Question re: ebook organization

PsyDocJoanne · 10-01-2008, 10:37 AM

Hi everyone,

I've had my Sony 505 for a little over a month now, and I love it!

In that time, I've amassed about 65 books. I know many of you have far more books on your reader, but it's already getting a little cumbersome for me to organize and keep track of everything, so I had a couple of questions for you.

1. I only like to keep a book on the reader if it's in progress (duh) or if it's in my queue to be read. Once a book is read, I like to take it off the reader. When I want to delete it, do I need to move it back to the Library (in the Sony software) or does it automatically keep a copy there? I don't want to end up with multiple copies of the same book in the list, which is what seems to be happening; I also don't want to end up permanently deleting anything, in case I want to read it again.

2. How does everyone organize their books, both on your reader and off? Do you make a lot of collections for stuff on the reader? Right now, for organization off the reader, I make a new folder for each date that I download books and keep all those folders inside another folder dedicated to ebooks.

I would love any suggestions that you all have to help keep my growing collection organized!

wmrawls · 10-01-2008, 10:47 AM

I use SD cards, sort my authors on the cards. The SD's are so cheap and there is no need to buy the super big ones IMHO, I use 2 Gig ones,
By breaking the books down on SD's my indexing of books is pretty fast and measured in seconds even when I have a couple of hundred on a card.
Some have found that the battery life degenerates when a SD card is used but I personally have not found that to be an issue.
Hope this helps.

NatCh · 10-01-2008, 10:49 AM

If you load a book from the Sony PC software, it'll keep a copy in that library, so you don't need to worry about copying them back from the Reader to your PC.

I keep a "My Books" collection on my 500, that I use as a reading shelf. I use a collection instead of just the "Books" menu because the collection allows me to put them in the order I want -- especially nice for series. I also keep a couple of other collections on it that let me separate out some specific titles from the rest for various reasons. I rarely have more than six or eight books on it at a time.

As for long term storage, I tend not to keep books in the Sony Library at all, mostly because there's no real way to organize them within it. Sure, you have the collections there too, but if you want to do anything other than load them onto the Reader, you have to go back to the main books listing, which is in plain old alpha-by-title order, which gets annoying to me real fast.

What I did was set up a series of sub-directories, one set for Sony texts and a separate one for books from other sources (helps me keep track of which ones are DRM'ed, you see). I sort the books by author name (nothing clever there), and I'll subdir series to group them. I also tend to prepend a series order number, 01, 02, etc. to those to keep them in order. If a series or book is co-written, I'll put links to it in the other author's directory so I can find it however I go about looking.

On the Sony books, I change their file names from the indecipherable ones that they come with to the book titles -- this doesn't affect the way they work on the Reader or the Library software at all.

If you're not doing a lot of Sony books, you can also try Calibre, it has an organizer built into it, I believe. I've not tried to use it to organize my own books because I already had my system worked out when it came on the scene.

pilotbob · 10-01-2008, 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PsyDocJoanne

When I want to delete it, do I need to move it back to the Library (in the Sony software) or does it automatically keep a copy there?

No, you don't need to move it back. The local copy will remain unless you delete it from your [PC] library. Also, if it is a ebook bought from Sony you can always redownload it if needed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PsyDocJoanne

I would love any suggestions that you all have to help keep my growing collection organized!

I use calibre. It organizes ebooks in the file system by author\title quite nicely. In the UI you can create tags to organize/search any way you want. However, if you are using DRMed ebooks at all you can put them in calibre. At least as far as I know, I've never tried it.

BOb

DixieGal · 10-01-2008, 10:52 AM

Oh Groan! The Horror! Keeping the books organized is my own nightmare, as well. Adding to the confusion is the fact that I download books to my work computer, husband's computer, and my own. Read around the threads, use the search box, and you will find a million ways to organize things.

Back in the summer, I took 2 weekends and really got organized. I bought me a brand new flash drive specificially to put books onto for backup. Marked everything either TBR or Finished. It was a beautiful system. I had everything in one place. "You are going to keep this organized from now on.", I told myself.

