Help with Calibre for Research and Dual Installation Setup

[Georgegian2018]

Hi everyone,

I’m hoping someone here can help with a couple of questions about using Calibre in my research workflow.

1. I’d like to use Calibre to manage my collection of research papers, journals, etc. Since I also work with Overleaf, does anyone know if Calibre has a plugin or feature that allows exporting selected bibliographic entries as BibTeX?

2. I’m considering installing a second instance of Calibre to organize a separate library with different books and materials. Does Calibre support this kind of dual setup?

Thanks in advance for any insights or recommendations!

[Sirtel]

You don't need multiple instances of Calibre to have multiple libraries. You can have as many libraries as you want - just click on the Library icon -> Switch/create library.

You can also have separate virtual libraries instead of physical ones - making it easier to search across your whole library.

[Georgegian2018]

The only issue with the virtual libraries is the search expression.
There are several authors, tags publishers etc. so it doesn’t help much
Normally I was expected to find a location where the files are because my research papers, journals, etc. are located on my OneDrive.

[Sirtel]

It's not a good idea to keep your live library in OneDrive or some other cloud - it may cause library corruption. Calibre is not designed to be compatible with active syncing. What many of us here do is keep our active library in a local folder and use FreeFileSync to create a backup copy in a cloud.

[Georgegian2018]

at first, even from OneDrive, Calibre when is importing books, automatically, copying them into the local folder by creating folders, sort them by the author name.
However, why Calibre is generating so many folders per item. I saw inside the first folder, to have 2-3 some times more folders with the author name and in parenthesis (2) or (3).

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Georgegian2018

However, why Calibre is generating so many folders per item. I saw inside the first folder, to have 2-3 some times more folders with the author name and in parenthesis (2) or (3).

That means the metadata is not correct - there are several variations in the name of the author (wrong first name/last name order, punctuation or lack of it and so on). Or that there are items with duplicate metadata. You can fix it in Calibre (the program); never touch anything in the library folder directly.

[Georgegian2018]

ok how to fix it in Calibre (the program) because for me its a hectic

[Sirtel]

By manually editing your author names and titles. For authors, you can use Manage Authors by right-clicking on the category Authors in the tag browser (I've added a screenshot). Make sure there is just one variant of the name per author (not, for example Peter M. Williams and Williams, Peter M. and Peter M Williams, all of them meaning the same person).

For titles, it's one by one. Make sure all documents by the same author have different titles.

[Georgegian2018]

I was thinking that maybe exist something on the settings

I would like to know since it is a virtual library, why Calibre copying those files, into the local folder?
if I was creating a Calibre Library, it could make sense that

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Georgegian2018

I was thinking that maybe exist something on the settings

I would like to know since it is a virtual library, why Calibre copying those files, into the local folder?
if I was creating a Calibre Library, it could make sense that

Calibre always copies any files you import into its own folder - it never uses already existing copies. This goes for physical libraries. And you cannot create a virtual library without first creating a physical one - Calibre must have at least one physical library.

If there's something else going on, then I'm afraid I don't understand you. What exactly did you do when you created that virtual library? Step by step, please.

[Georgegian2018]

At first, I went to the icon, Virtual Library.
Then I hit the “+ create a virtual library”
Virtual Library name: My research library
Search expression: antennas, RF (I used those two as keywords/tags)

When I hit the OK button, then a new message pop-up
“This search found no books, so the Virtual Library will be empty. Do you really want to use that search? Y/N”

I hit “yes” and then I went to “Add Books”

[Sirtel]

Did you already have the books in your calibre library when you did this? If you didn't, it wouldn't work.

The correct way to create a virtual library is this:
1. Use Add Books to add your books physically to Calibre
2. Add the keywords/tags you want to use for your virtual library if they're not there already (select the books -> right-click on Edit Metadata -> Edit Metadata in Bulk -> Add tags).
3. Create your virtual library

[Georgegian2018]

I went the other way around.
ok then to make the things right, do I have to remove and delete the books from virtual library, and then start using the correct way?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Georgegian2018

I went the other way around.
ok then to make the things right, do I have to remove and delete the books from virtual library, and then start using the correct way?

I think you'd better delete your virtual library (Remove virtual library). This leaves your books in the physical library. Unless for some reason you have imported your books multiple times and now have multiple copies of the same books in your Calibre library? In that case it's better to delete everything (select all books -> Remove books) and start again from scratch.

By the way, if you want to use tags for your virtual library, then the search expression to enter is tags:"=antenna" and tags:"=RF" or tags:"=antenna" or tags:"=RF", depending on whether you want books with both tags or with either one.

[Georgegian2018]

to be honest, I did both delete and the virtual library and the files to avoid to have duplicates.
when I want to use tags, always I have to use this format i.e., tags:"=antenna"??

I would like to know if there is in Calibre a plugin or feature that allows exporting selected bibliographic entries as BibTeX?