How do you maintain and backup your ebook library?

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by MCSmarties

I must say that I don't find Calibre's "save to disk" feature all that useful. Why? Because it's a real PITA to import books back into calibre from such a folder.

Actually it couldn't be much simpler - you just use the second option down in the "Add" dropdown menu, of adding one book per folder. That gives you the book, its cover and all the associated metadata and even your custom columns, assuming your schema is the same in the calibre library you are importing into.

It is how I share books with my parents - I use Save to disk into a Dropbox folder, and they then import using Add.

But as others have said it isn't the preferred way of backing up your calibre library - backup the entire calibre library folder instead, to make sure you don't lose all your other calibre library database data that isn't specific to a particular book (e.g. saved searches, etc).

[hn333]

I don't.

[SuburbanSteve]

I back up my calibre library on a flash drive and a portable HD though I don't do it as often as I should.

[shanghaichica]

I use a software called book colecterz and calibre.

[DarkScribe]

My eBook library is backed up daily along with all data on my computers. I do nothing special with regard to my Calibre library. Every now and then I will sync the Calibre library between several computers.

[Lynx-lynx]

Darkscribe how do you sync your Calibre library between several computers?

[Rockbobster]

My situation is more complicated than the usual story. I started collecting e-texts over 20 years ago. They would be articles and stories, almost all in plain text. Some of them came from BBS captures. Eventually these included some recognized stories by known authors, such as Mark Twain or Jack London. I started by keeping these files on floppies of the 5.25" variety. I migrated them to 3.5" and had them sorted by topic. This collection kept growing and it was around 2000 that I migrated them to a CD-R.

By 2005 the collection had grown to 3 CD-Rs, and one of them was fiction that was sorted by author's last name. Around that time I had over a dozen CD-Rs with my photos and a few with my art and video content, so I migrated it to an external HD, along with the ebooks.

There are currently two forks of my collection. The "Booknook" fork has fiction that is sorted by author, and "Bookshelf" is nonfiction sorted by topic. This includes manuals for my gear, articles, and a lot of old material that has been out of print for a long time and is scanned to PDF by hobbyists. This means that metadata is not available and would need to be built by hand. I find it easier to drop the file in the proper directory by topic and leave it at that. All of this is mirrored on an external HD, and small portable HD, and two netbooks at different locations. A subset of this library is on 3 different readers and Dropbox. I use Sigil to create ebooks from content, and Calibre to massage formats and sometimes to feed the ereaders. I could see using Calibre to maintain the fiction collection in the future, but not so much with the nonfiction. I would need to develop a conversion and metadata strategy before I do that.

[MCSmarties]

@Rockbobster: I've been collecting texts long before they were called ebooks as well, but on 5.25" floppies...? I'm impressed!
Agree with your statement that calibre is great for fiction but less so for nonfiction. Still debating what to do about that myself.

I am a scientist so I have a lot of academic papers which I manage with Endnote. But I also have quite a few text books and general information stuff (such as webpages with technical hints printed to PDF, etc.). Right now that stuff is just dumped manually into more-or-less organized folders, but I would like to formalize that collection...

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by DarkScribe

My eBook library is backed up daily along with all data on my computers. I do nothing special with regard to my Calibre library. Every now and then I will sync the Calibre library between several computers.

+1.

Western Digital's "My Book Live" entry level NAS is definitely not a speed demon, but works like a charm for backing up 6 PCs/virtual_machines.

[DarkScribe]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Darkscribe how do you sync your Calibre library between several computers?

Using Acronis back-up software. It does incremental backups across a full network.

[Lynx-lynx]

Thanks DarkScribe.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Thanks DarkScribe.

If you just want to sync between a single PC and a backup (on an external drive, say) the free "Microsoft SyncToy" works beautifully. It's a free download from Microsoft.

[copyrite]

I sync my Calibre library to two networked computers: my laptop and my husband's PC (but shhhhhh! He doesn't know it ) via SyncToy.

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

I'm curious .... how do you maintain your elibrary and back it up / copy it?

I don't have a very large collection yet, and most of my stuff is already Project Gutenberg/MR downloads, but I try to stick them all on a thumb drive and/or dropbox in case anything happens. Also they are on my e-reader which usually travels with me.

I can't ensure absolute guarantee that I won't lose everything, but I can try. There's more of a chance that I'll get my e-books back than my clarinet back should my house burn down.

I have several Smashwords books that were initially offered free (I go there every couple of days downloading everything for free that I think I will like), but now they are paid books, so I put priority on books I can't potentially "re-get" via PG or MR etc.

[HarryT]

If anyone's interested in SyncToy (and I do recommend it) it can be downloaded from:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downl....aspx?id=15155

There are 32-bit and 64-bit versions.