Managing your library or how you consume books

[pwalker8]

It seems to me that one common assumption that all ebook reader hardware makes is the idea that readers will only have a small number of ebooks on their readers at a time. Ideas such as grouping books by subject or support of series, i.e. being able to sort by series of books in order, either aren't supported or the support is very rudimentary.

I suppose this is reasonable for those who never re-read books, but then again, people who don't re-read books would probably be happier with a library/netflix type system of getting ebooks. By that I mean, some sort of ebook subscription service where for a fix fee, you can read as many ebooks as you like, but can only "check out" x number of books at a time and only keep them for a set period of time.

In the dead tree book world, people who don't re-read books tend to be more oriented towards getting books from the library, or used book shops where they can sale back the books as they finish them. This is how my mother tends to consume books. I suspect that if Amazon had a subscription service where she could get a kindle and for say $10 a month, read what ever she wanted but only have 5 books on the kindle at a time, she would be quite happy.

I tend to re-read books all the time and have a fairly substantial collection of both dead tree books and ebooks. I also like to have all my books available to me on my reader. I want to be able to pull up the books that I haven't read yet so I can pick one to read. I also want to be able to pull up all the books in on a specific subject, say all my Civil War books, or all my economics books so I can pick one. I also want to be able to pull up all the books in a specific series in order. I can do this on my desktop, but not my ebook reader.

In theory, I could do this on the iPad/iTouch/iPhone. Someone could put out a ebook database such as Calibre, I could select a book and the app would invoke the appropriate reading app so I could read it. Right now, no one has written such an app. Perhaps I'm unique in how I like to consume books.

Admittedly this post is a bit disjointed, so to sum it up, I guess the question that I'm raising is what are people's preferences. How many keep all their ebooks on their devices? Do you want something like Calibre (well, preferably something with a somewhat better UI, but something with that capability) on your reader device? Would you prefer a netflix like model for ebooks? Do you have some different way you would like manage ebooks on your device?

[Druid_Elf]

Strictly speaken for me I don't need some fancy GUI.
I keep all my ebooks on my desktop (I currently read on laptop) in an directory tree structure.
I have divided my maps according to subject (math, IT, physics, ...) and depending on the map (eg IT) I make subdirectories depending on the specific subject (eg Oracle).
This allows me to find any book rather quick (search function windows )
If I were to have a non-pc based device than I would not add more than 10 books and keep the desktop (or external HD) as a central repository.

[HarryT]

The best way to store a lot of books on an eBook reader is to get a device which offers full folder support. That way you can create a folder tree to match whatever organizational structure you wish to use. There are many readers on the market which support folders, although the "big name" devices such as Sony, Kindle, and B&N do not.

[GeoffC]

Devices come with sufficient memory to hold many many books and are frequently sold with that as a USP .... so on that basis your first sentence is a little moot.

Luckily the two readers I have adequately allow folders and that makes the sorting and navigation of the books on my readers a fairly easy process...

[and I am another who tends to read and re-read]

[pwalker8]

I think that the extra memory is more for audio files than books. For some reason, they seem to think that people use the same device for both books and music.

[eric11210]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The best way to store a lot of books on an eBook reader is to get a device which offers full folder support. That way you can create a folder tree to match whatever organizational structure you wish to use. There are many readers on the market which support folders, although the "big name" devices such as Sony, Kindle, and B&N do not.

Well the Sony PRS 600 and up does offer tags (I think the 300 does as well, but it doesn't have expansion and so it can't support a large library) and I think the Kindle does as well, however I speak from experience when I say that the Sony is a poor choice if you continually add to your collection. Once you have your collection set and you don't plan to make changes often, you can just charge it with a wall charger and it's fine, but if you plug it into the USB port to charge (or if you add more books or simply shut it off completely rather than put it in standby mode) it can take over an hour to restart because it scans the SD card each time it starts up or is unplugged from USB.

[HarryT]

You're absolutely right; the Sony's "library scan" is a killer for large book collections. The Kindle doesn't have that problem, but its "collections" (which work exactly the same as Sony's do) are no substitute for "proper" folder. Devices like the PocketBook or BeBook Neo, both of which do support folder trees, can store 10,000 books with no difficulty at all, should you wish to carry that many around with you.

[ficbot]

Why is the Kindle collection feature no substitute for folders? It works beautifully once you have it set up.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ficbot

Why is the Kindle collection feature no substitute for folders? It works beautifully once you have it set up.

