Clara 2E Reading Start Date

[Cootey]

I need to know when I started reading a particular book. Obviously, I can list items by “date added” or by “recent”, and everything is arranged chronologically (I assume), but no dates are visible. When I select “View Details” from the drop-down menu, the only date I can find is the publication date under “details“ for books that I’ve purchased or borrowed through Kobo plus or Overdrive. Sideloaded books don’t show a date there at all (since that’s obviously in the meta data of books listed in the Kobo Store). Yet, there’s something internal that allows Kobo to list the books chronologically.

Before I aimlessly poke around the database, could somebody familiar with the database let me know where to look, or maybe the date that I started reading a book is available on my Kobo and I’m overlooking it? Thanks.

[Cootey]

Originally Posted by Cootey

I need to know when I started reading a particular book.

Judging by the lack of responses, I take it that there is no way to see in the UI when one has begun reading a book, as I suspected since I couldn’t find it anywhere.

I had hoped that this information existed in the database because “Activity” kept track of hours read on each book. Books can be listed with “recent” activity as well. Some chronological metadata is stored, but not the metadata I’m looking for, apparently.

[Quoth]

The database might just have a last accessed date. Maybe a purchased date for ebooks direct from Kobo.
Ancient discussion here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=295768

I suspect there is no general "reading start date" or Kobo Utilities in Calibre would have it. You can have a custom Calibre column updated with Reading Progress, so if connecting to Calibre regularly it's theoretically possible to have a custom column that has it's date set the first time the reading progress changes from zero.

I do see publication dates for some sideloaded ebooks on the Kobo. But that's no use to you anyway.

… the Kobo Utilities already has the function. It can set the timestamps used by the "Date Added" sort. The metadata update lets you choose one of the dates in calibre.

So you can currently set the date added of any sideloaded book. I suspect other than that the only date is "last read". Activity doesn't seem to work well and may only be keeping running stats for the book you are reading?

[John F]

If you have the date in calibre, you could use Kobo Utilities to show it as a sub title on the Kobo reader.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by John F

If you have the date in calibre, you could use Kobo Utilities to show it as a sub title on the Kobo reader.

Yes, and combining that with

You can have a custom Calibre column updated with Reading Progress, so if connecting to Calibre regularly it's theoretically possible to have a custom column that has it's date set the first time the reading progress changes from zero.

Though what to to the various Kobo on-device sorts / filters / search do with subtitle? I've not used the Subtitle feature of Kobo or Calibre, though I've maybe occasionally cut & pasted a subtitle in the title metadata to the Comment box.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Yes, and combining that with


...

Yes, or you could have custom column and enter it manually.

[Cootey]

Thanks for the feedback! I’ll check out what you’ve mentioned just after I make my current deadline.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I've not used the Subtitle feature of Kobo or Calibre, though I've maybe occasionally cut & pasted a subtitle in the title metadata to the Comment box.

I've now figured out subtitles on Kobo via Kobo Utilities. I have a subtitle user column called Subtitle (lookup name #subtitle), so the blank box beside subtitle (in Update Metadata dialogue) has

{#subtitle}

in it. The four other custom columns (Current Reading Location, Percent Read, Rating, Last Read) are defined in Kobo Utilities Options. I've no idea why the custom column (or data made by more complex template) is separate dialogue page.
So the list view on 'My Books' can display Title, Author, Series, and Subtitle, but doesn't show which collections the book is in because there could any number of collections it's in, or none.

I was missing the 'Template' data beside 'Subtitle', which is why it wasn't adding them to the Kobo. I sorted on Subtitle, selected all the ones with an entry and applied 'Update Device Library Metadata' in Kobo Utilities and after the eject process I could see the subtitles on any title with one.