OK, I ended up with something like 75 books TBR, so I put a moratorium on downloading and started reading, vowing not to download another book until I got caught up. So I got caught up and finished them. Now yesterday, I downloaded and/or bought about 30 books and they are on my EB-1150 and work computer. Flash drive is still sitting at home plugged into husband's computer's USB port. I have to remember to bring it and backup the new stuff.

It's too easy to spend more time downloading and organizing than spend actually reading. All of this is to say that you will have to figure out the best solution for your own situation. There are several threads that discuss ways to organize things online, on your reader, etc.

Be sure to post your solution when you find it. Good Luck!

MickeyC · 10-01-2008, 12:44 PM

I had the same problem organizing my eBooks, tracking which ones I'd read, which were in my reader and which were on my wish list. So I designed a database to track them all. I find it very handy, especially when I'm getting near the end of a book and deciding what to read next.

If you'd like to try it out, it's a free upload on the Forum here https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...light=database

It's in MSoft Access

Amalthia · 10-01-2008, 02:03 PM

I have over 1,400 books on my Sony PRS-505. I have categories like Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror and for authors that have a ton of books I have a category just for them.

However, I do most of my organizing in my Sony Ebook folder and I use Calibre and keep the library up to date there so in case my PRS loses all the books/organizing info I can just reload. (it has happened two times already.) I normally use tags to keep track of what folders the stories belong in. Which makes it easier, the tags correspond with my folder system.

Um but really you're going to have to find a system that works for you. Right now I'm trying to figure out if I should have a seperate folder for the LRF files vs RTF....

Valloric · 10-01-2008, 05:19 PM

My system is pretty simple: one large "ebooks" folder, and then author folders inside ("King, Stephen", "Pratchett, Terry" etc). Inside these author folders folders are book folders, since I have every book in several formats: the original LIT, the exploded HTML, the HTML0 from Book Deisnger, a LRF for the Sony, pictures for the cover page and anything else related to that book.

I don't use calibre or any other software for book organization because I don't want to get tied down to a particular application.

Folders are portable, simple and get the job done very well. Of course, when you want to transfer something to the Reader via any app, you just load it from it's folder.

pilotbob · 10-01-2008, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Valloric

I don't use calibre or any other software for book organization because I don't want to get tied down to a particular application.

Folders are portable, simple and get the job done very well. Of course, when you want to transfer something to the Reader via any app, you just load it from it's folder.

Calibre stores the ebook files in the file system exactly as you have described. The only thing it adds is a library.db file which keeps track of metadata, i.e., author name, summary, ISBN, tags, etc.

BOb

Valloric · 10-01-2008, 07:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Calibre stores the ebook files in the file system exactly as you have described. The only thing it adds is a library.db file which keeps track of metadata, i.e., author name, summary, ISBN, tags, etc.

When I started using calibre, it was storing everything in a SQLite database. The folder-based architecture is a recent development. Goes to my point of staying independent.

Please don't get me wrong though, I'm not bashing calibre, or it's library design. A recent version added searching by tags and other nice features. It's a very nice system.

But my folders suit me fine... I would even say better (but for me).

pilotbob · 10-01-2008, 07:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Valloric

When I started using calibre, it was storing everything in a SQLite database. The folder-based architecture is a recent development. Goes to my point of staying independent.

I understand. I just wanted to make you aware of this change in case you weren't. I do prefer the new file system based storage. It makes my TimeMachine backups much better too.

BOb

Valloric · 10-01-2008, 07:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I understand. I just wanted to make you aware of this change in case you weren't. I do prefer the new file system based storage. It makes my TimeMachine backups much better too.

I also like the new architecture. But the old system? Pushing everything into a SQLite db file? That was just ridiculous IMO (no offense to Kovid). The current system is what I thought back then as the obvious choice.

I use calibre for transferring ebooks to my Reader, so it has a small subset of my library in it's system. I just don't care what it stores there or how.