Simply because of the difficult in setting it up. On a device with "real" folders, such as, for example, the Pocketbook 360 or the CyBook Gen3, you can simply hook up the device via USB to your PC, create whatever folder tree you want to use via Windows Explorer, and then drag and drop files into it. On the Kindle, you have to copy the files to the Kindle, and then on the Kindle itself assign books one at a time to the appropriate collections. Unless there's a short-cut method that I've overlooked?

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I think that the extra memory is more for audio files than books. For some reason, they seem to think that people use the same device for both books and music.

The Gen3 is advertised with the number of books it can hold (1000+) at the top of the features list, the audio capability is mentioned towards the bottom ....

It's a reader first and foremost.

[ficbot]

Harry, the advantage though is that once you've set it up it is easier to manage. For example, I can move a book into a 'read' collection when I finish it, and not have to plug into the computer again. Or I can have it in more than one collection.

[HarryT]

Yes, given that collections are really tags, the ability to assign multiple tags is definitely an advantage.

Most devices which properly support folders have an "on-device" file manager of some sort, allowing you to copy or move a file from one folder to another.

I don't know if Calibre allows you to manage your Kindle collections? if so, that may be a useful time-saver.

Collections on the Kindle do work well, I completely agree. It's just that I spent about 2h yesterday assigning fewer than 100 books to the collections where I wanted them on my new Kindle 3; it would be a task of mind-numbing boredom to try it with 5000 books!

[Lady Fitzgerald]

A significant number of my books will be scanned paper books (images only; I don't have time to run them through OCR then edit them) which average 15-25MB (Atlas Shrugged is 62MB) so there is no way I wpould be able to fit my entire library onto a reader. Fortunately, I really feel no need to. All I really need, when in town, is the book I'm currently reading plus the next one I want to read in case I finish the current one while away from the house. If going out of town, I may put a couple more books (or more if it's a really long trip) on the reader so I won't run out of reading material, even if one or two turn out to be duds. With that few books, I don't need to worry about organization.

I've searched high and low for an application to organize my library on my desk top computer and, so far, haven't found anything that comes close to what calibre can do. It is pretty geeky and has a bit of a learning curve but the user forum here on MobileRead is very helpful and, if needed, they can lead you through anything by the hand if needs be. Just don't be dismayed if they throw out advice that's over your head. If you ask, they will go into more detail for you (they must think I'm a total computer moron over there, mostly because I am).

Calibre is different from most, if not all, programs I tried in that it organizes by use of tags instead of a folder and tree structure. The advantage to that is one has far more options for searches and organization. One downside is it does create new files of your books and keeps them in its own folder (without touching the original file). This makes a lot of users nervous, especially new ones. Its not that big a deal but if one is paranoid or just attached to their old folder and file tree system of organization, just keep your original files in their original folders (like I do; yes, I'm paranoid) and just ignore calibre's. In fact, you should never mess around in calibre's files; any changes you need can be done within calibre (I keep calibre's library folders hidden so I won't accidentally mess with them; out of sight, out of mind).

In addition to cataloging your books, calibre will load books onto your reader for you, download news feeds for installation onto your reader, and convert non-DRM books to other formats if needed to be compatable with your reader. It also has a fairly nice e-book viewer for reading e-books on your computer. There are features I don't use so can't bring to mind right now.

Calibre is highly customizable. Once can add, show or hide, or delete columns at will and even add user customized columns. Each column is sortable. Searches and search parameters can be saved for viewing later. If you want one genre of books to be completely separate from your other books with or without different columns displayed or more than one user on a computer has their own libraries that you don't want mixed, you can create separate libraries. I have three: e-books, songbooks, and comics. Switching between libraries is fairly simple.

Calibre is still under development, with upgrades coming out roughly once a week. It isn't necessary to download each upgrade if the version you have works fine for you but there are new and improved features coming out all the time so it's not a bad idea to keep up with it. The developer will accept suggestions for improvements and new features and frequently implements. If you are a geek, you can even submit code for addition to calibre.

Oh, did I mention that calibre is free?

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by HarryT

...I don't know if Calibre allows you to manage your Kindle collections? if so, that may be a useful time-saver...

I believe calibre will support Kindle collections (it just wouldn't be able to convert them to other formats). You can check on the calibre forum here to verify that.

[Ravensknight]

I have under 1000 ebooks, so Calibre works just fine for me. I don't want direct control over the actual files, just a gui for me to work with. And since I only have fiction, mainly scifi/fantasy, a search by author, or even just sorting by author, is more than I actually need :-)