Don't Save Books

[mastermindg]

I've got a bunch of books organized in a meaningful way and I'd like to keep the structure intact. I know I can manually change metadata to reflect the correct paths. How can I just add the books without the option to save and have the correct paths in the db?

[mediax]

Hi, and welcome to MobileRead!

This is a topic that's arisen a number of times, and the simple answer is you can't - Calibre doesn't work that way.

What's a meaningful structure for you (or me, or virtually anyone else) isn't the best way of storing things in a database (which is what Calibre is). Calibre takes its own copy of any books added to its library and stores them to suit its purposes.

Calibre does not refer to your original copy, so you can still do whatever you like with that.

Calibre is a book management system, and does things differently to you (or me) using a file system. Give it a chance and you'll probably find that it does what you want (and more besides).

Good luck!

P.S.

I love the quote from Worldwalker's signature on this topic:

"Filesystems manage files. Calibre manages books. Let calibre do what it's there for, and don't go peeking up its skirt. It'll slap you."

[mastermindg]

Thanks for the introduction. I guess for most people this wouldn't be a concern, but I've got 7.8 GB worth of ebooks locally. It's kind of a waste of space to replicate my whole collection on the premise that it doesn't work.

The save template has an option for custom fields. Where can these custom fields be added?

[mediax]

My inclination would be to give Calibre a try with a selection of your library initially. Keep your own library intact until you decide whether Calibre's for you or not - if you like the way it works you liberate the disk space; if not, you try something else.

I don't use custom fields personally, but I'm sure someone else will be along to explain them to you.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by mastermindg

The save template has an option for custom fields. Where can these custom fields be added?

1) In the gui, right-click on any column heading and select 'Add you own columns'.

2) In preferences -> Interface, click on the column icon.

3) Use the calibredb command line add function.

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by mastermindg

Thanks for the introduction. I guess for most people this wouldn't be a concern, but I've got 7.8 GB worth of ebooks locally. It's kind of a waste of space to replicate my whole collection

I checked the price yesterday. 7.8 GB of space on a new drive costs less than a U.S. dollar. My collection is worth that. (Mine is actually much larger.) You need a backup, so pay the dollar and duplicate the collection. Even if you didn't keep a backup, you would quickly find out that your collection inside Calibre is much more versatile than your current ebook collection outside Calibre.

[Worldwalker]

I'm notorious for telling people "read my .sig" but I did write a fairly long explanation of why calibre does what it does. It's worth a read.

The short version is that your computer's filesystem is actually a fairly weak way to organize books. If you have a book written by Able and Baker, where do you put it -- under /authors/able/ or /authors/baker/? If some of its stories are far-future SF and some are modern mystery, do you file it under /genre/SF/ or /genre/mystery/? Sure, you can make compromises, but with calibre, you don't need to compromise. You list both Able and Baker as the authors, and you tag it for both SF and mystery. Then you can pull it up any time you're looking for books by Able or Baker (or exclude it if you want books by one that aren't by the other, for that matter). It'll appear if you list SF or mystery or both, and if you tag accordingly, under short fiction as well.

In short, there is nothing organizational you can do with your filesystem that you can't duplicate (often trivially) in calibre, and an enormous number of things you can do in calibre that your filesystem doesn't stand a chance at.

By the way, my buy.com email informs me you can get an 8 gig flash drive for twelve bucks, free shipping. You should consider that (or two of them, rotating) for an off-site backup, otherwise known as tossing it in a desk drawer at work. That would take care of your space issues and your backup issues.

[mastermindg]

Thanks for all the input!!

Just to clarify...My concern is not for disk space (I've got 6TB available), it's for unnecessary use of disk space. It's not the cost of the disk space...it's the principle of it.

Example.....

I use an application to index my movie collection (800 GB). This application allows me to search my movies in a variety of ways including by multiple actors, directors, etc. It also allows me to chose how I'd like to view the movie. But it does NOT require me to duplicate my collection locally. I think most people would stop using it if it did.

