Content How to organise your library? I use Calibre because Kindle's collections are useless

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Quick guess, the PW4 32GB LTE models are the least popular and has the highest likelihood of coming from older stock. It probably still ships with older, jailbreakable firmware and I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case even a year or two from now. Granted, quite pricey. Buying from authorized retailers instead of Amazon direct would probably get you older stock, too. Iirc, the PW4 I got from Target Cyber Monday shipped with 5.10.0.1 when even my pre-order from Amazon from weeks earlier came with 5.10.0.2.

That is probably a good guess. My 32GB wifi PW4 came from Amazon and with 5.10.0.2--I'm pretty sure on that but going from memory, it definitely started with 5.10.0. I upgraded to 5.10.3 and, reading around here on the site, I assume that means I could not jailbreak now even if I wanted to.

KOReader is cool, but it has limitations too, especially in the area of note-taking (at least the Kobo version does), and that's a non-starter for me as my primary reading app. Knowing that, and seeing the hassle of maintaining jailbreaks, and the limited other functionality you get, I'm still not convinced for me it'd be worth it, even if I could jailbreak the PW4. I'm one of those crazy users that actually LIKES the Kindle software, although there's a few things I want them to add or change.

Originally Posted by HarryT

I have close to 10,000 books on my Oasis, and no collections. I personally have no need for them. The only way I need to organise my books is by author (which the Kindle does fine) and by series (which I use a Calibre metadata plugboard for).

That makes a lot of sense and it's great to hear that one can manage a large collection on Kindle, if you want to. I like low-friction approaches that don't involve a lot of mucking around on the device itself aside from actual reading, and this sounds like it works.

How well does book search perform after you have all those books on there and they have been indexed? Is it still pretty snappy?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by maximus83

I'm one of those crazy users that actually LIKES the Kindle software, although there's a few things I want them to add or change.

You're not alone in your crazyness. I like the Kindle software too and since Amazon added support for custom fonts I don't feel even the slightest urge to jailbreak.

[HarryT]

Searching for titles and authors is virtually instantaneous. Doing a global search for text within all your books is effectively broken with that many books (it doesn't return results in any reasonable time). Searching within a specific book works fine.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by cd2013

If I didn't use Calibre, it would be the equivalent of having physical books all over the place on the floor in a dusty loft. Which books by SuchAndSuch have I not yet read? What books on $topic would I recommend? Spend hours in the loft before being able to ansnwer

Lol, this is actually my default mode. I use an iPad for majority of my personal computing so I often let hundreds of reading material accumulate before I organize them in Calibre and do any metadata cleanup. As such, any thoughts or personal tags I might have had after reading would've been forgotten already. That said, I tend to read stuff as I acquire them so I don't really need Calibre to keep track of read/unread.

Originally Posted by cd2013

For example, a few weeks ago I wanted to recommend a series of 4 novels to a friend. I remembered the topic but not the name of the author nor the title. Had I not tagged them in Calibre, it would have taken me quite a bit of googling to find the title name.

Or I wanted to remember what essays I had read on a certain, very specific topic (I had to recommend something to a friend in this case, too). Again, without tags I'd have struggled, because not all the books had the explicit topic in the title.

I'd often remember phrases from the book but not the author or title. For this, I find the library-wide, full text search on the Kindle incredibly useful. At times even more useful than Calibre tags. Granted, I have less than a thousand AZW3/MOBI files on my Kindle.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by maximus83

KOReader is cool, but it has limitations too, especially in the area of note-taking (at least the Kobo version does), and that's a non-starter for me as my primary reading app. Knowing that, and seeing the hassle of maintaining jailbreaks, and the limited other functionality you get, I'm still not convinced for me it'd be worth it, even if I could jailbreak the PW4. I'm one of those crazy users that actually LIKES the Kindle software, although there's a few things I want them to add or change.

Totally understandable. As a general rule, I prevent automatic updates on all my software and devices so maintaining the jailbreak is easy enough for me. The difficult part was finding a device that's jailbreakable without needing to do a hardware/serial mod.

For me, the primary draw of KOReader is that I don't need to convert my EPUB/CBZ to MOBI/AZW3 first before I can read them on the Kindle. Helps facilitate my laziness.

I've given up on highlights/notes for (fan)fiction. I think I'll just wait until Calibre's ebook-viewer gets native support for those. Otherwise, annotations syncing is impossible when using multiple platforms/ereaders/apps particularly for sideloaded stuff that gets frequently updated.

My technical books are the ones where annotation is necessary and those are all in PDF anyway (ergo built-in, universal support for annotations).

[eruditionastic]

I keep all my books in Calibre. I only transfer to the Kindle via the @kindle.com email address. I added some extra columns in Calibre to let me keep track of what goes on the Kindle, and what I've read. I change the titles based on Series and such using the calibre plugboard thing.

The only book management I do the Kindle itself is "delete".

