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Thanks! Indeed, to set up different custom columns for different types of tags which are not describing the content of the book is a very good idea! Until now I mixed everything up in the one standard tags column.
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I would recommend using three tag columns: one for describing the content, one to do the most basic splitting of the collection (like fiction vs. nonfiction), and one for 'others' (in my case, that's what the built-in 'Tags' column is used for, with tags such as: paper - for books that I also have in a paper version, audio - for books that are accompanied by audio, film - for books that are based on a movie or were a basis for a movie (if relevant), fragment - if the e-book is just a sample/excerpt, short - for short stories, dictionary, plus the "TOP" tag with subcategories for books that were on a specific bestseller list, one a prize etc.). And I add new tags for books needed for specific projects (like writing a thesis, an article etc. - some people prefer to use Reading Lists for that).
I also had a number of physical libraries for different types of content (one for leisure, with epubs and mobis mostly, one 'reference' library for books, mostly pdfs, that are not intended to be read from cover to cover, and needed mostly for my work and research), press for magazines etc. The biggest drawback of this setup was that I wasn't able to see the content of all the libraries at once, with Calibre being able to open only one library at the same time. Switching back and forth was just not practical.
The decision to merge all of them into one library turned out to the best one ever. I wasn't sure whether this would work out for me and made copies of all the libraries so that I could go back if I didn't like it after all
. The copies are still there (not up-to-date anymore), and I never went back
.
I chose the library that was my best maintained one, and used the 'copy to library function' to copy books from the other libraries. In some cases, I had conflicting uses of the same columns (e.g. in one library 'rating' was used only for books I've read, in another one: to assess how useful a given reference book may be for me). I solved it before copying books by creating a new column and moving there all the data from #rating.
Plus, it was in that moment that I added a new tag-like column, indicating the library where the book used to be, so that I could split the library back into sublibraries if I decided to do so. I also checked reading lists, to avoid all potential conflicts, and icon/emblem/column coloring rules. I hadn't used views back then heavily in any but one library, but this would be one more thing to check and make uniform.
If I want to have a look at one library only, I just click on the virtual library tab, and here it is
. If for some reason I wanted to go back to having content in separate libraries, I could easily split it by creating new libraries with the same structure and sending the books there.
The only drawback I can think of is that this one 'total' library approach also means the library is pretty big and may not fit on every hard drive or thumb drive (especially as I have audiobooks there, too, which increase the total size of library significantly).
Other than that, I don't really see a reason to maintain multiple physical libraries (if you're the only Calibre user using them).
(Sorry for sounding like a zealous convert, trying to preach about the only right way to do things
It's just that this change, done after a couple of years using Calibre, has enhanced my Calibre experience a lot
).