Managing a library for the intolerant

[chaley]

Originally Posted by LadyKate

With your stated intention of loading 4000 books it concerns me how she would navigate that many books.

The reason I suggested loading books in directories by author is the difficulty in finding the author/book/series you want to read next.

CC (Calibre Companion) makes this simple. You can easily show books by an author, books in a series, or books by any other calibre metadata such as tag. You can set it up to sort by whatever you want when you look at a category. For example, when looking at series it is common to sort by series index, but when looking at authors people often sort by author/series+index/title.

A few years ago I loaded several books for my roommate's mother (in her 80s) on a pocketpc using mobipocket reader as the reader. She had Parkinson's so had quite a shaking problem.

As long as someone loaded (opened) the book for her she was fine with reading on the device but had problems opening new books for some reason.

This is a good point. Using any android app requires taps and swipes. @guymcd: you might consider getting a stylus, or even a device that comes with one such as the Note.

[LadyKate]

chaley, Doesn't Calibre Companion require a desktop (laptop) install of Calibre and wifi?

I was under the impression that the aunt does not have that available.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by LadyKate

chaley, Doesn't Calibre Companion require a desktop (laptop) install of Calibre and wifi?

I was under the impression that the aunt does not have that available.

CC requires calibre to load books and to update metadata. Other than that it is fully functional while disconnected.

[Kirtai]

Originally Posted by chaley

CC requires calibre to load books and to update metadata. Other than that it is fully functional while disconnected.

Hmm, does CC have an online licence check or can it be left disconnected indefinitely?

(My devices are pretty much always connected so I can't tell)

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Kirtai

Hmm, does CC have an online licence check or can it be left disconnected indefinitely?

(My devices are pretty much always connected so I can't tell)

Without going into the reasons how it works (cough cough), as long as a google play version of CC managed to contact the license server in the past then it won't complain if no networking is available. Our thought was that people could be traveling for weeks without network access and we didn't want the app to shut itself off when the user can do absolutely nothing to fix it.

I don't know how Amazon's license checking works. It is code they add that we never see.

[Kirtai]

Originally Posted by chaley

Without going into the reasons how it works (cough cough), as long as a google play version of CC managed to contact the license server in the past then it won't complain if no networking is available.

So it only needs to be run once while online. Fair enough

I asked because I was recently bitten by this with a comic app I hadn't used for a while. My net went down and I wanted to read some comics but since it hadn't talked to the licence server for a while, no dice.

Plus, I was thinking of setting something like this up for my grandmother, who neither has nor wants net access at all, which I thought may be a problem.

[guymcd]

She reads preferentially over any other activity. In fact, she reads so much she can't support her own habit. She prefers SF and Fantasy, preferably epic but will go for a good mystery or thriller.

And I share your concerns about loading 4000 books which is why I started this thread. 4000 is the goal but not the requirement. I will stop loading books when usability becomes compromised. Worst case, I can send her a hard copy of the catalog and then she can mail the device to me with a list of books she is interested in. In the end she reasonable reads somewhere in neighborhood of 59 books a year. Giving her 4000 really just me having fun.

[dgparryuk]

you can use Calibre to create Shelves on a Kobo/Kindle - you could create shelves by Author and use the metaplugin to re-name the books to "LOTR 1 - Fellowship of the Ring"

I have done something SIMILAR with my late 60's parents, although they do have calibre on their computer but have set up the shelves