MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Content How to organise your library? I use Calibre because Kindle's collections are useless

ilovejedd · 03-01-2019, 11:25 AM

Website works fine for me for adding books to collections. Caveat, I think Kindles don't like exceeding around ~990 books per collection. Also, Add to Collections doesn't appear as an option for me on mobile browsers. Works fine on Chrome with Windows 7.

https://www.amazon.com/myk

That said, regardless of what ereader one has, I think if one has over a thousand books acquired from different sources, I reckon it's still much faster to check one's Calibre library via smartphone, tablet or PC if a book has already been purchased or not. I only use collections on ereaders for browsing for my next read so I don't have to scroll through hundreds of pages—not to check which books I've already bought and which ones I haven't. Mind, if one only buys from Amazon, then it's less of an issue since Amazon will tell you that you've already purchased a book.

As for adding newly purchased books to collections on the Kindle ereader itself, I just sort by Recent. For me, that usually puts newly acquired books at the very top of the list. Page 2 at most.

I own both Kobos and jailbroken Kindles so I can manage collections/shelves on both via Calibre. After jailbreak, I don't find Kobos much better than the Kindles for book browsing. Once the book is on the device, the Kindle flags them either as new or with the reading progress so unless you read USB sideloaded books on multiple devices, keeping track if a book has been read or not isn't much of an issue.

If I didn't have a jailbroken Kindle, I'd either:

use send to Kindle to store books on Amazon's cloud and use the website to organize them by collections, or
continue sideloading but only keep a few books on the device (favorites + reading list), or
continue sideloading but use a different method to browse for books to read (e.g. Calibre catalog, Calibre-PHP server, COPS, CC on smartphone/tablet) and use the Kindle search function to get to the actual ebook as needed

Personally, I rarely have the inclination to connect my Kindle to USB to transfer books/manage collections so I've actually been using #3 quite a bit. I use the Kindle's experimental browser to browse for books on Calibre-PHP server, then just download and read directly (I almost always sort by Recent).

03-01-2019, 11:25 AM	#4
ilovejedd hopeless n00b Posts: 5,110 Karma: 19597086 Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: in the middle of nowhere Device: PW4, PW3, Libra H2O, iPad 10.5, iPad 11, iPad 12.9	Website works fine for me for adding books to collections. Caveat, I think Kindles don't like exceeding around ~990 books per collection. Also, Add to Collections doesn't appear as an option for me on mobile browsers. Works fine on Chrome with Windows 7. https://www.amazon.com/myk That said, regardless of what ereader one has, I think if one has over a thousand books acquired from different sources, I reckon it's still much faster to check one's Calibre library via smartphone, tablet or PC if a book has already been purchased or not. I only use collections on ereaders for browsing for my next read so I don't have to scroll through hundreds of pages—not to check which books I've already bought and which ones I haven't. Mind, if one only buys from Amazon, then it's less of an issue since Amazon will tell you that you've already purchased a book. As for adding newly purchased books to collections on the Kindle ereader itself, I just sort by Recent. For me, that usually puts newly acquired books at the very top of the list. Page 2 at most. I own both Kobos and jailbroken Kindles so I can manage collections/shelves on both via Calibre. After jailbreak, I don't find Kobos much better than the Kindles for book browsing. Once the book is on the device, the Kindle flags them either as new or with the reading progress so unless you read USB sideloaded books on multiple devices, keeping track if a book has been read or not isn't much of an issue. If I didn't have a jailbroken Kindle, I'd either: use send to Kindle to store books on Amazon's cloud and use the website to organize them by collections, or continue sideloading but only keep a few books on the device (favorites + reading list), or continue sideloading but use a different method to browse for books to read (e.g. Calibre catalog, Calibre-PHP server, COPS, CC on smartphone/tablet) and use the Kindle search function to get to the actual ebook as needed Personally, I rarely have the inclination to connect my Kindle to USB to transfer books/manage collections so I've actually been using #3 quite a bit. I use the Kindle's experimental browser to browse for books on Calibre-PHP server, then just download and read directly (I almost always sort by Recent).