Large collection + management

[sneakyspider]

Thanks everyone for all of the help. I'm leaning towards Sony, as I said, and the 350 does look nice. It's a bit pricier than I was hoping to pay, but I think it'd be worth it for the quality.

[soulfuldog]

Originally Posted by Cdesja5

The Touch just recently got the ability to add shelves so it is a feature not very well known to others who are not owners. I have both a Sony and Kobos and prefer the way the Kobos can be organized into shelves using Calibre.

Thanks Cdesja5 my question was directed at you as I saw you owned both

I know the Kobo Touch got shelves added in a firmware update, but still got the impression that the Sony's possibly dealt better with large amounts of books, and the ease of organising them? What you mention about the Sony being able to sort them automatically using the tags seems to be by far the easiest way of dealing with collections, but maybe not?

I don't use it myself as I don't keep a lot of books on my ereader, but what about a used 650 with PRS+, although not as fast as the Kobo Touch/Sony PRS T1, wouldn't the PRS+ help with organising books more than the Calibre/T1 combination? And as already mentioned it has the SD Card which the 350 doesn't if you need lots of storage?

Depending on where you are, I'd hazard a guess that the Kobo Touch would be the cheapest option though.

[Cdesja5]

Originally Posted by l_macd

Cdesja5 my question was directed at you as I saw you owned both

I know the Kobo Touch got shelves added in a firmware update, but still got the impression that the Sony's possibly dealt better with large amounts of books, and the ease of organising them? What you mention about the Sony being able to sort them automatically using the tags seems to be by far the easiest way of dealing with collections, but maybe not?

I don't use it myself as I don't keep a lot of books on my ereader, but what about a used 650 with PRS+, although not as fast as the Kobo Touch/Sony PRS T1, wouldn't the PRS+ help with organising books more than the Calibre/T1 combination? And as already mentioned it has the SD Card which the 350 doesn't if you need lots of storage?

Depending on where you are, I'd hazard a guess that the Kobo Touch would be the cheapest option though.

Unless you edit your tags in Calibre its not to your advantage to have it happen "automatically" as you could have the same book in 10 different collections based on whatever tags were already there. You have to make sure they go where you want them with both readers, so I don't keep the tags in Calibre, the column is absent by preference so that it is the custom column that you input that decides where they go. Therefore to organize is pretty much the same process for both Kobo and Sony in the end.
I don't root my devices and yes the 650 is a nice reader but if you have that many books that you really want to have "on device" you really need a tool like Calibre on your PC to make it easier/faster regardless of using prs+.
The reader itself can be a later model Sony or Kobo since they allow you the same end result.

The reason I prefer the Kobo is that you can also add a new shelf on the device itself and add books to the shelfs from within the book menu on the device. Therefore if you didn't want to use Calibre, it's still very easy to organize the books as you add them to the device or later at another time.

[soulfuldog]

I can see what you mean about the tags, which is why I added the "maybe not?" at the end, it could get quite messy. So are you saying you can't add new and edit collections on the Sony the way you can add/edit shelves on the Kobo? Or do you just find it's easier on the Kobo?

BTW, off topic, every time I glance at your avatar I think you have a dog whose front half is one colour and the back another... and possibly a big backside - then I notice the backside has ears, an eye and nose and it all becomes clear

[Cdesja5]

Originally Posted by l_macd

I can see what you mean about the tags, which is why I added the "maybe not?" at the end, it could get quite messy. So are you saying you can't add new and edit collections on the Sony the way you can add/edit shelves on the Kobo? Or do you just find it's easier on the Kobo?

BTW, off topic, every time I glance at your avatar I think you have a dog whose front half is one colour and the back another... and possibly a big backside - then I notice the backside has ears, an eye and nose and it all becomes clear

Hahaha! they are joined at the hip! they think they are brother and sister of the same mother! And depending on the one who's the backside (the cat?) yes it's big, much bigger than the dog!
Back on topic:
I can't add books to my collections as easily on the Sony device itself (when not using Calibre). When I long press a book, I get "open", Delete, Protect, Info". When I choose Collections, I have an icon at the top of the screen that allows me to add a collection but when I long press on my new collection, I get a message telling me to refer to the User Guide to get info on how to add content...no easy way to just put the book on a shelf right there and then.

On the Kobo, if I tap on Library, i get a pop-up that has "Books, news & magazines, previews, shelves".
If I select Books, and then tap the menu icon for a specific book, I get a pop-up that says "read now, view details, add to shelf, mark as finished, delete".
Tapping add to shelf gives me the list of existing shelves so that I can add the book to one shelf or several, all in one operation.
If from "Library" I select Shelves, I can add a new shelf, view the other existing shelves, and view the books that are on the shelves. This part is pretty much the same as on the Sony apart from the UI being slightly different.
It would be an improvement if Kobo added the ability to create a new shelf from within the Books instead of having to go to the Shelves menu as that would make the process even quicker.
I generally do the shelves for my Kobo using Calibre however. It's very quick and since everything I own gets put in there before being added to the readers I prefer to do it that way.

