Managing your library or how you consume books

[Xenophon]

I keep my entire eLibrary (~1200 books) on the microSD card on my nook. Although HarryT's observation about the utility of file-and-folder access on-device is correct, he's wrong about it being the best option (IMHO).

Because I both use calibre to track, tag, and maintain my eLibrary, and also have softrooted my nook, I am able to use an access method that is even better than files-and-folders: OPDS-based catalog access.

Instead of one hierarchical view of my library (as provided by files-and-folders), I have five -- by author, by title, by series, by tag, and by date-added-to-library. Each of these views offers hierarchical drill-down, so that I can reach an individual book in only a few clicks. This style of access really rocks. It essentially gives me library-card-catalog style access to my entire library. (OK, I admit that I don't have a subject index, even though the OPDS format is perfectly capable of representing one. I just haven't tried to get that much detail into my calibre meta-data.)

Tools needed are calibre and calibre2opds on your computer, plus trook on your soft-rooted nook. On the computer, calibre2opds reads the calibre database, produces the opds catalog, and copies both catalog and books onto the nook. Trook reads the opds catalog on the nook, provides navigation through the catalog, and launches the appropriate built-in reader software when you select a book to read.

Note that OPDS is the nascent standard for presenting catalogs (of books) to devices and users. Any device maker should be able to build OPDS file support into their device. In fact, when you visit an on-line vendor of books in Stanza you're looking at an OPDS catalog. The only thing that's different about the catalogs I'm using is that the links are 'file:' links instead of 'http:' links; all else is the same.

I argue that on-device OPDS files are the right way -- indeed the best available way -- for reader device-makers to support presentation of on-device content. The files are straight-forward to produce. And users who want to access larger libraries and/or have more sophisticated information about their books would have a perfectly reasonable way to get what they want. Without needing additional work from the firmware developers! Everybody wins!!!

Xenophon

[kjk]

Feedbooks has a nice Primer on OPDS: http://www.feedbooks.com/api/primer

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by Marcy

I want a combination of Sony's collection model which allows one book to have multiple tags, and therefore have a single copy of that book to be in several places, and the simple and naked folder support of my PB360.

I love the speed of my PB360 and the ability to sort my books how I like, but I would love to be able to have it sort under multiple tags. Currently to do this, I would have to put multiple copies of the same book on the reader. While this isn't a problem for storage, it can become an organizational nightmare.

-Marcy

Marcy:

What you want is trivial with the calibre + calibre2opds + trook combination. And it would be just as easy with ANY device -- if only the OEM firmware would support OPDS files.

This feature alone got me to switch to a nook. I liked the speed of my PRS700. I liked the touch interface. I liked nearly everything about it. My complaints were these:

1. Lack of support for access to a large library. Sony's UI was simply inadequate once I went beyond 200 books or so.
2. Speed of the library scan. More accurately, the abysmal, glacial slowness of the library scan. For which there's absolutely NO EXCUSE, btw. And that's a professional opinion, with plenty of experience and training and academic credentials to back it up. Their programmers messed it up, plain and simple. (But I digress...)
3. Display quality. Having the touch screen in front of the eInk layer degraded clarity too much.

By comparison with my old PRS700, my nook is lacking in many ways. It's slow. The hardware is nowhere near as spiffy. But...

• I get convenient access to my entire library, sliced and diced however I want!
• The display has greater clarity, due to the lack of the touch-screen layer.

And those two things were enough to jump ship. Sorry Sony.

[queentess]

Originally Posted by bjones6416

And speaking of short-cuts managing collections with the Kindle, I really don't like pulling up each individual book and then putting it into my collections -- it's time-consuming, even with a smallish library like mine. I do it by sorting by collections, choosing a particular collection, then clicking the 5-way button to the right to see the collection options. Choose Add/Remove items, then you can sort your library by title and just click thru them to add (or remove) them from the collection, without opening each title. It's a lot faster doing it this way than it is opening the options on each book and deciding how to place it. I admit, though, it would still be pretty daunting with 1000 books.

I had no idea about this easy way to add things to a Collection. I organized my Kindle in about 3 minutes last night (8 pages of books), and it's fantastic! I withdraw my previous comments about the Kindle being a PITA for organization.

[Clancy_s]

I'm using Calibre's tags as collections on my 505 together with PRS+ browse by folder: books I think I'll read soon I have on internal memory, all other books are on the SD card, saved using Calibre 'save to disk' in a foder structure that makes sense to me.

The reader only scans internal memory on startup, if I want to access any of the books on the SD card I do so using the PRS+ folder browser.

The availability of PRS+ was one of the reasons I went for the 505.

[JeremyZ]

To me, the beauty of eBooks is that they don't take up any physical space. I read them, then 'remove from this device'. I buy most of my books through Amazon, so they store them for me. Paper books, I normally only buy if I can't find them legally in electronic format and I know I will want to re-read them. (that is not very many books; maybe a few dozen at the most)

[tlrowley]

Another useful tip for adding Kindle books to collections is that you can add an entire page of books in one click (menu->add page). This is probably most useful if you have your books sorted by author. I find it quicker to add a whole page and then un-click the one or two that don't belong than to individually add the ones that do.

Home page sorting and jumping shortcuts are available as you're adding items to collections as well, so this can speed things up, too.

[bjones6416]

Originally Posted by tlrowley

Another useful tip for adding Kindle books to collections is that you can add an entire page of books in one click (menu->add page). This is probably most useful if you have your books sorted by author. I find it quicker to add a whole page and then un-click the one or two that don't belong than to individually add the ones that do.

Home page sorting and jumping shortcuts are available as you're adding items to collections as well, so this can speed things up, too.

This is a great tip -- thank you!