[shamanNS]

@eruditionastic: I'm guessing that you mangled book titles (by inserting series and series index information that you already have in "Series" column) in Calibre library itself because you are sending "mobi both" files (in order to get azw3 files delivered to your Kindle?) via email the files to your Kindle?

Because, IIRC, Calibre still doesn't correctly edit title metadata for those dual format mobi files? I haven't re-tested that in years so I'm not 100% confident if it is still the case...

If you're sending plain old mobi files you can achieve the same end result by using metadata plugboards with "email" chosen as a "device"

[eruditionastic]

@shamanNS: No I keep the title the title. I forgot to edit those titles to the proper name. I send either mobi azw3 or epub by email to the kindle. Amazon automatically converts whatever format if needed and places it on the kindle.

I use the metadata plugboard with "{series}{series_index:0>2s| - | - }{title}" to rename the file when it's emailed.

[Jack Torrance]

I’m probably an oddball here. I’ll use Calibre to convert books to a particular format and that’s about it. Maybe it’s me but I haven’t gotten the point of it.

I don’t keep a lot of books on my Kindle as it really slowed them down and having page after page after page of collections it was difficult to sort through them. I like my DXG for the larger screen and physical buttons but I max it out at maybe 150 books or so.

The older SW seems to sort them in no particular order other than my “last read” it makes it unwieldy to sort so even having only 4gb of storage isn’t an issue. I see the newer ones have more storage and I’m sure better SW but to me it was pointless to have more here as it they don’t handle it well.

As far as total library management I prefer “One Drive” even on all my Apple devices. Surprisingly with all the options out there... Apple iCloud, Apple Files, Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon Cloud Drive. I find One Drive works the best. PC-Mac-Phone or iPad if I have an Internet connection I’m good and with 30 GB of space for one account and the ease of switching accounts for books magazines and notes that’s more than enough and it’s free.

All my books are listed by Author in separate files and and a series is listed in a subfolder of the authors primary folder. I do less reading on my kindle anymore but since it’s an older 3g device unless I’m buying a book I really need to hook it up to the PC to make things happen.

[haertig]

For me, ALL of my organization/management is done in Calibre. My Kindle is a reading device only (it hasn't even been online for eons - I sideload everything from Calibre). I keep between one and two dozen books maximum on my Kindle. With that small number of books I can always find my next book to read by just scrolling through the entire library on the device. No need for any organization on the portable device. Once I finish a book on the Kindle, I immediately delete it. I can always put it back onto the Kindle later, via Calibre, if I want. Every so often I plug my Kindle into the computer and use Calibre to review and update what I have available on the Kindle. But I never keep much on the Kindle since I only read one book at a time, and in my case, they are all fiction novels.

The Kindle is an excellent eReader, but an atrocious organizer. I suspect this statement describes most every other eInk device as well. I take no pleasure in banging my head against a wall trying to make a device perform a task that it is so dreadful at, no matter how much one may wish things to be different. I personally don't see any need to agonize over which eInk device you buy either, looking for the best organizer. Trying to figure out and rank pitiful vs. pitiful+1 is a fool's errand.

[Victoria]

I tried to use kindle’s collections early on, but found it more trouble than it was worth. So for many years, I’ve used a simple process, but it works for me.

I sort by author on the kindle itself, and it works great - that’s how I sort books in my mind anyway. Add to that the convenience of the “recent’’ sort, and kindle’s excellent search functions, and I’m able to keep tons of books on my kindle with no issues.

If I really need to jog my memory, looking at Calibre usually helps. If I just want to browse my Amazon library (1000s), I also use the kindle app on an ipad pro. I can scan my whole library, with book covers, very quickly.

Originally Posted by haertig

I personally don't see any need to agonize over which eInk device you buy either, looking for the best organizer. Trying to figure out and rank pitiful vs. pitiful+1 is a fool's errand.

LOL, that is so true. Just get the ereader that you like the features on the most, take a few minutes to learn how to convert and sync things in Calibre, and get back to reading. To me, spending lots of time farting around with creating organization structure on any device is generally time poured down a black hole. With most devices, even Android readers like Moon+, the organization you create on the device is limited to that specific app, o once again, any organizing you do there is stuck in a proprietary tar pit and you can't get it out of there and share it with your other devices.

It really makes sense as a general strategy to do one's organizing in Calibre, and keep it simple on the reading device.

[Steve H]

Originally Posted by maximus83

That makes a lot of sense and it's great to hear that one can manage a large collection on Kindle, if you want to. I like low-friction approaches that don't involve a lot of mucking around on the device itself aside from actual reading, and this sounds like it works.

How well does book search perform after you have all those books on there and they have been indexed? Is it still pretty snappy?

I have over 3000...no issues on searches.

[Barbara1955]

on Kindle Author Last name, First name. Kindle will also keep track of what you have read. Same on the Kobo.