Dealing with way too many tags (for catalog)

[Blakestr]

There are over 3000! This makes the catalog I've been trying to build all but useless on my kindle because it's as though every book has its own tag/genre. Seriously, some of these tags are ridiculously specific, I never knew I needed to sort through a "1940's US Noir Detective Vampire Punk " genre. (I know tags are not the same thing as genres, but still)

Any best practices for managing all those tags and shrinking them down, without sorting through all of them?

I've though about just backing up my metadata and then scrapping it all, then pulling it again to see if I can find when and where it's going tag crazy. Any ideas?

[theducks]

FOR leaner TAGS only
1) Rename Alternate Spellings to a single. eg. SiFi, SciFi,SyFy,SF
2)Remove redundant stuff that is unneeded in Calibre. Author names, series names that some indies load thier Tag with .
2b)Remove redundant tagging left over from paper catalog days. Romance-Historical, Historical-Romance. If you see a dash, 90% of the time, you might use tip 4 instead the computer can find ANY use of a tag (fragment) so there is no need to put 2+ tag versions when the one contains the term

3) (always struck me as absurd) Fiction-Science Fiction. IMHO If it is not non-fiction, assume it is fiction. (or the flip if your library is mostly non-fiction)

4) Hierarchical Tags (and series). Science Fiction.Military/ The primary tag is the general genre , the later is a refinement. If you standardize (clean) your tag before adding to the Main Library (use an Intake Library to massage the data first).

My 2cents
'Assumed' Tagging might trim them even more.
Historical.Agriculture.South US <non-fiction
Vs
Romance.Historical.South US <<Fiction because of the Primary

[Blakestr]

Originally Posted by theducks

FOR leaner TAGS only


4) Hierarchical Tags (and series). Science Fiction.Military/ The primary tag is the general genre , the later is a refinement. If you standardize (clean) your tag before adding to the Main Library (use an Intake Library to massage the data first).

Thank you so much for this. How does the . between get handled by the catalog creator? I'm having a heck of a time finding a good way to make a good one, and I know the tags are a big reason for that. How do I use an intake library, I couldn't find anything on google for it in calibre?

Edit - I found this, regarding using tags for genres, but I'm not sure how that will play out with the catalog creator, which has very little modern info since the developer left.

https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/sub_groups.html

[Blakestr]

For some reason, it deleted my reply. Without recreating it, I'm mainly looking to see how tags/genre can be organized to make a better, more searchable catalog.

My ultimate goal is to have thousands of books on my Kindle with no need to hook it up to a computer ever, except when backing up annotations/metadata.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Blakestr

For some reason, it deleted my reply. Without recreating it, I'm mainly looking to see how tags/genre can be organized to make a better, more searchable catalog.

My ultimate goal is to have thousands of books on my Kindle with no need to hook it up to a computer ever, except when backing up annotations/metadata.

Your post count is still low. You got kicked into moderation because you triggered some (unknown to me: Link? ) trap. I have approved it (I do forum level Mod stuff)

[Blakestr]

Originally Posted by theducks

Your post count is still low. You got kicked into moderation because you triggered some (unknown to me: Link? ) trap. I have approved it (I do forum level Mod stuff)

Thanks. Between your advice and the subgroup/genre's tutorial, I feel I can organize my library in Calibre. However, will this, particularly the genre/refinement system, get built in the catalog?

[BetterRed]

Hierarchical tags are shown in the output of the 'catalogue creator'

I only use CSV catalogues, but as far as I know EPUB and MOBI catalogues are externally passive - i.e. any clickable links only operate internally within the catalogue itself.

Best way to limit the number of Tags is to avoid importing them from within book files or via downloads from external sites and define them yourself. It'll take a while to build a set of tags that suits you, IMO it's worth the effort.

An Intake library is nothing more than a library with that name -- Library icon->Create/Switch library -- and an associated workflow. Add new books to an Intake library, wrangle the metadata into shape, and when that's done use the Copy to Library (with delete) feature to move the books into a Target library. Helps keep Target libraries tidy.

BR

[Blakestr]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Hierarchical tags are shown in the output of the 'catalogue creator'

I only use CSV catalogues, but as far as I know EPUB and MOBI catalogues are externally passive - i.e. any clickable links only operate internally within the catalogue itself.

Why did Calibre tell me the CSV catalog wasn't compatible with the device? DO I still need to convert it to MOBI or EPUB after generating the CSV catalog??

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Blakestr

Why did Calibre tell me the CSV catalog wasn't compatible with the device? DO I still need to convert it to MOBI or EPUB after generating the CSV catalog??

CSV is for spreadsheets. Only tablets have that capability.
You should jus start the way (format) you will be using

[BetterRed]

@Blakestr - what are you expecting to get from 'the catalogue'?

I have the impression its more than you'll get - its just a list of books. The EPUB and MOBI versions are human readable: like what Sears & Roebuck, Ikea, Pizza Hut etc stuff into your mail box. The CSV and XML versions are machine readable: mainly by spreadsheet and database programs.

BR

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by Blakestr

My ultimate goal is to have thousands of books on my Kindle with no need to hook it up to a computer ever, except when backing up annotations/metadata.

Warning, last time I created a 5K book AZW3/MOBI catalog (with cover thumbnail and description), I remember it took a long time to open it on the Kindle and stuff. Probably a good idea to divide it into chunks (e.g. by genre, author last name, etc).

I think Kindles have too dinky processors and too little RAM to easily handle thousands of books on the device.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Blakestr

For some reason, it deleted my reply. Without recreating it, I'm mainly looking to see how tags/genre can be organized to make a better, more searchable catalog.

My ultimate goal is to have thousands of books on my Kindle with no need to hook it up to a computer ever, except when backing up annotations/metadata.

Have you taken a look at the Tips for loading a large library onto a KO2 thread in the Kindle forum?

[JSWolf]

What I do is clean the tags when I load the eBook(s) into Calibre. It's a lot easier to do it that way then t wait until there are a lot more tags that need removing. I remove the tags that are part of the OPF in the eBook because I'll either add my own tag(s) or the book is part of a series and I'll use series instead.