Best way to create, tag and manage a new library from scratch?

[jackhulk]

Hello

I've recently got a Kindle 3 and just wondering what's the best way to manager my library please?

My current ebook collection is small so I'd like to get this right starting for scratch, but not sure the best way to go about this please? I was hoping to use the metadata pulled from sites to create all the necessary info for my ebooks, however that doesn't appear to be going so well as it doesn't always pull through correct year, tags, publisher etc and author name format various. How do you guys do this please? Is it best just to enter the data myself?

While I understand tags etc, I've never really used them before so not sure the best way to use them here with ebooks. For example, using ISBNDB as meta source pulls through a great number of tags, 99% of which I don't think I would ever use to search, and they are not consistent across the series either. Would it be best to use just a set number of tags to categorize my books, such as fiction, non-fiction etc?

What's the best way to setup collections (using plugin) on the Kindle, ie by tag categories as mentioned above, series or author?

Any other tips you can give to make the most of setting my library up correctly will be most appreciated thank you.

Jackhulk

[speakingtohe]

Whatever you do you will want to change it eventually.

Best practice for me is to have the title ,author, series etc. entered as they apear on the book. I download the metadata and change it after if I feel the need.

Calibre does a pretty good job of the downloading and sorting but most metadata is entered by random people, some by publishers and librarians but a lot by user comments etc.

Tags can be customized somewhat by customizing the plugins for downloading metadata.
Or you can enter your own.

For dates, titles, series names etc. there can be a wide variety for each book. If you are picky it is best to pick a site that lists an authors works concisely and precisely so you have a standard to go by.

I like Fantastic Fiction for this purpose and I have the following link pasted into the preferences>look and feel>book details

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/search/?searchfor=author&keywords={author}

When I click on the author name in the book details window it takes me to that author's page.

Calibre is very versatile so for the most part it is just best to carry on and discover how you like things to be.

Helen

[crossi]

I don't use the downloaded tags, I prefer to delete them and use my own catagories.

I like my Titles to show as the title followed by the number in it's series like: Naked in Death [1]. Including the name of the series in the title made them too long for me.

I edit the Pub date so all my series are in order and together. The first book of a series is always Jan 1 of some year, the second Feb 1 of that year, ect.
Different series or genres are given different pub years to keep them separate. On the kindle at least books are listed in order of publication date within each authors' books.

I made a custom column for the price I paid for each book.

[jackhulk]

Thanks guys. Speakingtohe, Fantastic Fiction will come in useful, thank you I'm wondering if you know if similar sites, but for non-fiction as this could be useful for my genre sorting (see below)?

Crossi, that's interesting what you say about pub dates and getting them in the correct order. I think this relates to a problem I'm having here....

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...16#post1789616

I think I'm going to use tag's for genre mainly, but now I have to decide on which genres to use? Is there a website that I can view that will state books main genre? For example, a book written about one's own life, clear cut, goes in as Biography, but other books not so sure?

Also is there a site where I can retrieve an actual summary of a book, ie that what you would see on the back of a book please, as sometimes metadata sources do not have this?

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by jackhulk

I think I'm going to use tag's for genre mainly, but now I have to decide on which genres to use? Is there a website that I can view that will state books main genre? For example, a book written about one's own life, clear cut, goes in as Biography, but other books not so sure?

I disable tags for all metadata plugins except for the Goodreads metadata plugin. This plugin allows you to map the tags Goodreads uses to genres or tag names that you prefer. I have mapped most of Goodreads tags and you could use my goodreads customized json file as a starting point.

Originally Posted by jackhulk

Also is there a site where I can retrieve an actual summary of a book, ie that what you would see on the back of a book please, as sometimes metadata sources do not have this?

As long as you have comments checked in the metadata download configuration then the summary will be easily downloaded from most sites.

unboggling has been trying to document what he does so new users might gain some insight, check out his KISS post for his suggestions.

[jackhulk]

Fantastic, thanks dwanthny! Thanks for sharing your json file and that unboggling's thread will come in very handy! I'm pretty confident I'm ready now to start building my library and most importantly keeping it nice and tidy.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by jackhulk

Fantastic, thanks dwanthny!

You're Welcome.