Newbie looking for help

[Star_Eagle]

Hi folks

I just got Calibre to try and organize my large collection of ebooks but I'm getting quite confused buy the tutorials and guides.

My collection has about 1000 ebooks so tagging them all would be quite time consuming.

Could anyone here tell me a simple way to group the books together?

[yonkyunior]

Originally Posted by Star_Eagle

Hi folks

I just got Calibre to try and organize my large collection of ebooks but I'm getting quite confused buy the tutorials and guides.

My collection has about 1000 ebooks so tagging them all would be quite time consuming.

Could anyone here tell me a simple way to group the books together?

if you have correct Author and Title then, just download metadata from goodreads or amazon. best if you have the ISBN in all books.

Before that make sure you have installed the metadata source plugin
https://plugins.calibre-ebook.com/

more advanced try: DoctorOhh Post #15 about json files.

[Montana Harper]

My advice:

1. Think about how you want your books organized before you start adding them to Calibre.

Some possibilities are grouping them by broad genres (SF/Fantasy, Chick Lit, Historical, Mystery, Contemporary, etc.), using broad genres along with narrower hierarchical sub-genres when applicable (Mystery, Mystery.Noir, Romance.Historical, etc.), using free-form tags that help you remember details of the book (hidden magical world, chosen one, orphaned protagonist, hero's journey, England, Scotland, Quidditch, etc.).

You can use a combination of these, too, but I find that keeping genre and freeform tags in separate fields works best. I've created a custom column for freeform tags, and use the built-in Tags field for BISAC categories.

2. Look at the available plug-ins and consider what might provide utility for you. I use a ton of plug-ins, but the ones I find indispensable are: Count Pages, Extract ISBN, Manage Series, Overdrive Link, Quality Check, Reading List, View Manager, and a few that provide more sites to collect metadata from, like Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, FictionDB, Kobo Books & Webscription.

Since some plugins use custom columns, I think it's easier to get them all set up before you start adding books to the library.

3. Add, download metadata for, and fix tags on books one at a time. You don't have to do it all in one go; I clean up metadata while watching TV or listening to audiobooks, 20 or 30 books in an evening. It's less time consuming to do it right the first time than to have to go back and clean up a disorganized mess later. :-)

There are automated ways to handle metadata import, but I find doing it manually to start with is a better way to get a feel for how you want the process to work. Once you're sure that your tag scheme is working well, you can look into filtering imported tags, etc.

4. Check out the custom columns thread to see how other people are organizing their libraries; you might get some ideas.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Good luck!

[Star_Eagle]

Thanks guys, that's just the kind of info I was looking for.

[dwig]

I would add:

1. Check out the Preferences>Tweaks. Specifically, the one that controls how calibre alphabetizes the titles and the one that maintains a list of author name suffixes (Jr., Sr., ...)

2. Keep calibre's default Ln, Fn pattern (author = Fn Ln and author_sort = Ln, Fn) for the main library metadata. You can then use Plugboards and conversion options, if desired, to alter this when "exporting" to a device (Save to Device, Save to Disk).

3. Consider adding a Tag automatically when Adding books (set in Preferences>Adding Books) to tag new additions. I do this and remove the Tag manually when I've massaged a newly added book's metadata. This way I can use the Tag Browser or a saved search to find all books that still new massaging.