Looking for an E-book Indexing / Inventory / Cataloging Program

[booklover]

where's my ebook library? Its site seems down! I really like its function of extracting isbn from filenames!!!! I plan to rename all my books with their isbn+title, this program will come as a handy management of them then.

[JSWolf]

eBook Library is the program Sony wrote to talk to the 500/505.

[booklover]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

eBook Library is the program Sony wrote to talk to the 500/505.

I'm sorry but I meant the independent freeware called "My Ebook Library". Its website used to be "www.myebooklibrary.co.uk". but that site has been down for quite some time. I wonder what happened to them.

[SirTimothy]

Originally Posted by booklover

where's my ebook library? Its site seems down! I really like its function of extracting isbn from filenames!!!! I plan to rename all my books with their isbn+title, this program will come as a handy management of them then.

Hey, I came across this post, and thought I'd mention that I'm currently developing a piece of software similar to what myEbookLibrary was. I loved myEbookLibrary, and was rather disappointed when it disappeared. So, being the code monkey I am, I decided to write my own. It's currently in a runnable state, and I have an open pre-alpha test going.

You can head on over to the Home Library website at http://homelibrary.co.cc/ to check it out.

Cheers!
Tim.

[catpower73]

A while ago, I was looking for e-book catalog software too. I found and tried "Collectorz.com Book Collector Pro" but it did not meet my expectations. It focuses more on cataloging books in general, and adds some support for e-books too, but it certainly is not the iTunes for e-books I was looking for.

Now, since I have a large collection of "technical" e-books (several 100) basically in two formats (PDF and CHM), I found another solution.

I created an XML-file with all the e-book's metadata (title, author, publisher, release date, version, ISBN-code etc.). It is simple and straight forward. I feed this catalog with metadata using a Perl script talking to the Amazon webservice. All it requires is the book's ISBN-number. The XML-file itself is turned into a human readable HTML-page using an XSLT stylesheet. That's it. If someone is interested, I'd be glad to post the solution.

I do hope that Apple will enter the world of e-book software with the release of their new iPad. I believe many people are longing for something like "an iTunes for e-books".

[Dianalaa]

I'm using Calibre.Lots of options

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by catpower73

A while ago, I was looking for e-book catalog software too. I found and tried "Collectorz.com Book Collector Pro" but it did not meet my expectations. It focuses more on cataloging books in general, and adds some support for e-books too, but it certainly is not the iTunes for e-books I was looking for.

Now, since I have a large collection of "technical" e-books (several 100) basically in two formats (PDF and CHM), I found another solution.

I created an XML-file with all the e-book's metadata (title, author, publisher, release date, version, ISBN-code etc.). It is simple and straight forward. I feed this catalog with metadata using a Perl script talking to the Amazon webservice. All it requires is the book's ISBN-number. The XML-file itself is turned into a human readable HTML-page using an XSLT stylesheet. That's it. If someone is interested, I'd be glad to post the solution.

I do hope that Apple will enter the world of e-book software with the release of their new iPad. I believe many people are longing for something like "an iTunes for e-books".

Certainly the Perl script and data format would be useful to post. I am sure it would be helpful. It could also be placed in the wiki.

There is an eBook reader for the iPad and it does use iTunes and there will be an eBook store by Apple. Unfortunately the whole system will be incompatible with other devices even the DRM scheme. For more info read our wiki.

Dale

[catpower73]

I had a quick look at Calibre. I remember I did it before, and I was not too impressed by its capabilities. Seeing the newest version, I admit it has improved a lot, but still, it does not meet my expectations of what an e-book catalog application should do. For instance, I tried to add 100 randomly chosen e-books of mine: it found metadata for merely 5% of them. And these are all recent, well-known technical e-books (with the ISBN number in the filename). So no, I'll stick with my Perl-script and Amazon webservice solution for a while. It works for me.

For me, an e-book catalog application should be all about managing metadata, and using (free) on-line services to do this in the fastest possible way. The look and feel of the application presenting the data is of less importance to me (hence, my HTML-approach).

(I'll post my Perl/Amazon solution here or on the wiki in the coming days.)

[catpower73]

In addition to my previous post(s). If you are into freeware (whether it be open source or not), then the most promising candidate for cataloging and maintaining e-books I ran into was "eKitaab". This is a Java application with a clean interface which uses the Amazon webservice to get a book's metadata with only the ISBN number as a reference. In a way, I do the same thing now, not using a real application however, but a low-level script in stead.

So why am I not using eKitaab? Because development stopped at version 0.6, using the old Amazon webservice as a source for metadata. Since Amazon has changed its interface, the code has not been updated. It is a pity, because eKitaab really seemed promising.

