Creating a "sub-library"

[JP91306]

I have a large collection of books in my Primary, active, library.

I have been helping a person find books and have quite a few that I have collected for her, mixed with my own.

What is the best way to create a new library for those books, move them to it, and remove them from my collection.

Thank you,

jp

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JP91306

What is the best way to create a new library for those books, move them to it, and remove them from my collection.

I would suggest creating a new directory for the library using your OS tools. Then go into calibre, use the Switch/create library, browse to the location of the new directory you created and then selecting Create an empty library at the new location with Copy structure from the current library checked.

For me, I keep my calibre libraries in a directory called calibre in my Windows user directory. Inside the directory are the three calibre libraries I currently use (Intake for incoming books where their metadata, format conversions, error checking, etc. take place, Main where my ebooks wind up and one named after my wife where her ebooks wind up (for some odd reason, I seem to be the designated downloader and fixer-upper of her ebooks ).

[KayDav]

I use Calibre to keep track of my parents' books as well as my own. I opted to make a custom column named "Owner" and enter the initials of the owner of the book there.

My mum and I are in the same "kindle family" so have access to each other's books as if we own them. There's an option when buying a kindle book to decide whether to share it or not, so I also have a custom column "Shared?" indicating this.

Calibre allows virtual libraries, which are basically sub-libraries without having to create separate databases. One could be based on each owner instead of making a separate database for each.

[JSWolf]

I use Calibre to take care of my wife and mother-in-law's eBooks. I used to also take care of my mother's.

[un_pogaz]

Use just the Virtual library feature.
Personally I created a column #virtual_library (Text, but with a given set of allowed values) and work well.