06-17-2013, 07:22 PM | #1 |
Junior Member
Posts: 9
Karma: 1234
Join Date: Jul 2012
Device: none
|
Book classification system
I have a lot of books in various formats. Even though I can rename them using calibre and its ability to get information for them, that's only half the battle. I am looking for a system that would allow me to classify them. On a previous hard drive which crashed I used a folder hierarchy of the US Library of Congress I got from Wikipedia, with folders for each of its categories (A - Z) and with other folders below those for the subcategories, and so on, because that is what the publishers themselves use, so for example a book about banking would go under H - Social sciences - H*** Banking. Combined with the windows native search in windows vista and later, I could very easily find almost any book. The only problem was that in the structure in question, some categories were missing, and in some cases the books themselves did not have the LOC information printed inside, and the updates to the LOC classification were not free. Also it had an insanely large number of categories, which is the same problem I am having with the Dewey Decimal System: It has 10 major categories and a total of about 900 subcategories. That makes it hard to manage. The system I am looking for would have a smaller number of categories (somewhere like 20) so I don't have too spend time wondering "would this go under banking or finance?"/ "would this go under sports or fitness?", and also some of the major categories did not seem too intuitive ("Banking" under "H - Social Sciences"? Not exactly intuitive. Also it would be somewhat "official", just like the LOC is maintained. Anyone have such a classification system? I don't like the way calibre stores books (Seth Godin\Stop Stealing Dreams (7) for example), it doesn't use categories and I only use it for renaming using metadata downloaded from the internet and for conversion of epubs to PDF.
|
06-17-2013, 08:19 PM | #2 |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 11,470
Karma: 13095790
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Grass Valley, CA
Device: EB 1150, EZ Reader, Literati, iPad 2 & Air 2, iPhone 7
|
Read about Genre in our wiki. https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Genre
|
Advert | |
|
06-17-2013, 08:29 PM | #3 |
Guru
Posts: 631
Karma: 7544080
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Berlin
Device: PRS 350, Kobo Aura
|
Why would you do this, if you have calibre? There you can use tags, which are superior to any folder structure. If you use folders, you have to put books under one and only one label. And if you - some time in the future - wish to change it, it will be very difficult.
You are free to use as few or as many tags as you like. So you can go for the system you have in mind, but you would also be able to make something like a subject catalog. You could also use custom columns, so you use one column for something like the Dewey System and another one for more private tags and another one for subjects. Folders are very simplistic. Calibre is more of a database, with the added comfort to be tailored to books. And if you need it on devices where calibre doesn't work, you can make catalogues. |
06-18-2013, 05:52 AM | #4 |
Wizard
Posts: 1,820
Karma: 9503859
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: France
Device: (Sony (J) PRS 650), Kobo Mini, Kobo Glo HD
|
As you said, Calibre is good for storing. If you use tags, the way your library will be displayed will allow you to sort your books. That's very convenient
|
06-18-2013, 05:00 PM | #5 | |
Junior Member
Posts: 9
Karma: 1234
Join Date: Jul 2012
Device: none
|
Quote:
I name my books “author-title” and then put each of them in a folder with the same name. I can do this using calibre with a “save to disk” template, after I’ve downloaded the metadata. This allows me to know how much space each book and my library takes on the hard drive, and besides, by storing each of it in a separate folder, I can store other things like videos or code samples with the book. I can’t do that within Calibre. http://www.bisg.org/what-we-do-0-136...09-edition.php I will use this. Found it using that Wiki page. Thank you. 50 Top categories is very manageable, it takes the indecision out of sorting and it is updated periodically, so it is just perfect. |
|
Advert | |
|
06-18-2013, 07:16 PM | #6 |
Guru
Posts: 631
Karma: 7544080
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Berlin
Device: PRS 350, Kobo Aura
|
Okay, do it how you like, everybody has his own preferences But to just claim, that folders are better, without any argument, is a little bit strange. You can do anything with tags, that you can do with folders. And you can do more. So I don't know, how they "suck". And I don't know, how I would find anything in the university library, if there were no subject catalogues (which are essentialy tags).
|
08-16-2013, 02:36 AM | #7 |
Junior Member
Posts: 5
Karma: 10
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Indonesia
Device: Kindle (device, PC, Android, iPhone)
|
Tag vs Folder
Wow, Tag(Keyword) vs Folder (Category).
That's an entire battlefield in and of itself. I used to be quite anal in putting my files in folders by category, and subcategory. I drove my team insane when I designed our office's cloud-based shared document system. Then, personal desktop search engine comes along, and hey, this tag stuff is so much more convenient. The issue with single hierarchy folder based category is that: it is a SINGLE hierarchy of classifications, whereas a book can be: Science Fiction, SciFi Fantasy, Cyberpunk, with Romance, Comedy, about Sherlock Holmes, in Pern Series... (or in the office: Research article / News about Internet, Commerce, Social Network, impact on Third World, Education, by BCG, for Project XYZ) With a single hierarchy, you must make sure how you classify when you file and the way you think when you want to retrieve is the same way. and often enough, that's not true. Tag (and an adequate search engine like what Calibre has) makes filing simple, and retrieval quite easy, BUT, inconclusive. (as you can never tell if the document doesn't exist, or if you just tag it wrong...) So, I recommend, use TAG at least. and put in a nice folder hierachy if you have time. but thats just me Last edited by Alexander Turcic; 08-16-2013 at 02:54 AM. Reason: approved |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
ebook Classification - Suspense/Thriller? | mjt57 | General Discussions | 0 | 02-26-2013 10:20 PM |
Calibre Conversion - Same Formating, Different Header Classification | Themus | Calibre | 9 | 11-07-2012 07:50 PM |
Tags vs Dewey Decimal vs Library of Congress Classification | hd_cal_dave | Library Management | 1 | 05-23-2012 08:32 PM |
Classification of Recipes in Calibre | wayner | Calibre | 3 | 11-27-2009 09:48 AM |
Update on the ‘Simple Book’ multi-output e-book authoring system | Jon Noring | News | 1 | 12-01-2006 07:59 PM |