[averyml]

Thank you all for your help! After a few hours studying I have the following (which I know, is horrible, but it works):

#import os for executing commands
import os
#import BeautifulSoup
from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulStoneSoup
#define file to use
file = open('/home/michelle/ebookcollection.xml')
#soup it
soup = BeautifulStoneSoup(file)
#read all entries into an array books
for book in soup.fetch('entry'):
	#set book title
	bookTitle = book.title.string
	#set book file
	bookFile = book.file.string
	bookFile = bookFile.replace('%20', ' ')
	bookFile = bookFile.replace('%27','\'')
	#determine if book is part of series and set requisite values
	bookSeries=""
	bookSeriesIndex=""
	if book.series is not None:
		bookSeries=book.series.string
	if book.series_num is not None:
		bookSeriesIndex=book.series_num.string
	#if  book has description, set that as well
	bookComment = ""
	if book.comments is not None:
		bookComment=book.comments.string
	bookAuthors = ""   
	bookTags = "Unread, Tellico"
	for a in book.fetch('author'):
		thisAuthor = a.string
		if thisAuthor.find(",") > -1:
			firstName = thisAuthor[(thisAuthor.find(",") + 2):]
			lastName = thisAuthor[:thisAuthor.find(",")]
			thisAuthor = firstName + " " + lastName
		bookAuthors = bookAuthors + thisAuthor +", "
	bookAuthors = bookAuthors.strip(", ")
	print "Title: " + bookTitle
	print "Authors: " + bookAuthors
	print "File: " + bookFile
	print "Series: " + bookSeries
	print "Series Number: " + bookSeriesIndex
	print "Description: " + bookComment
	print "Tags: " + bookTags
	#write it out
	command = "epub-meta -t \"" + bookTitle + "\" -a \"" + bookAuthors + "\" --comment=\"" + bookComment + "\" --series=\"" + bookSeries + "\" --series-index=\"" + bookSeriesIndex +"\" --tags=\"" + bookTags + "\" \"" + bookFile + "\""
	os.system(command)

There are only two things I haven't been able to figure out how to write to the metadata yet: the ISBN number, and the cover. epub-meta seems to be able to read the ISBN number and extract the cover, but not set either of them. The cover isn't a big deal, but I'd really like to be able to set the ISBN number. I suspect that this may be part of reason kovid suggested using calibredb to add them directly, but, as I understand it, I'd have to use the xml file to create temporary opf files for each book to use for the set_metadata part, and I'm afraid that goes well beyond my python coding abilities...is there a simpler way of doing this?