Quote:
Originally Posted by slayda
With 2000 books, how do you navigate through them? Is there good file/book management on the One?
I have trouble navigating on my Glo, having to page through to find a particular book. Maybe I just don't know the trick. Anyone know how to quickly search for a particular book on a Kobo?
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I like to have all my reference library at hand, and a large part of my library, and I can put more on the One, which I like.
I have some 7600 "books" in all on my computer, but I should say files (epubs of PDFs): it may be one file for complete works (maximum 13383 pages, for Henry James) or one short story (minimum 3 pages for "as a wife has a cow" by Gertrude Stein), and some books with pictures can be very "heavy" (the biggest on the One is the complete Sherlock Holmes illustrated, 50 Mo).
And Calibre is my friend: when I download any book, not only do I clean and polish it, ensuring it has a Table of Contents to the level I wish, but I add metadata: a resume of the book, the number of pages, the day I downloaded it to Calibre, the language, the category (fantasy, philosophy, children, etc.), metacategories (examples in my case 0 catalogs, 00 *, 00 reference poetry, 00 reference other, 1 to reread, 1 SF/F to read, 4 to revise..., ss for short stories etc.), tags to build virtual libraries (aura1! for books that go to the aura One only, not the Glo HD - vice versa Glo HD!).
I update frequently the Calibre catalogs I send to the devices: it allows searches from the devices that include my Archives, and it is a convenient way, in a compacter form, to browse the books on a device when I'm looking for something new to read. I have added prefixes to the titles in the catalogs: A means it is in the Archives, O in the One only, G in the Glo HD only, 1 I read it on paper only, 2 I read it in electronic form.
And since I forget what I have, occasionally I browse by categories / tags in Calibre - often with the covers - to add or substract to my various to be read piles.
But for smaller libraries, or if you know what you are looking for, the search bar in Kobos is easy: choose the booklist with the arrow, and begin to type part of the name of an author, or a title, and if you choose well (and you'll learn quickly what works), 3 or 4 characters are enough.
In any case, it is much easier than with paper books: I have thousands too, some in my flat, more 4 floors up in the "chambre de bonne", and it is not classified; though I do have some idea where most are. I've looked long and unsuccessfully for books - but that often allows me to find books which slipped my mind, and I've bought again books I'd completely forgotten about. Same thing with CDs (hundreds only), and I've started to digitalize my music too.
EDIT:
The cleaning/polishing/cataloging is a lot of work I've been doing progressively since I bought my first reader, in 2011. The tags have changed a lot over time, but the structure itself is mostly stable now. The work has allowed me to become fairly familiar with my library though, just like I sometimes browse through my paper books.
Syncing between computers and saving everything including my Calibre parameters was a bitch until I went the way of Calibre Portable. I also often save my reading positions, practically daily when at home, which helps with syncing between devices, and not despairing when you have a crash (which hasn't happened recently with devices, touch wood)