I may end up installing prs+ on the Sony but not until my warranty period is over...

[soulfuldog]

Cheers for that, I have a PRS350 but only use it for carrying to work with me so haven't really experimented with the collections on it yet, though did notice it sorted the few books I loaded from Calibre automatically, and I thought that was pretty handy.

PS, my dog just lies with his back legs stretched out like that and that's probably why your avatar catches my eye in that way, they actually look pretty cute lying there together.

[speakingtohe]

I go whole hog with the collections on the Sony using calibre useing jackie_w plugboards.
My books are in author_sort collections with each book in series order and with the series name and number appended to the authors name.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...1&postcount=15


I have had over 4000 books in main memory and it is easy to find them.


Helen

[Hrafn]

Any eReader that provides (i) a (micro-)SD slot & (ii) a hierarchical (usually directory-based) file management system should fit your requirements.

I know from personal experience that both Pocketbook and Onyx provides for this, but would suspect that many other brands do so as well. You can look them up on the E-book Reader Matrix under the headings 'Expansion slot' and (I think) 'Folder navigation'.

[John F]

For a large number of books wouldn't a Sony be better? The Sony lets you specify the order of books in a collection, where as for the Kobo, in order to order books in shelves, you need to have multiple copies of the books with different filenames/titles?

I may be wrong about this.

[Cdesja5]

Originally Posted by John F

For a large number of books wouldn't a Sony be better? The Sony lets you specify the order of books in a collection, where as for the Kobo, in order to order books in shelves, you need to have multiple copies of the books with different filenames/titles?

I may be wrong about this.

That's right, you are...

[John F]

Originally Posted by Cdesja5

That's right, you are...

In what part? On my Sony 505 and 650, I could have one book in multiple collections, and have an order I desired.

For example, I read Terry Pratchett Discworld books. I could have the books in series order in a collection called Discworld. I could have two other collections (say Fiction and Fantasy). And I could go out to the main view and sort by book title. And there would only be one copy of each book on the Sony 505.

Are you saying I can get the same behavior on a Kobo Touch with shelves? I tried to follow davidfor's work, but it looked like it was manipulating book titles (or file names), which implied to me multiple copies of books if you want books in multiple shelves (with ordering)?

Thanks

[Cdesja5]

Originally Posted by John F

In what part? On my Sony 505 and 650, I could have one book in multiple collections, and have an order I desired.

For example, I read Terry Pratchett Discworld books. I could have the books in series order in a collection called Discworld. I could have two other collections (say Fiction and Fantasy). And I could go out to the main view and sort by book title. And there would only be one copy of each book on the Sony 505.

Are you saying I can get the same behavior on a Kobo Touch with shelves? I tried to follow davidfor's work, but it looked like it was manipulating book titles (or file names), which implied to me multiple copies of books if you want books in multiple shelves (with ordering)?

Thanks

I use Peter T's method with Calibre on my Kobo. Same end result as on my Sony. Process detailed on a sticky in the Kobo forum.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Cdesja5

I use Peter T's method with Calibre on my Kobo. Same end result as on my Sony. Process detailed on a sticky in the Kobo forum.

"Same end result" sounds like a dodgy answer.

I tried to ask a more detailed question in the other thread. I'll post back. (and I may have mixed up Davidfor and Peter T, sorry about that).

[John F]

Peter T replied in this thread (post 39):

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...05#post2275805

So it looks like if you have books in multiple shelves (on a Kobo), and want a specific order, you end up with multiple copies on the device (and sorting by book title may be a problem).

I'm not saying this is a bad thing, just something to be aware of.

[Cdesja5]

Originally Posted by John F

Peter T replied in this thread (post 39):

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...05#post2275805

So it looks like if you have books in multiple shelves (on a Kobo), and want a specific order, you end up with multiple copies on the device (and sorting by book title may be a problem).

I'm not saying this is a bad thing, just something to be aware of.

What you asked Peter is much more detailed than what you asked here:
Quote:
Say I have books Book_A, Book_B, Book_C. I want a collection (Collection_A) to have books in order Book_A, Book_B, Book_C. I want another collection (Collection_B) to have books in order Book_C, Book_B.

And I also want to be able to order by (original) book title order. I want only one copy of a book on the device.

What you are saying now is that within the shelf/shelves you want to order 2 different ways? That wasn't what I understood from your post in this thread...You can have a book in multiple shelves without having multiple copies. You just can't sort each shelf except in the pre-ordained manner described by Peter.
Your original post here asked:
For example, I read Terry Pratchett Discworld books. I could have the books in series order in a collection called Discworld. I could have two other collections (say Fiction and Fantasy). And I could go out to the main view and sort by book title.
When you go out to the Library view and then select "Books" instead of "Shelves", you can still sort by author, title, file type and recent reads. Without having 2 books on the reader.
I have 50 books on my reader, 10 of them are in 2 different "shelves" (by series, and also by "read or unread"). I don't have 60 books on my reader even though these 10 books show up on 2 shelves...
My answer was based on my understanding of what you posted in this particular thread.