Also, as you use TimeMachine in OSX, I sync my "ebooks" folder to my home backup server for safe keeping (RAID, yummy).

Selzernium · 10-03-2008, 04:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Valloric

I also like the new architecture. But the old system? Pushing everything into a SQLite db file? That was just ridiculous IMO (no offense to Kovid). The current system is what I thought back then as the obvious choice.

Actually [pre 0.4.84] you could use the safe-to-disk feature of the application and puff you have the system you described/like[i.e. the "new" system], the only downside was the cost of HD space [double] since the app stored the data via .db also
Personally I liked the old system because space is cheap now days...

pepak · 10-03-2008, 10:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PsyDocJoanne

2. How does everyone organize their books, both on your reader and off? Do you make a lot of collections for stuff on the reader? Right now, for organization off the reader, I make a new folder for each date that I download books and keep all those folders inside another folder dedicated to ebooks.

I treat my Reader the same as a common flash disk and my books as any other files. I organize them using my favorite file manager, copying and moving them about as I would pictures, videos, applications or anything else. I keep them in directories (one directory per author), with prolific authors with several series having the series stored in separate subdirectories.

pilotbob · 10-03-2008, 10:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Valloric

Please don't get me wrong though, I'm not bashing calibre, or it's library design. A recent version added searching by tags and other nice features. It's a very nice system.

But my folders suit me fine... I would even say better (but for me).

I guess I'm lazy.

I would just rather drag the 10 new books I bought (de DRMed) into calibre and let it create all the folders and such, than do all that work manually.

BOb

10-01-2008, 10:37 AM	#1
PsyDocJoanne Loves her 505 and her Z4! Posts: 157 Karma: 631 Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Weston, FL Device: Sony PRS-505	Question re: ebook organization Hi everyone, I've had my Sony 505 for a little over a month now, and I love it! In that time, I've amassed about 65 books. I know many of you have far more books on your reader, but it's already getting a little cumbersome for me to organize and keep track of everything, so I had a couple of questions for you. 1. I only like to keep a book on the reader if it's in progress (duh) or if it's in my queue to be read. Once a book is read, I like to take it off the reader. When I want to delete it, do I need to move it back to the Library (in the Sony software) or does it automatically keep a copy there? I don't want to end up with multiple copies of the same book in the list, which is what seems to be happening; I also don't want to end up permanently deleting anything, in case I want to read it again. 2. How does everyone organize their books, both on your reader and off? Do you make a lot of collections for stuff on the reader? Right now, for organization off the reader, I make a new folder for each date that I download books and keep all those folders inside another folder dedicated to ebooks. I would love any suggestions that you all have to help keep my growing collection organized!

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10-01-2008, 10:47 AM	#2
wmrawls Connoisseur Posts: 63 Karma: 20 Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Rock Hill,SC Device: Sony PRS 505, Dell Axim X50V	I use SD cards, sort my authors on the cards. The SD's are so cheap and there is no need to buy the super big ones IMHO, I use 2 Gig ones, By breaking the books down on SD's my indexing of books is pretty fast and measured in seconds even when I have a couple of hundred on a card. Some have found that the battery life degenerates when a SD card is used but I personally have not found that to be an issue. Hope this helps.

10-01-2008, 10:49 AM	#3
NatCh Gizmologist Posts: 11,615 Karma: 929550 Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Republic of Texas Embassy at Jackson, TN Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3	If you load a book from the Sony PC software, it'll keep a copy in that library, so you don't need to worry about copying them back from the Reader to your PC. I keep a "My Books" collection on my 500, that I use as a reading shelf. I use a collection instead of just the "Books" menu because the collection allows me to put them in the order I want -- especially nice for series. I also keep a couple of other collections on it that let me separate out some specific titles from the rest for various reasons. I rarely have more than six or eight books on it at a time. As for long term storage, I tend not to keep books in the Sony Library at all, mostly because there's no real way to organize them within it. Sure, you have the collections there too, but if you want to do anything other than load them onto the Reader, you have to go back to the main books listing, which is in plain old alpha-by-title order, which gets annoying to me real fast. What I did was set up a series of sub-directories, one set for Sony texts and a separate one for books from other sources (helps me keep track of which ones are DRM'ed, you see). I sort the books by author name (nothing clever there), and I'll subdir series to group them. I also tend to prepend a series order number, 01, 02, etc. to those to keep them in order. If a series or book is co-written, I'll put links to it in the other author's directory so I can find it however I go about looking. On the Sony books, I change their file names from the indecipherable ones that they come with to the book titles -- this doesn't affect the way they work on the Reader or the Library software at all. If you're not doing a lot of Sony books, you can also try Calibre, it has an organizer built into it, I believe. I've not tried to use it to organize my own books because I already had my system worked out when it came on the scene.

