[misling]

OK , I tried deleting the calibre database off the kindle via usb and then booting up calibre and seeing what it would find in the main library.

The kindle has 1654 objects on it when I list on the kindle by title, of which 38 are active content (games & stuff) and I know those won't go in the calibre list. That leaves 1616 non-active things on the kindle. There are also 62 collections names, 32 news reader feeds (5 magazines, several different dates) from magazine web pages, added through calibre news download, and 1 magazine subscription digest - I don't know if those are in the count?

In Calibre I get that 1528 items are in the 'main' 'on device' column of the main library. I can't tell what's missing if anything. But the numbers might add up if calibre ignores some stuff like active content and collection names and news feeds. Since there are over 8000 items in the calibre main library it's hard to tell if anything is missing from the list.

Would it work to delete the calibre database thing from the kindle and then create the new empty library and then add to the empty library from the device? This is what I was doing before, only I didn't delete the calibre database from the kindle first. Would this make the empty library accurate?

It's hard to test out this stuff while working around my day job and evening commitments. Work's been demanding this week, and I can barely stand to boot up the computer in the evening after I get home from working on the computer all day (I develop & support hospital software). But I'd really like to make it work... doing collections by hand is VERY time consuming.

I don't mean to be bitching about Calibre. It's a great piece of software. I love it.