Different Libraries for Different Users

[rsindel]

I'm a new Kindle owner and also discovered Calibre and am a big fan. I got my daughter and father Kindles too. I am the default downloader of books for the three of us and send the books to their Kindles. We have very different reading tastes, and I'm wondering is there a way to designate in Calibre which devices books are on so that I can just download all the new Dad books to his device and all the daughter books to hers.

[itimpi]

Not as such.

You might want to use either a custom column or tags to flag which books should be on which reader.

You should also look at the Reading List plugin. This allows you to easily maintain lsts of which books are on specific devices and/or should be queued for syncing to these devices

[toomanybooks]

I would suggest having three separate libraries within Calibre and switching between them. I use different libraries ( read, sci-fi, unread, pulp novels) and switching and managing books between them works very well for me.

[rsindel]

Thank you for the tips. I'll see how they work.

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by toomanybooks

I would suggest having three separate libraries within Calibre and switching between them. I use different libraries ( read, sci-fi, unread, pulp novels) and switching and managing books between them works very well for me.

I don't recommend this for most users, particularly new users. It makes it hard to search for books, it makes it hard to run the content server, recipe/news fetching needs more active management etc. Unless the user really needs different columns for the libraries, most new users will be better served with keeping a single library and learning to use tags, saved searches, restrictions, etc. to give the same results that multiple libraries give without any of the disadvantages.

I have no trouble keeping three different users on a single library. Although there are many differences in reading preferences, there are overlaps, particularly on news/recipes. With a single library, I never have to switch, and we all can access all of our books from anywhere in the world, whenever we want them.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by toomanybooks

I would suggest having three separate libraries within Calibre and switching between them. I use different libraries ( read, sci-fi, unread, pulp novels) and switching and managing books between them works very well for me.

I agree with Starson17. Using different libraries for basic items (ie. read, sci-fi, unread, pulp novels) is not the best use case for different libraries. These basic items are best served in one library using tags. If you want to call up all "unread" use a simple search. If you want to see a library with all "unread" then save that search (right side of search bar) and call up a restricted view (left side of search bar) of that saved search.

That said, everyone does things different and it is worth it for the OP to experiment with various features to find out what works best for them.

[Divingduck]

A lot of way´s it can work for you. My way is to have additional user defined columns and using only one database. You can create i.e. a column for Owner and Location to seperate the user and device.

[toomanybooks]

I tried using tags and saved searches for awhile and I hated it so much I found myself avoiding my Calibre library. It felt like a continuation of work. After I switched to using different libraries it became something I enjoyed doing again. Doing it the wrong way just makes more sense to me.

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by toomanybooks

Doing it the wrong way just makes more sense to me.

There's nothing "wrong" with doing it your way if it works for you. There are many ways to use calibre and you should do what works for you , as long as you know what you are giving up. Kiwidude knows calibre inside and out, and he uses multiple libraries. He has a starting library for incoming books that need work and a finished "perfect" library. I think he splits up the author he's working on from both and puts that author into another temporary working library. He likes the faster speed of a smaller library and he likes knowing that his final library is as perfect as he can get it.

However, there are many things you can't do when your books are broken up into multiple libraries, so it's not a good starting point for new users who haven't yet learned much about calibre's tags and saved searches.