Mass metadata enhancement

[DirkDirkson]

I routinely add very large number of items to my database at once but rarely use the "add in bulk" function since I'm very particular about the selections (auto mode often picks the wrong meta/incorrect book version/etc) ..

I was just thinking how cool it would be if you could select, say, 100+ books to process and it could do the time consuming work of downloading all the potential data entries/cover image options, etc) -- When it gets done, you could just go through and pick all the appropriate choices like you normally do when you add 1 at a time - but not have to wait on remote server on each book. Would be a huge time saver, as opposed to how I usually do it.

Perhaps I'm just going about it wrong in the first place- I'm still a novice user who hasn't spent a whole lot of time digging in deeper to see if there were any advanced features or plugins that would speed up my process. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. (I currently have around 45,000 books in two Calibre libraries, the majority being public domain material.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by DirkDirkson

I was just thinking how cool it would be if you could select, say, 100+ books to process and it could do the time consuming work of downloading all the potential data entries/cover image options, etc) -- When it gets done, you could just go through and pick all the appropriate choices like you normally do when you add 1 at a time - but not have to wait on remote server on each book. Would be a huge time saver, as opposed to how I usually do it.

Select books -> Control-D -> Download only metadata/only covers/Both - > 'Review downloaded data'?

[BetterRed]

@mbovenka - I think the OP wants to cherry pick different metadata elements from different sites. With ctrl/D you only get to choose between what you have, and what calibre selects as being 'the best'.

BR

[theducks]

Remember Metadata comes from other FREE sites. Be kind to our benefactors
High horsepower servers/networks (to handle the traffic load) like Facebook and Google cost $$$,$$$ to buy and run. Small batches limits the impact.

Single Mode Metadata download allows you to walk down/up a selected list of books

Select Books but do NOT tap E
Right-click: Edit Metadata Individually:
(do you stuff: All metadata or Just Covers)

Use Previous or Next buttons to move thru the selections (the buttons are always active, so you really can use them at any time. Just remember that passing over a book, updates the Modified timestamp

[DirkDirkson]

What I had in mind wouldn't take any more (total) bandwidth than adding books does in Calibre already (If you download meta for each book) .. The only difference is that it *might* (not necessarily) hit up all the server queries at once for all of the books rather than one at a time. The solution to that could be to have a timer after each query so it's not pounding the servers all at once. I don't care how long the process takes, I'm just thinking of ways to reduce the time required when user is directly involved.

Say you planned on adding 100 books , you could tell calibre to process the queries while you sleep and then have all your metadata ready to cherry pick once you get ready to finish the manual work.
p.s. BetterRed had the right idea about what I had in mind in my OP.

[HarryT]

Is there really a need to bulk download metadata in the way you suggest? Almost all the books I buy have acceptable metadata as bought. The only circumstances I generally edit the metadata is to add series info, and you wouldn't get that in a metadata update. What stores do you find don't supply good metadata?

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Is there really a need to bulk download metadata in the way you suggest? Almost all the books I buy have acceptable metadata as bought. The only circumstances I generally edit the metadata is to add series info, and you wouldn't get that in a metadata update. What stores do you find don't supply good metadata?

I buy from Amazon (just 'cuz they are easy to disinfect) but there are a lot of those books that don't have good metadata embedded in the file. The chances of them having good metadata on a different site is slim - but that's a different concern.

I am also going back and organizing a large quantity of books I've collected over the years ( I just got around to using Calibre as something more than a disinfectant edit:"and content server") and some of the older books didn't have good data that would be nice to update.

Until now, all I've really cared about was getting a good cover, description, and tags and was able to do that with the Ctrl-D technique. I noticed that Calibre offered multiple covers to choose from, but only one set of metadata. I didn't realize that Calibre was picking what it thought was the best data and only showing me that. Couldn't it do something similar to how it handles covers, but with the metadata - as the OP is asking?

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Couldn't it do something similar to how it handles covers, but with the metadata - as the OP is asking?

That's what it does if you download metadata for one book at a time via the Edit metadata dialog.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Is there really a need to bulk download metadata in the way you suggest? Almost all the books I buy have acceptable metadata as bought. The only circumstances I generally edit the metadata is to add series info, and you wouldn't get that in a metadata update. What stores do you find don't supply good metadata?

True
It is frequently has the midden heap of tags.

Rarely has Series metadata even though Calibre WAS part of the work flow (stripping non-DC metadata?)

The biggest flaw (an a new download won't cure): Inconsistency from the same publisher. Variations on the Authors name (s/b Catalog name, not as shown on cover). Variations on THEIR NAME.

[DirkDirkson]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Is there really a need to bulk download metadata in the way you suggest? Almost all the books I buy have acceptable metadata as bought. The only circumstances I generally edit the metadata is to add series info, and you wouldn't get that in a metadata update. What stores do you find don't supply good metadata?

On all the thousands of books I've downloaded meta for, it's rare that an update DOESN'T correctly fill out series name and number forms.

Maybe a quarter of my books have overall "sufficient" meta to begin with, but even in those cases it's very inconsistent. I like to have as much info as possible, including ISBN, 1-5 star review, etc .

Admittedly that's probably a lot more effort than the majority put into it -- I even jump over to penguinrandomhouse for high res book cover images if one higher than 1024x768 doesn't show up on the auto-query.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Is there really a need to bulk download metadata in the way you suggest? Almost all the books I buy have acceptable metadata as bought. The only circumstances I generally edit the metadata is to add series info, and you wouldn't get that in a metadata update. What stores do you find don't supply good metadata?

I have the opposite experience. For most of the books I buy, the Title, Author, and Book Cover are the only things included in the metadata by default. (And sometimes not even a book cover!) I have to go looking for book descriptions, keywords, etc. I also usually DO get the series info automatically when I do a metadata update, which is also the opposite of your experience.

Very odd.

Shari