Best way to get them all back in same library?

[CWatkinsNash]

Here's my situation:

I have been managing both my roommate's ebooks (epub) and mine (mobi). For simplicity's sake, I created an epub only library. Initially this consisted of epub versions of books that were already in the main library, but as we got more books that only he was interested in, I put those new ones in that library only.

A while back I realized I had more than a few books that needed metadata work and other fixes. Because I didn't want to deal with them at that time, I moved them into a "working library" to be fixed. Then I ended up creating yet another... Now I have 5. Yes, I know that's not generally considered best practice, but while I wouldn't recommend it to most users, it's been working really well for me...

...but recently, I realized I wasn't happy with my main library and made a lot of changes to my workflow, and now that I've got a better system in place, it occurred to me that merging these various libraries would now be feasible and not threatening to my sanity.

Taking into account that all but one of these libraries will have at least some (and in one case, many) duplicates in one or more of the other libraries, can any of you give me some ideas on how best to proceed? I'm certainly not a new user, and normally I have no problem with this stuff but my allergies are fogging my brain and I can't seem to think my way through it.

(Or maybe it's because I just installed a virtual synth app on a virtual Android tablet that lives in an Ubuntu installation that, in turn, lives on a virtual machine inside of Win7 and I think I can see Infinity from my chair. I may have used up both my geek quota and most of my critical thinking skills allotment for the week and it's only Tuesday. Help me.)

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

Taking into account that all but one of these libraries will have at least some (and in one case, many) duplicates in one or more of the other libraries, can any of you give me some ideas on how best to proceed? I'm certainly not a new user, and normally I have no problem with this stuff but my allergies are fogging my brain and I can't seem to think my way through it.

Whenever I want to merge libraries, for sanity sake, I often copy my best library to a new library. So I would copy my "Main Library" to "Merge Library." Once this is done I would do two things:

1. Go to Preferences - Adding books and under Tags to apply when adding a book I would put a tag representing the library I was about to copy to the "Merge Library" so if I was copying the "ePub" library I would set the tag 000ePub.
2. Still in the adding books area of preferences I would check the Automerge added books and set the option to Ignore duplicate incoming formats.

So if I was adding ePubs to a mobi library if the books are detected as the same the epub would be added to the record that already contains the mobi. If there wasn't already a record that matched, a new book record will be created and the tag 000ePub would be there to let you know where it came from. The tag can be removed easily via the edit metadata window in bulk at any time, but while I'm cleaning things up it helps me to know which library the book started in and the 000 is there to ensure it is the first tag in the list so you can spot it easier in the list view.

I would do the above for each library. When finished I would use the Find Duplicates plugin to help narrow the field in my "Merge Library". When I was happy with the results I would archive my old "Main Library" and rename the new library accordingly. I would then use saved searches and the restricted library feature to easily replicate any need I thought I still had for duplicate libraries.

[CWatkinsNash]

Thank you Walt! That helps me tremendously. I've already created a new empty library and copied my best library there, and I will tackle the rest tomorrow. Again, thank you!

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

Thank you Walt!

You're Welcome.