MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Exporting Calibre database for use with Librarything?

Statch · 08-21-2009, 01:53 PM

Dave, thanks very much. That did work. I used a very simple method for doing this, and will describe it here as a jumping-off point for anyone else who wants to do the same thing.

The very simple way to get a list of your Calibre ebooks into your Librarything.com account is to ask Calibre to create a simple list of ISBNs. You'll import that into Librarything.com, which will look up all the ISBNs and create a library list. An alternative is to provide Librarything with a properly formatted file that contains more information, like tags and ratings, if you want to include more information, but if you don't properly format it, Librarything will just pull the ISBNs and leave the rest.

So I started with the simple ISBN list and am going to fool around with adding other information later.

Here are instructions for creating the ISBN list (written with the non-programmer, like me, in mind):

1. At the command line (Start Menu->Run, then type 'cmd' and click on OK), type:

calibredb list --fields=ISBN > Yourfilename

* Yourfilename is whatever you want to call the file. (The > symbol says to put the output of the calibredb command into the filename that follows the symbol; otherwise, it'll just list the information to the screen, which doesn't help you.)
* Note the directory (folder) path on the command line. It'll look something like C:\Documents and Settings. (When you get to Librarything, you'll need to know which folder the file is in.)
* The --fields=ISBN flag says that you want to create a list that contains only the ISBN, no other information. (The output file will contain an ID number column as well by default.)
* The 'calibredb list' command creates a text file by default so you don't need to specify that.

2. Now go to librarything.com and log in to your account. Click on the 'Add Books' tab. At the bottom of the page, you'll see 'Other ways to add books.' Click on 'Import Books.' At the top of that page, you'll see 'Import from a File.' Click on the Browse button, navigate to the directory path you noted above, and select your file. Then click on 'Upload.'

3. Because all you've given Librarything is a list of ISBNs, it will take some time for it go to out to databases and pull in information for each one, but when it's done, click on the 'Your Books' tab and you'll see your library listed there.

08-21-2009, 01:53 PM	#3
Statch Connoisseur Posts: 96 Karma: 2084 Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Georgia, USA Device: Kindle PW2, Samsung Galaxy 3, Kindle Fire HD	Dave, thanks very much. That did work. I used a very simple method for doing this, and will describe it here as a jumping-off point for anyone else who wants to do the same thing. The very simple way to get a list of your Calibre ebooks into your Librarything.com account is to ask Calibre to create a simple list of ISBNs. You'll import that into Librarything.com, which will look up all the ISBNs and create a library list. An alternative is to provide Librarything with a properly formatted file that contains more information, like tags and ratings, if you want to include more information, but if you don't properly format it, Librarything will just pull the ISBNs and leave the rest. So I started with the simple ISBN list and am going to fool around with adding other information later. Here are instructions for creating the ISBN list (written with the non-programmer, like me, in mind): 1. At the command line (Start Menu->Run, then type 'cmd' and click on OK), type: calibredb list --fields=ISBN > Yourfilename * Yourfilename is whatever you want to call the file. (The > symbol says to put the output of the calibredb command into the filename that follows the symbol; otherwise, it'll just list the information to the screen, which doesn't help you.) * Note the directory (folder) path on the command line. It'll look something like C:\Documents and Settings. (When you get to Librarything, you'll need to know which folder the file is in.) * The --fields=ISBN flag says that you want to create a list that contains only the ISBN, no other information. (The output file will contain an ID number column as well by default.) * The 'calibredb list' command creates a text file by default so you don't need to specify that. 2. Now go to librarything.com and log in to your account. Click on the 'Add Books' tab. At the bottom of the page, you'll see 'Other ways to add books.' Click on 'Import Books.' At the top of that page, you'll see 'Import from a File.' Click on the Browse button, navigate to the directory path you noted above, and select your file. Then click on 'Upload.' 3. Because all you've given Librarything is a list of ISBNs, it will take some time for it go to out to databases and pull in information for each one, but when it's done, click on the 'Your Books' tab and you'll see your library listed there.