MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Best iPhone ebook reader for large library (3,000 books+)

Starganderfish · 06-06-2009, 08:04 AM

Hi there,
I have a 16Gb iPhone 3G that I use as an ebook reader. I use it for several hours every day and have a huge collection of ebooks - several thousand saved as .txt files.My phone is jailbroken and I can use the iPhonebrowser app to directly access individual folders on my device and transfer files to and from these folders by USB.

The naming and formatting conventions on the books in my library are pretty random as they've been gradually collected over several years and there are now far too many to sit down and edit all their file names or tag them.
My reading habits are a bit random so I like to have the entire collection at my fingertips.
I need an ebook reader application that can hold all these files and not only allow me to read them but allow me to sort through them.
I really want a program that has an effective library management system - a way to sort through all the ebook files on the device rapidly and easily.
I dont want to go through a batch conversion process to convert them to another format.
I've looked at Stanza but from what I can see, the files are all stored in a single list with no way to speedily sort through the list - to get to the bottom of the list you have to scroll manually - pretty annoying with several thousand files - it can take several minutes to get from "A" to "Z".
I've been using BookZ for while and am very happy with it - the library page has an alphabetical listing along the side that lets you jump to a particular letter with a single touch. Unfortunately the files are saved each in their own folder- a thousand files means your library has a thousand subfolders, with a single file in each. This folder layout of BookZ precludes a simple transfer via USB as I would have to create several thousand subfolders and manually re-arrange the collection.
Uploading files through wifi is slow and can only do a small number of files at a time - uploading several thousand files is all but impossible as the iPhone simply crashes.

Basically I need an ebook reader with a simple file storage format like Stanza (all files in a single folder) but that incorporates a library sorting mechanism like BookZ.

Any advice would be welcome.

06-06-2009, 08:04 AM	#1
Starganderfish Junior Member Posts: 8 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2009 Device: iPhone 3G	Best iPhone ebook reader for large library (3,000 books+) Hi there, I have a 16Gb iPhone 3G that I use as an ebook reader. I use it for several hours every day and have a huge collection of ebooks - several thousand saved as .txt files.My phone is jailbroken and I can use the iPhonebrowser app to directly access individual folders on my device and transfer files to and from these folders by USB. The naming and formatting conventions on the books in my library are pretty random as they've been gradually collected over several years and there are now far too many to sit down and edit all their file names or tag them. My reading habits are a bit random so I like to have the entire collection at my fingertips. I need an ebook reader application that can hold all these files and not only allow me to read them but allow me to sort through them. I really want a program that has an effective library management system - a way to sort through all the ebook files on the device rapidly and easily. I dont want to go through a batch conversion process to convert them to another format. I've looked at Stanza but from what I can see, the files are all stored in a single list with no way to speedily sort through the list - to get to the bottom of the list you have to scroll manually - pretty annoying with several thousand files - it can take several minutes to get from "A" to "Z". I've been using BookZ for while and am very happy with it - the library page has an alphabetical listing along the side that lets you jump to a particular letter with a single touch. Unfortunately the files are saved each in their own folder- a thousand files means your library has a thousand subfolders, with a single file in each. This folder layout of BookZ precludes a simple transfer via USB as I would have to create several thousand subfolders and manually re-arrange the collection. Uploading files through wifi is slow and can only do a small number of files at a time - uploading several thousand files is all but impossible as the iPhone simply crashes. Basically I need an ebook reader with a simple file storage format like Stanza (all files in a single folder) but that incorporates a library sorting mechanism like BookZ. Any advice would be welcome.