Do you use calibre to manage your printed books library?

[pg111]

Hi everybody,

My subject may seem irrelevant to this place but I would be curious to know if some of you use calibre to manage their printed books library.

Cheers.

Patrik

[theducks]

Originally Posted by pg111

Hi everybody,

My subject may seem irrelevant to this place but I would be curious to know if some of you use calibre to manage their printed books library.

Cheers.

Patrik

Yes. That was the first (empty) books I added, Followed by the Baen Free Library.
I tagged (you can set a tag in the Add from ISBN) <In Paper Library> and I even made a rule to color the titles with that tag GREEN

[pg111]

Originally Posted by theducks

Yes. That was the first (empty) books I added, Followed by the Baen Free Library.
I tagged (you can set a tag in the Add from ISBN) <In Paper Library> and I even made a rule to color the titles with that tag GREEN

And do you continue using calibre for your paper library?

I'm asking because for my paper library I'm a happy user of BookCATs although its development has been stopped for a while now.

I'd be interested in having one single place to manage all my books whatever eBooks or printed books.

This is why I would be interested in knowing other people's experience about the subject.

Cheers.

Patrik

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by theducks

Yes. That was the first (empty) books I added, Followed by the Baen Free Library.
I tagged (you can set a tag in the Add from ISBN) <In Paper Library> and I even made a rule to color the titles with that tag GREEN

more or less.

I buy more commercial paper books than I buy commercial ebooks, but I keep very few of them. Once I've read them I drop them into streetside share libraries. I carry a list of books I've read on my phone. The list is from calibre's CSV Catalogue tool, prettified into HTML with CSV File View.

BR

[pg111]

Thanks, BR, but what I have on mind is a wider case of use. My final goal would be unifying my two digital books and paper books libraries into a single management system that features the best from BookCAT but in calibre UI.

Is it what custom columns are made for?

Patrik

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by pg111

Thanks,BR, but what I have on mind is a more wide case of use. My final goal would be unifying my two digital books and paper books libraries into a single management system that features the best from BookCAT but in calibre UI.

Is it what custom columns are made for?

Patrik

In this case there is no requirement to use any custom columns, the Add Books drop down has two relevant options, viz



I mainly use the first one with silly values in author and title e.g. fred and blah, this will add a line to the top of the list which I then edit. I do all my metadata editing on the book list lines, rather than the modal dialogue boxes.

I have an Admin Tags custom column in which I put values such as Paper Book, Wanted Book, EBook etc. I prefer to only put Subject descriptors into the built-in Tags column.

If you can get a CSV file from BookCAT you could use the Import List plugin to replicate the BookCAT catalogue in calibre,

BR

[pg111]

@BR, I should have been more specific in my question about custom columns. I think that there are a number of features in BookCAT that calibre may lack. So if I want to have the same convenience in managing paper books in calibre as in BookCAT, then I should create custom columns so I can use needed fields that are missing in calibre (if any, since I first have to step by step compare the book info provided by both apps and check what is missing).

[BetterRed]

Calibre's built in columns map to the subset of Dublin Core elements most commonly supported by typical ebook reading software and devices + the series column, from memory that's about 12.

However, its custom column feature provides a rich set of data types and there's no practical limit on the number of custom columns you can add. FX: readers of FanFiction have all sorts of custom columns - who's sleeping with who, cross-overs (???), universes, etc, etc. My Test library has over 50 custom columns (it's a mess).

BR

[pg111]

@BR, Thanks for your reply.

Now as I said I will have to create in calibre an empty book that already exists in BookCAT and step by step check if some BookCAT fields are missing in calibre. If so I will have to create any missing fields as custom columns in calibre. When I have completed this stage I will try to figure out a field mapping so I can import my exported BookCAT library into calibre.

Do you think that it makes sense?

[davidfor]

@pg111: That sounds about right. And if BookCAT can produce a CSV of the book details, have a look at the Import List plugin. It can do the mapping of the CSV to columns in calibre.

[BetterRed]

@pg111 - yes, that makes sense. If you give the calibre custom columns you want to copy from BookCAT the same name then there's no mapping to do. But be careful you don't copy BookCAT's shortcomings, calibre's flexibility may offer more efficient/convenient alternatives.

I get the impression you may be over-thinking it. I suggest you select a representative subset of books (probably about 30) from the BookCAT catalogue and add them manually to an "Experimental" calibre library. You can then add/remove/change custom columns as you see fit, play around with Preference settings to see what they do, try out some of the plugins etc etc.

@davidfor - I already gave IL a plug

BR

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@davidfor - I already gave IL a plug

But, that was hours ago. You don't expect me to remember that far back do you?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by davidfor

But, that was hours ago. You don't expect me to remember that far back do you?

Ah, the old short-term memory failure excuse, eh?

[pg111]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@pg111 - yes, that makes sense. If you give the calibre custom columns you want to copy from BookCAT the same name then there's no mapping to do. But be careful you don't copy BookCAT's shortcomings, calibre's flexibility may offer more efficient/convenient alternatives.

I get the impression you may be over-thinking it. I suggest you select a representative subset of books (probably about 30) from the BookCAT catalogue and add them manually to an "Experimental" calibre library. You can then add/remove/change custom columns as you see fit, play around with Preference settings to see what they do, try out some of the plugins etc etc.

@davidfor - I already gave IL a plug

BR

@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.

[pg111]

Originally Posted by davidfor

@pg111: That sounds about right. And if BookCAT can produce a CSV of the book details, have a look at the Import List plugin. It can do the mapping of the CSV to columns in calibre.

Thanks. Actually a few months ago I created a csv export from calibre to be imported into BookCAT. Now I'm considering following the reverse way from BookCAT to calibre. Of course I will make sure to first work on a test calibre library and try to import a subset of my BookCAT paper books library into calibre.

I promise to keep everybody here posted about the outcome but for a number of reasons that may be in several weeks ahead.