I have been thinking of collaborating with the developer of that application, to create a newer version, because I happen to be a Java programmer myself (well, sort of), but I also happen to be a little lazy (unfortunately) so I'm not sure if I will be able to work on that in the near future.

[catpower73]

Attached you'll find my very simple ebook solution using:
- a XML-file storing the catalog;
- a XSL-file (stylesheet) to turn the XML into readable HTML;
- a Perl script to get new metadata using the Amazon Web Services (AWS).

This won't work out-of-the-box! You'll need to get a free account to use the Amazon Web Services (AWS) first. Doing so, you'll get:
- a file named "RequestSignatureHelper.pm" that is used in the Perl script;
- your "Access Key ID", unique for your account;
- your "Secret Access Key", unique for your account.

Put the file "RequestSignatureHelper.pm" in the same folder as the Perl script. Fill in the AWS keys specific to your account in the Perl script.

Open the XML-file in your browser: it should be processed by the stylesheet (XSL-file) into a readable HTML-page. If it does not work, try opening the file "index.htm" in stead. I have added 10 randomly chosen books for reference.

The Perl script searches for all files with a valid EAN/ISBN13 code in their filename, and extension .PDF or .CHM (filetypes I am using). It uses the EAN/ISBN13 to fetch the metadata from Amazon and uses some of it's content to assemble a new filename and one line of XML-tags to add to the file "books.xml".

This solution works for me. It may not be what you are looking for. I thought I'd post it anyway.

What can be improved? I'd like to make the HTML-page more dynamic. Using JSON and some clever JavaScript library, I guess you can make the table sortable and it should be possible to add a filter (input field) to limit the ebook-records shown.

Furthermore, as far as I'm aware of, the Amazon webservices do not return "tags" which is a pity. Adding tags to a book's metadata would increase the usefulness of the catalog tremendously.

[dimasp]

Originally Posted by igorsk

One could probably write a Google Desktop Search plugin or a Windows Desktop Search IFilter to extract the metadata.

Book Indexer - LRF and FB2 indexing plug-in for Google Desktop and Windows Search.

[mjengejp]

Originally Posted by catpower73

Attached you'll find my very simple ebook solution using:
- a XML-file storing the catalog;
- a XSL-file (stylesheet) to turn the XML into readable HTML;
- a Perl script to get new metadata using the Amazon Web Services (AWS).

This won't work out-of-the-box! You'll need to get a free account to use the Amazon Web Services (AWS) first. Doing so, you'll get:
- a file named "RequestSignatureHelper.pm" that is used in the Perl script;
- your "Access Key ID", unique for your account;
- your "Secret Access Key", unique for your account.

Put the file "RequestSignatureHelper.pm" in the same folder as the Perl script. Fill in the AWS keys specific to your account in the Perl script.

Open the XML-file in your browser: it should be processed by the stylesheet (XSL-file) into a readable HTML-page. If it does not work, try opening the file "index.htm" in stead. I have added 10 randomly chosen books for reference.

The Perl script searches for all files with a valid EAN/ISBN13 code in their filename, and extension .PDF or .CHM (filetypes I am using). It uses the EAN/ISBN13 to fetch the metadata from Amazon and uses some of it's content to assemble a new filename and one line of XML-tags to add to the file "books.xml".

This solution works for me. It may not be what you are looking for. I thought I'd post it anyway.

What can be improved? I'd like to make the HTML-page more dynamic. Using JSON and some clever JavaScript library, I guess you can make the table sortable and it should be possible to add a filter (input field) to limit the ebook-records shown.

Furthermore, as far as I'm aware of, the Amazon webservices do not return "tags" which is a pity. Adding tags to a book's metadata would increase the usefulness of the catalog tremendously.

I see where to get my security credentials, but I do not see where to download this pm file. Can you please assist?

[catpower73]

I could not find the file "RequestSignatureHelper.pm" anymore on the AWS website. Use the old version I am using for quite some time (attached).

[Brianb]

Hi Rwood
I use a program Called "EVERYTHING" Type in the title and it will return every reference on your computer by first name or surname with locations.You are then able access the books as if in windows. The program will miss nothing. I have used it for over 2 years with no ill effects to my computer.
Regards Brian

[BookJunkieLI]

Originally Posted by catpower73

I had a quick look at Calibre. I remember I did it before, and I was not too impressed by its capabilities. Seeing the newest version, I admit it has improved a lot, but still, it does not meet my expectations of what an e-book catalog application should do. For instance, I tried to add 100 randomly chosen e-books of mine: it found metadata for merely 5% of them. And these are all recent, well-known technical e-books (with the ISBN number in the filename).

Just out of curiosity, that 5% metadata found - was that after you initially imported the books into Calibre or after you imported the books into Calibre and then ran the Download Metadata function?

Beth