PRS-300 File Duplication between Library and Collections

[Xtiney]

Sorry if this is a repeat post -- I've been through the forum, but haven't found any answers to this problem in particular.

Every time I sync my Sony Pocket Reader, all the files that I have in both my main library and a collection sync twice -- so if I search books by title/author/date, those books show up twice on my reader. While I only have 160 book files, all the duplicates mean I end up having 284 files! (I've deleted them individually from the reader in the past, but doing that for 60+ files each time I add a book is very annoying)

Has anyone else encountered this problem or know how to fix it? I've tried deleting all the files from the Reader and syncing again from scratch, but that doesn't work -- any file in a collection is still copied twice.

Any help would be appreciated!

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Xtiney

Sorry if this is a repeat post -- I've been through the forum, but haven't found any answers to this problem in particular.

Every time I sync my Sony Pocket Reader, all the files that I have in both my main library and a collection sync twice -- so if I search books by title/author/date, those books show up twice on my reader. While I only have 160 book files, all the duplicates mean I end up having 284 files! (I've deleted them individually from the reader in the past, but doing that for 60+ files each time I add a book is very annoying)

Has anyone else encountered this problem or know how to fix it? I've tried deleting all the files from the Reader and syncing again from scratch, but that doesn't work -- any file in a collection is still copied twice.

Any help would be appreciated!

Before I try and help, which program are you using to load ebooks on your ereader?

[Xtiney]

I knew I had to be forgetting something important, hah; sorry! I'm using "Reader Library" since it was what was the default. If there's something better, I'd definitely consider that as a way to solve this annoyance.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Xtiney

I knew I had to be forgetting something important, hah; sorry! I'm using "Reader Library" since it was what was the default. If there's something better, I'd definitely consider that as a way to solve this annoyance.

When I was using the Sony Reader Library (SRL) I used collections to manage the ebooks on my ereader. I created collections, put ebooks in them, and set the SRL to sync those collections to my ereader. Only ebooks in those collections would appear on my ereader. The only time I would get a duplicate ebook is if I set the same ebook in two different collections and sync one collection to my ereader's internal memory card and the other collection to an SD card in my ereader.

As far as a better ebook management program for my Sony Ereader, one I've started using is Calibre and I've found it to be much better than the SRL. It has many features that the SRL doesn't have (such as the ability to edit an ebook's metadata after it is loaded in the library). For me, one of its best features is that you can send ebooks to your ereader (which works much better than the SRL options of dragging and dropping the ebooks on your ereader, or synching the ebooks to your ereader). For information on it, see MobileRead's Calibre forum.

I hope this helps.

[Xtiney]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

When I was using the Sony Reader Library (SRL) I used collections to manage the ebooks on my ereader. I created collections, put ebooks in them, and set the SRL to sync those collections to my ereader. Only ebooks in those collections would appear on my ereader.

All right. My problem may be that I've been thinking of it along the same lines as iTunes and its Music Library/Playlist organization -- I have a few collections, but since the majority of my books are NOT in collections, I sync the main library + those collections, and end up with duplicate copies.

Thanks for the suggestion about Calibre; I'll definitely look into it.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Xtiney

All right. My problem may be that I've been thinking of it along the same lines as iTunes and its Music Library/Playlist organization -- I have a few collections, but since the majority of my books are NOT in collections, I sync the main library + those collections, and end up with duplicate copies.

Thanks for the suggestion about Calibre; I'll definitely look into it.

The main reasons I used collections this way were: (1) they allowed me to easily control which ebooks would be loaded on my ereader, (2) I can remove ebooks from my ereader without having to delete them from my library, and (3) I can control where the ebooks will be loaded (in its internal memory or on a memory card).

In a related topic, I used to use iTunes to manage my music on my audio player. The problem I had was that I more music than would fit on my player. My solution was to use playlists to control the music loaded on my player, and I set it up so that only rated music would be loaded on my player. To delete a song from the player I'd change its rating to zero stars and it would be removed at the next sync. It is a technique I still use to this day because it makes it easy to control the music on my audio player, and to know which music will be loaded on my audio player.

It is the same with Sony Reader Library (SRL). If I want to remove an ebook from my ereader I remove the ebook from the collections I sync to my ereader. Those ebook(s) will be removed during the next sync.

Using collections this way allows me to do all of my ebook management without my ereader connected to my computer. I put the ebooks into the appropriate collections, remove the ebooks I no longer want on my ereader from the collections, and order them the way I want. When I'm finished, I sync my ereader and my ebooks are arranged the way that I want on my ereader.

As I mentioned before, Calibre is definitely worth a look. After the initial setup, I've found that it is much less work to manage my ebook collection on my computer and on my ereader than it is with the SRL. As an example, adding ebooks to my ereader with Calibre is simple and quick (highlight the ebook(s) and send it/them to your ereader), and much easier than it is with the SRL.

[HarryT]

I'm sure you know this, but permit me to point out anyway that collections aren't folders, but rather are tags. When you tag a book as being in a collection, it will show up both in the collection and in the main library. This doesn't mean that it's duplicated; the book is only stored on the device once.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm sure you know this, but permit me to point out anyway that collections aren't folders, but rather are tags. When you tag a book as being in a collection, it will show up both in the collection and in the main library. This doesn't mean that it's duplicated; the book is only stored on the device once.

Thanks for the clarification. When I was using the Sony Reader Library (SRL), I tended to think of collections as folders since the SRL interface encourages that. Calibre encourages that you think of collections as being based on tags.

Since I've started using Calibre I've come to see the advantage of arranging my ebooks with tags rather than folders. It allows me a great deal of flexibility when arranging my ebooks into collections, and mass rearranging my collections is fairly simple (such as splitting one large collection into two or more smaller ones).

For me, tags are similar to categories in PDAs that use the Palm OS. Rather than putting applications and data into folders, in the Palm OS you assign a category to each item. When accessing your applications and data, you just call up the appropriate catagory or you can just list everything.