Magazine-specific tagging and management

[alogon]

Howdy!

TL;DR: Are there features in or add-ons to Calibre that help organize magazine series?

---------------

I have (what I think is) an esoteric "need" for Calibre and wanted to see if anyone has any ideas or solutions that would help me get there.

I think the details are specific enough that there is no single thing that will do all of what I hope to achieve, but Calibre has gotten me through the hardest part which was getting the collection "online" for rapid and easy access. So, please share any little ideas that you think would help with any part of this sort of cataloging.

So the big reveal: I have hundreds of guitar magazines (GM) going back to the '80s. I have cut the binding off and scanned them to PDF with a Fujitsu ScanSnap something or other. I used OCR to allow searching of article contents.

I'll skip to the question and point of the massive description below by asking: Does any of this (the info below) ring a bell? Magazines, in general and at a minimum, are more intertwined than most books. The relational versus graph database question may be taking things too far. Maybe relational suffices.

I would like to figure out how to get LOTS of the data below entered into Calibre from a CSV or other source rather than clicking or tabbing between fields to type or paste data. Most of my scans are already saved in CSV, so that would be ideal.

Does anyone have or know of a "Magazine Module" or something like that to help me? I have searched the forum and don't see any posts that seem to discuss this peculiar use case. I genuinely doubt that anyone has tried this with GMs, but perhaps woodworking (which seems like a multi-year, multi-issue sort of problem too).

I appreciate any tips or guidance you have to share! I've been working on this for a couple of years and haven't gotten any closer to the ultimate searchability dream.

Please ask questions if I've glossed over something or my ideas are unclear.


=============================================

"The Info" -

The challenge/dream:
GMs are unique magazines for a few reasons, although some movie/TV-related or woodworking mags may share some similarities.

A quick definition - The primary reason to scan these magazines, for me, is the tablature. Tablature (or just tab) is a paint-by-numbers sort of sheet music for guitar that uses 6 lines rather than the standard 5 with each line representing a string on a typical guitar. There are also 7- and 8-string variants. Rather than standard "dot" notation on each line, there is a number that indicates where you would put your finger on a given string.

Having the tabs scanned makes rapid access possible, so when I get a hankerin' to learn a given song, I just pull up Calibre and have the song in front of me on that day's preferred device.

But then I got to thinking and a list of features began to form. I think a bulleted list of "GM" features, and data points that would derive from each, is probably the best way to proceed from here.

- There are several feature articles in each issue, of course, focusing on a given guitarist. (Data points: the guitarist, the band they're in, typically the interview is about the "new album" which means discussion of gear used for recording and maybe studio tricks that achieved a sound or effect, the artists that influenced the subject)

- The tablatures, of course. (Data points: artist/band, year, album, studio version or live, instruments transcribed gtr/bass/drums, quality of the tablature [everything that makes publication is typically a 4- or 5-star because they're pros, but due to the tuning of the guitar, many riffs/solos can be played in a variety of different ways and some tab is comically impossible to play with a human hand at full tempo...actually I suppose some might be 3-star.])

- Staff-created lessons which are typically focused on the style of a player or genre and may be multi-part appearing across several issues (Data points: the author (to find more lessons by the same person), the topic (artist or genre), interesting scales/chords/progressions that are covered in the lesson)

- Artist-created lessons written by "name" guitarists covering fan-favorite solos or riffs, practice routines, etc and may be multi-part appearing across several issues. These are typically a limited run of a year or so, maybe between albums or something like that versus the staff lessons that can go on for years. (Data points (same as staff lessons): the author (to find more lessons by the same person), the topic (artist or genre), interesting scales/chords/progressions that are covered in the lesson)

- Gear reviews covering the newest guitars, amps, pedals, and other stuff. Nice to reference when you run across something used and are lucky to have a 10-year old review. (Data points: brand, model, gear category, generally positive or just ok review result, street price at release)

- Album reviews are album reviews, a description that could've saved me a minute or two in the previous description. (Data points: band, album title, guest musicians or interesting producer, genre, do I own it?, should I buy it?)

