P + E = Total Collection

sglinert · 02-28-2013, 03:33 PM

A couple of days ago, I was looking for a book on Amazon. I checked my collection in Calibre, and it wasn't there, so I bought it.

Um, the book was only available in paper, and my Calibre library shows only my ebooks...but I am so used to ebooks that I sort of forgot that I own thousands of paper ones, as well. The title seemed familiar, so I went to my wooden bookshelves and discovered I actually had a paper copy already.

And this lead me to think about entering my paper books in Calibre so I would never make the same mistake again. This is what I did.

I have a iPod Touch, so I cruised through the barcode readers and found an app called Barcode Collector. It takes a photo of the barcodes and then creates a list of them, which I then mailed to myself.

I copied the list, opened Calibre, clicked Add Books, clicked Add from ISBN, pasted the list into the text box, and assigned a default Paper tag. Then I downloaded the metadata.

I now have a way to enter all my paper books into Calibre so hopefully, I will now have a truly complete catalog of all my books, regardless of whether they are paper or electronic.

SeaKing · 03-01-2013, 07:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sglinert

A couple of days ago, I was looking for a book on Amazon. I checked my collection in Calibre, and it wasn't there, so I bought it.

Um, the book was only available in paper, and my Calibre library shows only my ebooks...but I am so used to ebooks that I sort of forgot that I own thousands of paper ones, as well. The title seemed familiar, so I went to my wooden bookshelves and discovered I actually had a paper copy already.

And this lead me to think about entering my paper books in Calibre so I would never make the same mistake again. This is what I did.

I have a iPod Touch, so I cruised through the barcode readers and found an app called Barcode Collector. It takes a photo of the barcodes and then creates a list of them, which I then mailed to myself.

I copied the list, opened Calibre, clicked Add Books, clicked Add from ISBN, pasted the list into the text box, and assigned a default Paper tag. Then I downloaded the metadata.

I now have a way to enter all my paper books into Calibre so hopefully, I will now have a truly complete catalog of all my books, regardless of whether they are paper or electronic.

Totally NEAT!

sglinert · 03-02-2013, 11:33 AM

I did discover, while cruising through my paper books, that some of them are too old to have an ISBN, and some of them don't have an ISBN bar code. I will have to add these manually at some point by creating an empty book record in Calibre and filling in the screen by hand.

02-28-2013, 03:33 PM	#1
sglinert Enthusiast Posts: 48 Karma: 1024532 Join Date: May 2008 Device: iPad Air, iPod Touch 5, Illudium Q-42 Explosive Space Modulator	P + E = Total Collection A couple of days ago, I was looking for a book on Amazon. I checked my collection in Calibre, and it wasn't there, so I bought it. Um, the book was only available in paper, and my Calibre library shows only my ebooks...but I am so used to ebooks that I sort of forgot that I own thousands of paper ones, as well. The title seemed familiar, so I went to my wooden bookshelves and discovered I actually had a paper copy already. And this lead me to think about entering my paper books in Calibre so I would never make the same mistake again. This is what I did. I have a iPod Touch, so I cruised through the barcode readers and found an app called Barcode Collector. It takes a photo of the barcodes and then creates a list of them, which I then mailed to myself. I copied the list, opened Calibre, clicked Add Books, clicked Add from ISBN, pasted the list into the text box, and assigned a default Paper tag. Then I downloaded the metadata. I now have a way to enter all my paper books into Calibre so hopefully, I will now have a truly complete catalog of all my books, regardless of whether they are paper or electronic. Last edited by sglinert; 02-28-2013 at 03:43 PM.

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03-02-2013, 11:33 AM	#3
sglinert Enthusiast Posts: 48 Karma: 1024532 Join Date: May 2008 Device: iPad Air, iPod Touch 5, Illudium Q-42 Explosive Space Modulator	I did discover, while cruising through my paper books, that some of them are too old to have an ISBN, and some of them don't have an ISBN bar code. I will have to add these manually at some point by creating an empty book record in Calibre and filling in the screen by hand.