Got a problem with incomplete metadata and keeping calibre and the reader synced

[Karnstein]

Disclaimer: Not sure if this is the right section of the board, but since I didn't know where to place it, I though the general area wouldn't be a bad place.

I bought a PRS-T1 roughly tens months ago and while I used calibre to convert, tag and transfer books to it from day one , I made a couple of errors along the road (learning by doing).

For example: I skipped adding book descriptions to the metadata during the first months.

I also developed the habit to open newly send books and flip forward to the inserted metadata page, containing the description/blurb. Most of my books are not from series with a chronological order, so in most cases I simply load "random" books from a collection and browse their descriptions, until I find one that fits my mood and start reading it. Which has the drawback that my Sony reader doesn't mark those books as new&unread anymore, rendering the default "unread books" collection that comes hardwired into the software pretty much useless.

When my collection grew bigger I tried to work around that. I first cut down on the amount of tags, combining smaller collections through the use of broader terms ("Steampunk&Fantasy" instead of two separate terms). Then I added "unread" tags to the bigger collections ("fiction unread"), to keep track of the unread books on my device.

I synced my reader with the updated tags from my library and then went through those new "unread" collections on my Sony PRS-T1, manually dropping all those books I already read from the unread collections on the device.
So a unread book on my device has two tags (for example fiction+fiction unread), while a already read book has only one (fiction). Which of course has no impact on the books internal metadata and the tags in my calibre library.

Now I'm down to ~150 unread books in the biggest collection on my reader, but more than half of those are ones from the first months, hence missing a blurb/plot summary. The same collection in calibre sits at more than double that size.

And unless I misunderstood something, there is only way to add the missing descriptions: Udate the books metadata in calibre first, convert the books a second time (or use the modify plugin), then delete them from the device and then send them to the Sony reader again. Which gives me the missing descriptions on the metadata page of the books, but also resets the previously memorized last opened pages of those books.

So unless I clean up my calibre library first, dropping the "unread" tag from all those books I already read, I will end up deleting and sending books to my reader again, which I already read in the past months ago. And those books would open with the cover page instead of the last page read, thus losing any indication that I've already read them (except for the plot summary sounding familiar to me).

Now here's my question:

Is there are smarter way to solve my problem, than simply power up both my reader and calibre (w/o connecting them), sort the unread collection/tag by date and then either remove the "unread" tag in my library manually by hand or first remove the "unread" tag from all those books and only add it back manually to those books, that show up in my readers unread collection. Then check the metadata of the older books, convert them a second time and send them to the reader again (after deleting them there first).

I mean if I do it all by hand, it would be a ungodly amount of mouse-clicks...

Or am I looking at it from a totally wrong perspective, with my "unread" tag and the according collection on the device (say using a catalog instead, that gives me all the book descriptions sorted by author).

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Karnstein

Disclaimer: Not sure if this is the right section of the board, but since I didn't know where to place it, I though the general area wouldn't be a bad place.

I bought a PRS-T1 roughly tens months ago and while I used calibre to convert, tag and transfer books to it from day one , I made a couple of errors along the road (learning by doing).

For example: I skipped adding book descriptions to the metadata during the first months.

I also developed the habit to open newly send books and flip forward to the inserted metadata page, containing the description/blurb. Most of my books are not from series with a chronological order, so in most cases I simply load "random" books from a collection and browse their descriptions, until I find one that fits my mood and start reading it. Which has the drawback that my Sony reader doesn't mark those books as new&unread anymore, rendering the default "unread books" collection that comes hardwired into the software pretty much useless.

When my collection grew bigger I tried to work around that. I first cut down on the amount of tags, combining smaller collections through the use of broader terms ("Steampunk&Fantasy" instead of two separate terms). Then I added "unread" tags to the bigger collections ("fiction unread"), to keep track of the unread books on my device.

I synced my reader with the updated tags from my library and then went through those new "unread" collections on my Sony PRS-T1, manually dropping all those books I already read from the unread collections on the device.
So a unread book on my device has two tags (for example fiction+fiction unread), while a already read book has only one (fiction). Which of course has no impact on the books internal metadata and the tags in my calibre library.

Now I'm down to ~150 unread books in the biggest collection on my reader, but more than half of those are ones from the first months, hence missing a blurb/plot summary. The same collection in calibre sits at more than double that size.

And unless I misunderstood something, there is only way to add the missing descriptions: Udate the books metadata in calibre first, convert the books a second time (or use the modify plugin), then delete them from the device and then send them to the Sony reader again. Which gives me the missing descriptions on the metadata page of the books, but also resets the previously memorized last opened pages of those books.

So unless I clean up my calibre library first, dropping the "unread" tag from all those books I already read, I will end up deleting and sending books to my reader again, which I already read in the past months ago. And those books would open with the cover page instead of the last page read, thus losing any indication that I've already read them (except for the plot summary sounding familiar to me).

Now here's my question:

Is there are smarter way to solve my problem, than simply power up both my reader and calibre (w/o connecting them), sort the unread collection/tag by date and then either remove the "unread" tag in my library manually by hand or first remove the "unread" tag from all those books and only add it back manually to those books, that show up in my readers unread collection. Then check the metadata of the older books, convert them a second time and send them to the reader again (after deleting them there first).

I mean if I do it all by hand, it would be a ungodly amount of mouse-clicks...

Or am I looking at it from a totally wrong perspective, with my "unread" tag and the according collection on the device (say using a catalog instead, that gives me all the book descriptions sorted by author).

You can completely kill any tag from the tag browser: right-click
You can also Bulk Remove (metadata edit). Select all the files: Tap E: fill in the Remove Tag value: Apply

[Karnstein]

Jesus, I'm so dumb...while I knew that I could do a meta-data bulk edit, I completely overlooked that the search function works on the device as well.

And that cut the amount of clicks down by a huge margin...

1. start calibre, killed the fiction unread tag in the library
2. switched to the device, made search for "fiction unread", selected everything from the search result, right click "remove books"...
3. switched to the library mode again, did another search with "fiction" + "ondevice:false", selected all results
4. bulk metadata, add tag "fiction unread"

Result: 150 books showing up in my library as being unread, now I only need to check the quality of the descriptions in the metadata comments field of the 100 old books, convert them and finish with uploading all 150 books back to my device again.


Still curious if I shouldn't switch to using a catalog or maybe some plugins I don't know about (saw there was a reading list plugin somewhere)...