In summary: The idea that replication is somehow a function of indexing is absurd. That's like saying that to search the web you'd need to COPY it and then extrapolate it. If this was the case we wouldn't be having this conversation for another 20 years.

I hope that this application can progress beyond the need to "meddle" with a physical file-system. It would be more useful if it could.

[GeoffC]

One reason for the replication can be found in the sense that Calibre converts files according to the users need.

It is often useful to retain the original format (for those just in case scenarios).

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by mastermindg

It's not the cost of the disk space...it's the principle of it.

This argument has been fought here many times. Those with your point of view either stop using Calibre or end up realizing they are wrong. It's usually the latter. Sometimes it takes months. I fall into the latter category, perhaps you will, too, but if not - feel free to write a Calibre replacement.

BTW, Here's a quote from WorldWalker's post on this:

You see, I started out the same way you did. I had all my neat hierarchical folders, my metadata in the filesystem, and I liked it that way. Then I found calibre. It took me a while to get my head around the whole idea of dealing with books instead of files, but once I did, I've never gone back. And now I'm explaining it to people who are where I was a few months ago. Give calibre a try, and you may end up doing the same!

That's almost word-for-word what I wrote a few months before he wrote it. I've seen the same post a dozen times before and since.

You're just going through the transition that many here went through.

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by mastermindg

I use an application to index my movie collection (800 GB). This application allows me to search my movies in a variety of ways including by multiple actors, directors, etc. It also allows me to chose how I'd like to view the movie. But it does NOT require me to duplicate my collection locally. I think most people would stop using it if it did.

Just to clarify, since the other points have already been made: Calibre doesn't require you to duplicate anything. It copies files into it's library, yes. But once they're imported, the original file it copied is redundand and can, if the user so wishes, be deleted safely.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by mastermindg

In summary: The idea that replication is somehow a function of indexing is absurd.

It does much more then index books. Calibre also does format shift, metadata update, custom columns, etc... Others have already talked to these points.

Originally Posted by mastermindg

I hope that this application can progress beyond the need to "meddle" with a physical file-system.

Calibre doesn't meddle with the physical file system it avoids meddling in any users existing files. Copying vs indexing is a design decision that has minimum effect on the end user.

Originally Posted by mastermindg

It would be more useful if it could.

The thought that somehow changing the backend will make calibre more useful to the end user is absurd. If how calibre handles its database bothers you, don't use it.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by mastermindg

Thanks for all the input!!

Just to clarify...My concern is not for disk space (I've got 6TB available), it's for unnecessary use of disk space. It's not the cost of the disk space...it's the principle of it.

Example.....

I use an application to index my movie collection (800 GB). This application allows me to search my movies in a variety of ways including by multiple actors, directors, etc. It also allows me to chose how I'd like to view the movie. But it does NOT require me to duplicate my collection locally. I think most people would stop using it if it did.

In summary: The idea that replication is somehow a function of indexing is absurd. That's like saying that to search the web you'd need to COPY it and then extrapolate it. If this was the case we wouldn't be having this conversation for another 20 years.

I hope that this application can progress beyond the need to "meddle" with a physical file-system. It would be more useful if it could.

I have 1TB on my machine that is still largely unused (that will change once I start ripping my videos) so I'm keeping the original files "just in case." Yes, it is unnecessary use of disk space (unless you look at it as a back up) but if I'm not using the space anyway, then so what? Once I need the space, I'll either delete the originals or transfer them to an external drive. Another point to consider is calibre's Save to Disk feature will allow you to save your calibre library using any filename format you want so if you ever decided to switch from calibre to something else, you can replace your original library.

[Sweetpea]

You can use Calibre as a pure library software, as you can add empty books. But you can't use Calibre's send to device and convert features then.


But, like the OP, I'd love to have a feature: don't add the books but only add the location where the book is residing now. The only reason I'm using Calibre is because of the custom columns, so I can update different devices with different meta data.