Putting e-books from my own source rather than through Amazon

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Searching for titles and authors is essentially instant.

Searching inside a book takes perhaps 30s to return results.

A global search for text across the entire library doesn't work at all (or at least doesn't return results in any reasonable length of time).

Another downside of such a large library is that when books are added or deleted, it takes around 15m for the library list to fully update with the changes.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend that anyone put so many books on a Kindle. This was very much an experiment to see if it would handle it, and it took me about two weeks to get all the books loaded and indexed (all sideloaded via Calibre). It does handle it, but there are issues, as I've said. Actually reading on it is absolutely fine - no problems at all.

Thanks for all the research! In any case, if I ever get a large capacity Kindle, it'll be filled with manga so 32GB worth of content (or however much user accessible space is) shouldn't be a problem.

[BookCat]

Originally Posted by lamont

After setting up my Kindle, I also keep it in Airplane mode. But initially, I had to connect to wifi and register the Kindle to my Amazon account, because otherwise, I could not create collections. And since I have a few thousand books, I really need collections.

If you know of a way to create collections on an unregistered Kindle, please do tell!

My Kindle is unregistered, but I do have an account with Amazon which they set up by phone shortly after I purchased the kindle. I don't have wifi in my home, by choice, all of the internet here is wired.

Collections is one of the many functions you lose if the Kindle isn't in wifi mode. I don't have collections. If I want to find a book I use the search feature.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by lamont

After setting up my Kindle, I also keep it in Airplane mode. But initially, I had to connect to wifi and register the Kindle to my Amazon account, because otherwise, I could not create collections. And since I have a few thousand books, I really need collections.

If you know of a way to create collections on an unregistered Kindle, please do tell!

Only on jailbroken Kindles (LibrarianSync). For that, your Kindle must be running firmware 5.8.7(.0.1) or lower (Home -> Menu -> Settings -> Menu -> Device Info to check FW version).
5 x Jailbreak

There's also a serial port jailbreak for the Paperwhite that works on all firmware versions released thus far but that requires physically dismantling your Kindle.
Serial Jailbreaking your fw >= 5.6.x Kindle for Dummies

[Plumadona]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Searching for titles and authors is essentially instant.

Searching inside a book takes perhaps 30s to return results.

A global search for text across the entire library doesn't work at all (or at least doesn't return results in any reasonable length of time).

Another downside of such a large library is that when books are added or deleted, it takes around 15m for the library list to fully update with the changes.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend that anyone put so many books on a Kindle. This was very much an experiment to see if it would handle it, and it took me about two weeks to get all the books loaded and indexed (all sideloaded via Calibre). It does handle it, but there are issues, as I've said. Actually reading on it is absolutely fine - no problems at all.

Wow! I’d love to see your book list! I also have to thank you as now I don’t feel like a madwoman with a paltry 1335 books on my Oasis. If it’s not too nosy of me, what’s in that marvelous library? History? Auto/biography? SciFi & Fantasy?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Plumadona

Wow! I’d love to see your book list! I also have to thank you as now I don’t feel like a madwoman with a paltry 1335 books on my Oasis. If it’s not too nosy of me, what’s in that marvelous library? History? Auto/biography? SciFi & Fantasy?

The two largest categories would be SF/Fantasy and detective stories. You can buy an awful lot of books in 20+ years, particularly given tempting Amazon freebies and deals . I also have such things as every one of the Delphi Classics omnibus editions on there (well, every one I can legally buy, anyway!), and some of those are very large indeed, and an awful lot of other public domain material.

Many of the books that are on my Kindle today were bought from sites like FictionWise in LIT format in the '90s.

[Plumadona]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The two largest categories would be SF/Fantasy and detective stories. You can buy an awful lot of books in 20+ years, particularly given tempting Amazon freebies and deals . I also have such things as every one of the Delphi Classics omnibus editions on there (well, every one I can legally buy, anyway!), and some of those are very large indeed, and an awful lot of other public domain material.

Many of the books that are on my Kindle today were bought from sites like FictionWise in LIT format in the '90s.

You’ve had a head start - I only started buying e-books when my husband and I first bought Nooks. Your library sounds lovely; I also have a significant number of SF/Fantasy & Detective (I favor the British novels over the American in the latter) and am a fan of the Delphi series as well. Long live freebies and bargains!