10-01-2008, 10:52 AM	#5
DixieGal Hi There! Posts: 7,473 Karma: 2930523 Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Ft Lauderdale Device: iPad	Oh Groan! The Horror! Keeping the books organized is my own nightmare, as well. Adding to the confusion is the fact that I download books to my work computer, husband's computer, and my own. Read around the threads, use the search box, and you will find a million ways to organize things. Back in the summer, I took 2 weekends and really got organized. I bought me a brand new flash drive specificially to put books onto for backup. Marked everything either TBR or Finished. It was a beautiful system. I had everything in one place. "You are going to keep this organized from now on.", I told myself. OK, I ended up with something like 75 books TBR, so I put a moratorium on downloading and started reading, vowing not to download another book until I got caught up. So I got caught up and finished them. Now yesterday, I downloaded and/or bought about 30 books and they are on my EB-1150 and work computer. Flash drive is still sitting at home plugged into husband's computer's USB port. I have to remember to bring it and backup the new stuff. It's too easy to spend more time downloading and organizing than spend actually reading. All of this is to say that you will have to figure out the best solution for your own situation. There are several threads that discuss ways to organize things online, on your reader, etc. Be sure to post your solution when you find it. Good Luck!

10-01-2008, 12:44 PM	#6
MickeyC Grand Sorcerer Posts: 16,731 Karma: 12185114 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Florida Device: iPhone 6 plus, Sony T1, iPad 3	I had the same problem organizing my eBooks, tracking which ones I'd read, which were in my reader and which were on my wish list. So I designed a database to track them all. I find it very handy, especially when I'm getting near the end of a book and deciding what to read next. If you'd like to try it out, it's a free upload on the Forum here https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...light=database It's in MSoft Access

10-01-2008, 02:03 PM	#7
Amalthia Wizard Posts: 1,163 Karma: 32196 Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Anchorage, AK Device: Sony Reader PRS-505, PRS-650, PRS-T3, Pocketbook HD2	I have over 1,400 books on my Sony PRS-505. I have categories like Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror and for authors that have a ton of books I have a category just for them. However, I do most of my organizing in my Sony Ebook folder and I use Calibre and keep the library up to date there so in case my PRS loses all the books/organizing info I can just reload. (it has happened two times already.) I normally use tags to keep track of what folders the stories belong in. Which makes it easier, the tags correspond with my folder system. Um but really you're going to have to find a system that works for you. Right now I'm trying to figure out if I should have a seperate folder for the LRF files vs RTF....

10-01-2008, 05:19 PM	#8
Valloric Created Sigil, FlightCrew Posts: 1,982 Karma: 350515 Join Date: Feb 2008 Device: Kobo Clara HD	My system is pretty simple: one large "ebooks" folder, and then author folders inside ("King, Stephen", "Pratchett, Terry" etc). Inside these author folders folders are book folders, since I have every book in several formats: the original LIT, the exploded HTML, the HTML0 from Book Deisnger, a LRF for the Sony, pictures for the cover page and anything else related to that book. I don't use calibre or any other software for book organization because I don't want to get tied down to a particular application. Folders are portable, simple and get the job done very well. Of course, when you want to transfer something to the Reader via any app, you just load it from it's folder.

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