Read/unread management on the PRS-T1 with calibre, tags vs cataloge

[Karnstein]

I hope this exact questions didn't popped up somewhere already. At least I think it didn't, since all the topics I found using a quick & dirty google search didn't fully covered my problem.

So here's my problem:

I haven't played around with the catalog option so far and I don't know squat about its potential.

What I normally do when I get a new book is downloading the metadata (except for tags, which I apply manually), correcting the book description in the comments field and then either convert the book again or use the "modify epub" plugin before I transfer it to my Sony PRS-T1 reader.

More often than not I transfer a whole bunch of books to my device in one go, open them and turn over to the page that contains the book description. But that removes the "new" sign the PRS-T1 applies to unread books, which you can't reapply since the PRS doesn't over control over the "unread books" collection hardwired into the device.

When I finish a book, I switch to a collection (say SciFi or Non-Fiction) and then open books more or less at random until I find one to my liking.

The drawback of that behavior is that the collections produced by the genre-tags applied via calibre are swamped with books I already read. What I like about this approach is the fact that I don't need to keep a catalog updated every time I transfer some new books to my device. But it gets a bit bothersome with bigger collections.

So I'm searching for a nice way to manage unread books on my device (mainly while not being connected to calibre), w/o loosing the easy access to the book descriptions.

I'm not totally opposed to using a catalog, but I'm not sure if it is the best way to solve my problems.

What I intend to try next is to add a new tags like "Non-Fiction Unread" for the bigger collections (everything with more than 30+ books with the same tag), change the metadata management option from "automatic" to "only on send" and then manually drop read books from the unread collection on the PRS-T1 reader.

Right now that looks like the best idea to me, but I'm pretty sure there is a way more elegant way to manage unread books on a sony reader... can someone help me with some pointers?