypass things.  I just click every time on the pulldown menu and I never see the home page.

Ruth

Ruth -- I don't quitre understand what "address file at the top of 'control header' " means? Thanks!

I, too, would like to bypass the Home Page!

I love it.  Of course I had a few BIR to go through but, but I bit the bullet and just did it to get it over with.  I really love the books available for request!  Especially the ones geared to my prefered genre's.  Nice and big so these old eyes can see them, before when it was just books recently posted there was no way to know if they were available or not, nothing bums you out more than to click and find you've been added to a wishlist instead of ordering!

There must be a way to redirect, because the only time I see that page is if I actually go to it.  When I log in I get my account page with my outgoing and incoming requests.  Check and make sure you do not have romance set as your favorite genre in your settings, then you'll won't get so many suggestive titles and nekid folks -_O

I'm disappointed because even after all the changes you STILL can only find out how many copies are in the system by adding books to your reminder pages... I was really hoping the new system would be more like swap-a-dvd where that information is immediately available in the description of every movie... below is a cut and paste of just a few lines from the description of a random movie I pulled up:

Number of Discs: 1
Run Time: 2 hrs 8 mins
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Total Copies: 19

The first thing that I've noticed it there is not much information about each book; sometimes no publication date.   I would like to be able to see what books have been posted in the genres I like so I like the entry page.  If it is not for you, just "Favorite" your account page. 

I didn't know the old site, thankfully. I find it kind of irritating that you have to star the books you have read. Who wants to do that all the time?!

I never see my home page unless I opt to because (like Ruth said) i have my account page attached to my favorites and I go straight to it.

I also haven't noticed any slowness of the site beyond the day they were making the changes.

Ruth ,

  Thanks for the suggestion. Now I can skip the homepage.

I find it kind of irritating that you have to star the books you have read What? I've not had to do this at all. I really like the new homepage, I can see myself getting into all kinds of trouble.

I am liking things so far. I do not use the BIR page, so that part doesn't bother me. Speed seems fine, maybe a touch slow on a few pages.

One thing I wish the homepage did was show the newest books posted to a certain genre rather than the other row of recent posted anything books. I know you can get the e-mail of posted-to-genre books, but I think more handy on homepage :)

As far as the not showing how many of each book listed, I was under the impression that it would discourage people from posting books that have like 300+ in the system.

But I did hope the Wishlist would show what place you are at w/o having to hover over the !

There are changes to the wishlist coming. I'll be excited to see them in action.

 I wish the homepage did was show the newest books posted to a certain genre  you can set it up to do this, mine is set so that I get the latest Historical Fiction, Current Fiction and History books on it.

I don't use the BIR feature either, maybe that's why I haven't had to star anything.

Amy, you can always search the Books Posted Today by genre.  I do that a lot.  It's a great way to see what's getting put into the system.  At the end of the day I look through all the genre-specific titles posted that day, almost like reading the paper at the beginning of the day.  It's fun to see new titles, I catch some that I wouldn't have noticed had been added, and I can see which Wish List books are getting posted regularly so I have an idea of how quickly I might be moving in line.

evila-elf (Amy F.)    If you go down to the bottom of the page and click on  Mobile and then click wishlist you'll get a list of your wishlisted books and what position you're at without having to hover over the (!).

MIMI if you were using the BIR feature you would have to rate all those books in order to keep them on the list.  Otherwise they would delete your BIR list. I don't get why this is necessary.  I found it annoying. My ratings weren't very accurate.  I only use the BIR so when I'm looking at someone's shelf, I know I've read a book already.  I tend to forget when looking at the description and then end up with books I've already read.  I pretty much gave them all the same rating. I don't really remember exactly how much I liked them since  I read some of them years ago. I don't pay attention to the ratings either.  I've enjoyed a lot of books that people rated low and I've been disappointed with many that were rated high. 

Thanks you two :)

I do get the daily e-mail of books posted in my genre. I just would love to be able to see ones posted as the day goes on on my homepage :)

And I use the mobile all the time for my wishlist, just wish I could use the site instead. I'm lazy sometimes lol

As far as the not showing how many of each book listed, I was under the impression that it would discourage people from posting books that have like 300+ in the system.

Even so, how is that a bad thing??  That's exactly why I move all my posted books to the Reminder pages and look how many are in the system--if a book has well over 100 copies already on site, doesn't it make sense for me to get rid of it locally and try to post something else instead rather than bulk up an already full shelf of the same title??  I use local swap shelves at the library and community centers, and the books I take there are the ones that are fat in the PBS system (but not locally!).  Then I pick up things that don't have many copies here, and everyone wins!!  :) 

OK - the new BIR thing is going to drive me nutz. I would like to RATE all editions of a book I've already read so I don't accidentally request it. For instance, if I read the hardcover, I don't want to request a paperback of the same book, and if it's rated by me I'll remember that I already read it.

But if I rate it, it goes in my BIR list - and the edition I read is already there. I don't want the paperback listed in my BIR when what I read was the hardcover!!! I only want to make sure I don't request it again! Sorry if I can't remember all the hundreds of books I've read!! LOL!

and when I go to my TBR list, the only way to move it to BIR is to rate it - so why is there still a +BIR button if it doesn't do anything?? And once I've rated it, why is it still in my TBR list when I refresh?

And where is the Date Entered on BIR now??

Argggh! Thanks for letting me vent.

Note to all:  there are glitches with the new rating system and BIR page.  One cannot rate a book from a Book Details page and add it to your BIR list.  You have to do everything from the BIR page for the system to accept it.  You cannot rate a book and add it to BIR page from TBR or FABIL list, or even from Book Details page.  The system won't accept your rating (even if accompanied by a review!) and still thinks it is unrated and won't add it to BIR.

There are other issues with BIR page as well, some members have reported strange books appearing there, and problems with deleting books and sorting problems.

Still, they need to fix this in order to get their Buddy Similarity Index working, so I have high hopes that the PBS admins will get these bugs fixed soon!

One cannot rate a book from a Book Details page and add it to your BIR list.

You cannot rate a book and add it to BIR page from TBR

These seem to be the only places I can rate it and have it get added to the BIR page. It won't go on the BIR page without a rating, right?

Anyway, I just rated a book on a book details page and it got added to my BIR page even though I don't want it there. When I deleted it from BIR, the rating went away. It's a different edition - I don't want it on my BIR page but I do want it rated by me.