Managing libraries with multiple KTs and one desktop

[sophiek]

We have 3 KTs in our family, all on the same account. We do not sideload books and so far only purchase books through the Kobo website. I am trying to figure out a simple way to manage the libraries on the 3 KTs. Our interests differ enough that we rarely share books so we tend to purchase and download directly on the KT, avoiding the desktop altogether, however with each firmware upgrade, there is no way around syncing, requiring playing with the 'I'm Reading' list on the Kobo website for each KT user, syncing that with the desktop, then syncing the KT with the desktop to end up with each KT having only that user's books on it. Repeating this 3 times is tedious and I thought that the addition of bookshelves would help this.

With the latest upgrade, I thought I might be able to put all of our titles in the 'I'm Reading' on the website, then sync with the desktop to get all of the titles to appear on the desktop. This worked. Next I was going to create shelves on the desktop and assign the various titles to shelves specific to each user (and a few shared shelves) so that each user could then sync with desktop and just look for their own shelves in their KT library. I hit a snag when I discovered that the desktop does not have shelves.

I love the idea of the shelves. Does anyone have any suggestions or insight into how they can help manage everyone's library within our household? we only have 132 books in our combined library so I could sync each KT and individually assign each title to a shelf on each KT. What I am wondering;

1) Is there an easier way, or
2) if not, for future syncs or purchases, what happens to new books? Do they just show up as unassigned to bookshelves so that each user can deal with them as they wish?

Any insight into how to manage basically 3 libraries under one account would be much appreciated.

[ltr]

Our interests differ enough that we rarely share books

If that's so, why not have three different accounts?

It would be a bust when you all wanted the same book and had to pay for it three times though....

ltr

[sophiek]

I don't disagree that there would be advantages to having separate accounts, however I don't want my 15 year old son having his own account, and my husband and I share enough titles that it works better to be on the same account. I wish it was more like ITunes, where you can sync each device to a common library, using different playlists.

[murg]

On the Windows system, the Kobo Desktop's copy of things is stored under the logged in user's Windows account.

Create a Windows account for each of the other two users, log into that Windows account, install the Desktop, and log into the shared Kobo account.

Each user should have their own set of history, etc., but common purchased books. Unless Kobo is syncing this info with their servers.

In any case, experiment with this.

[Mrs_Often]

You could also decide to download all the books you bought from kobo as epubs (which is possible from the kobo site (or maybe even from the desktop app but I'm not sure)), and stop syncing with the Kobo account. In that way you could load all your books into ADE or Calibre for instance, and use it like a kind of iTunes full of books, and choose which books to put on which device.

If you want to do that but also want to keep syncing with Kobo for the updates, you could 'delete' all the books you've purchased from your library: they don't get deleted completely, they stay archived and accessible but they're not sent to a device when it syncs.

[HarleyB]

I agree with Mrs Often.
Install ADE and download the epub versions. Then move them into Calibre and just load the books that each user wants onto their own device.
This is what my family does with our 2 Kobos and iPad.