Do you use calibre to manage your printed books library?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by pg111

@BR Thanks for the tip but it is exactly what I want to do. I always work on test and trials first until I'm 100pct sure everything works just fine.

If only everyone would take a leaf out of your book.

Good luck, not that I think you'll need it

BR

[pg111]

Just wondering about establishing a link between fields in my BookCAT library and my calibre library similar to the local internal link from Evernote.

I understand it would require to set up a BookCAT protocol similar to evernote://. Is it possible and what would it take to do so?

Many thanks in advance for any answer.

[BetterRed]

@pg111 - I think the BookCAT people would have been be best placed to do that, but...

AFAIK developing and implementing custom protocol handlers in Windows is a mid-level development task. If it wasn't, me or someone else would have done it for calibre Search for "creating a Windows protocol handler" and read all about it.

Curious: what can BookCAT do that you don't think you can do in calibre?

I believe BookCAT uses MS Access, so a plugin might be able to use something like ODBC against its database.

If BookCAT has an accessible API it may be possible to develop a calibre plugin that utilises it. The Zotero and Mendeley plugins might provide a rough guide on the feasibility of this approach. The Zotero software publishes an API which the calibre plugin uses, not sure about the Mendeley plugin, but I think its the same.

Or, if BookCAT has command line interface you might be able to use that in a plugin.

BR

[pg111]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@pg111 - I think the BookCAT people would have been be best placed to do that, but...

AFAIK developing and implementing custom protocol handlers in Windows is a mid-level development task. If it wasn't, me or someone else would have done it for calibre Search for "creating a Windows protocol handler" and read all about it.

Curious: what can BookCAT do that you don't think you can do in calibre?

I believe BookCAT uses MS Access, so a plugin might be able to use something like ODBC against its database.

If BookCAT has an accessible API it may be possible to develop a calibre plugin that utilises it. The Zotero and Mendeley plugins might provide a rough guide on the feasibility of this approach. The Zotero software publishes an API which the calibre plugin uses, not sure about the Mendeley plugin, but I think its the same.

Or, if BookCAT has command line interface you might be able to use that in a plugin.

BR

@BR

One of my main reasons to use calibre for my printed books is that BookCAT's development has been stopped for a couple of years now. Another major reason is I want to unify my books management system whatever their format.

Thanks for the clues. I'll check them on my spare time. I will make sure to keep you posted as far as I can but that may take time.

Thanks anyway for your suggestions and help.

Patrik

[pg111]

First of all, thanks to all those who helped me with their replies, comments, suggestions, and tips. They were all helpful to make me better learn and understand that wonderful tool which is calibre. I keep them in mind for my continued use of calibre.

May I remind that my primary concern is having a tool for unified management of my printed books and eBooks libraries?

I decided to not use calibre in order to manage my printed books library for a number of reasons including:

– Too many custom fields to create so as to match the user experience in my printed books library management tool, namely BookCAT.
– Impossibility to manage some custom fields in a similar way to the Author field.
– And last but not least the printed books in a calibre library have no format since they are not eBooks.

So I decided to revert to my first idea and follow the Export calibre data to Import into BookCAT route.

So I will keep calibre as my primary management tool for any eBooks. Then I will copy its data to BookCAT so I can have a unified view of titles, authors, tags, etc. in my possession.
In BookCAT I will have eventually both printed and electronical books records.

And, last word for now: Evernote (thanks to BR who introduced it to me) may be some kind of gateway for managing standalone bio and topic info that could be used as well by calibre as BookCAT.

Hope that helps.

Of course I'm open to any question or comment that may impugn my views!

This is the beauty of web forums that make human beings able to help each other!

[Tarana]

I used Library Thing for cataloging my paperbooks. However, keep in mind that I eliminated all my novels and only have cookbooks and craftbooks left. My needs aren't the same as yours. I kept a catalog only for insurance purposes and keeping it in the cloud and downloading a copy on the computer made sense for that.

The thing is, what are you hoping to get out of it? If you just need a list, a spreadsheet is faster and simple. If you want metadata, then empty books in Calibre fit the bill, IMHO. All that stuff populates nicely.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by Tarana

I used Library Thing for cataloging my paperbooks. However, keep in mind that I eliminated all my novels and only have cookbooks and craftbooks left. My needs aren't the same as yours. I kept a catalog only for insurance purposes and keeping it in the cloud and downloading a copy on the computer made sense for that.

The thing is, what are you hoping to get out of it? If you just need a list, a spreadsheet is faster and simple. If you want metadata, then empty books in Calibre fit the bill, IMHO. All that stuff populates nicely.

I too have my Pbooks in LibraryThing. But I did just do a test where I exported my LT list, and copied 5 ISBNs from the top. I chose to Add by ISBN in calibre and it added the books as empty with just the metadata.