- How do I get that tone? Many GMs will have a one-pager that shows the effects and other gear that created a given guitar tone which is helpful for really nailing the sound of the song when you play it on guitar. (Data points: artist, band, tour or song or album referenced, gear brand, gear model)

- Miscellaneous. (Data points: who knows? Could be anything.)

Considering these features, there may be mulitiple "tie-ins" in an issue as well as "tie-ins" across a series of issues.

Example: Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top is interviewed about their new album. He discusses the dozens of guitars, pedals, and amps he used to create his tones on the album, not to mention the amazing BBQ he discovered 12 miles down the road. He mentions trying to emulate at Muddy Waters or Jimmy Reed feel on a given track. Touring with Jeff Beck. A staff member does a 2-page article on Billy's use of the major pentatonic as a lead in to his best minor pentatonic runs. "La Grange" is transcribed as tab and this tab gets the nuance of the first few (blazing) seconds of the solo particularly well. The "How does he get that tone?" page shows Billy's live rig at the time with a chain of 6 Expandora pedals. This issue kicks off a new series of lessons penned by Mr. Gibbons. And so on...

This sort of 12-25 references in a single issue is not uncommon and there are multiple publications, so Billy may be the main guy across several GMs around a certain time.

With regard to the tablatures, I mentioned that a song (like "La Grange" or "Stairway to Heaven") may be transcribed several times over the years. In fact this happens often enough to cause the "Oldest Old Man" voice in the back of my head to shake my fist at the occasional new issue that contains ANOTHER tab of "Crazy Train" or "Comfortably Numb" (I have dozens of each of those). But there are plenty of songs that I've never heard and wouldn't recognize the song name or band. In addition, sometimes a bass or even drum tab is included.


=====================================

So...that's a lot. Ya still there?


I am not certain, but I assume that Calibre uses a relational database. I suppose I could look that up. The criss-crossing data points in these magazines lead me to believe that graph database would be idea for this catalog. A graph database sounded like something to track stock prices or something to me, but it is not that. Many social media operations use them for the multi-layer "person X is friends with Y and both like company Z, but only X likes W, and so on". Many layers of preferences and tie-ins.

I could see a movie database being similar with an actor, director, writer, and producer potentially being the same person that co-starred with several people in this and other films.

Woodworking magazines might have some similarities. Finishing techniques, sanding (wait, is that considered part of finishing?), furniture styles, materials, furniture categories, tool/machine/supply reviews, etc.

[ownedbycats]

For the CSV, I recommend looking into the Import List plugin.

Since you've OCR'd your PDF files, Power Search may possibly be worth the effort of setup.

Admittedly, I only skimmed the rest of the post, but I suspect the View Manager plugin may also be of some use -- it'll let you swap between different columnsets.

Also, look into User Categories. Basically combining selected categories from any column and group them all together in the tag browser.

For a more concrete example, say you have taglike columns #songs and #albums and #musicians, you can then group 'Stairway to Heaven' and 'Led Zeppelin IV' and 'Robert Plant' under the same @Led Zeppelin usercat.

[ownedbycats]

One last thing I suspect may be of use for you.

Create a new column with these settings:


Lookup Name: yearpublished
Column Heading: Year Published
Column Type: Column built from other columns

Template:

program:
	p = format_date(raw_field('pubdate'), 'yyyy');
	if p then
		strcat(re(p, '^(...).*', '\1'), '0s.', p)
	else 'Unknown'
	fi

Sort/search by: Text
Show in Tag Browser: checked

It will add this handy column to your tag browser, grouping by decade -- you'll need to set the column to a hierarchical one in preferences/look & feel/tag browser.

[alogon]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

One last thing I suspect may be of use for you.

Thank you so much!! These are great ideas and it's all new to me (haha). I appreciate the guidance. It'll keep me busy for a while...