Confusion about libraries vs metadata filters

[dtakahashi]

hello,
I am so pleased to find calibre because I have been experiencing the wonderfulness of having all my library on a simple small device, but faced with having so many ebooks you cannot find the tree in the forest.

For instance with my physical books I am able to group them into like categories on the shelves, and then I can pretty much find any book any time by scanning the area (not OCD enough to use alphabetical or such - I actually can find by remembering the color of the book, and of course reading sideways the titles/author).

In eBook readers I have not been able to find a way to pull off only showing the books I am currently reading and putting the 'read' books into shelves containing categorized books.

Then we get to Calibre. I have gone ahead and used libraries to shelve my ebooks, but I am finding only 12 libraries can be seen in the quick switch list even though there are more. I am seeing references to 24 being listed, but I think there has been a change and the limit is now 12, perhaps due to having a copy to library and copy to library and delete option the 24 has become 12?)

Then I see that some believe strongly that there should be one library, with metadata tags serving the purpose of differentiating the categories, and others who use libraries.

Is there is an official best practice to follow. I like the fact that I can keep my current reading list in the default library, so when I open calibre I see only the books I am reading. As books are read they then get copied to a library Is there a way to have calibre open to a certain set of books and hide the rest and thus have only one library but only see 'current' books as a default. Or do I need two libraries, one 'reading' and one 'read'?

The thing I like about named libraries, is you have the possibility of seeing the cateogories already created (using quick switch for instance) while tags seem to require an external list be kept and then filtering on the tags (after two months coming back my mind doesn't remember which names I have used for categories).

Thanks for any clarification for experienced users!

David

[Polarpenguin]

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