Books read in large library

[goldberry]

Looking for advice on how others keep track of the books they have read in a large library.

Do people remove them from Calibre or is there a way to mark them so you filter on unread books somehow.

Novice at this and my library is small but wife's is huge. We have set up separate libraries for each other.

[Mikou]

I rate all the books I have read. When I'm looking for unread books, I sort the books by rating and look for the ones with none.

[kiwidude]

If you look at the post right next to yours about Custom columns you will see a lot of people using those to store whether they have read a book or not (as do I). Just create a Yes/No column. It is easy enough to then use that in searches and/or setup a saved search for a restriction on your library so that you will only see books that are marked as not read.

To set it up:
Preferences->Add your own columns
Click on the hyperlinked Yes/No at the top between "Modified Date" and "Tags".
Change the Lookup name to "read"
Change the Column heading to "Read"
The column type of Yes/No is what you are after.
Click Ok, restart calibre.

Now you can use the Yes/No dropdown to tick books you have read.

To search for books you have not read, in the search box you would type
#read:false (alternatively #read:no)

Save this as a saved search on the RHS by typing a name where it says "Saved Searches" and click the green +.

Then on the left hand side, you can click on the "Restrict to" dropdown to limit your view of the library to just your unread books. If you want that restriction every time you open that library, go to Preferences->Behaviour.

[goldberry]

Originally Posted by Mikou

I rate all the books I have read. When I'm looking for unread books, I sort the books by rating and look for the ones with none.

Does Calibre offer a quick way to rate books or do you have to bring up metadata and enter and save?

[goldberry]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

If you look at the post right next to yours about Custom columns you will see a lot of people using those to store whether they have read a book or not (as do I). Just create a Yes/No column. It is easy enough to then use that in searches and/or setup a saved search for a restriction on your library so that you will only see books that are marked as not read.

To set it up:
Preferences->Add your own columns
Click on the hyperlinked Yes/No at the top between "Modified Date" and "Tags".
Change the Lookup name to "read"
Change the Column heading to "Read"
The column type of Yes/No is what you are after.
Click Ok, restart calibre.

Now you can use the Yes/No dropdown to tick books you have read.

To search for books you have not read, in the search box you would type
#read:false (alternatively #read:no)

Save this as a saved search on the RHS by typing a name where it says "Saved Searches" and click the green +.

Then on the left hand side, you can click on the "Restrict to" dropdown to limit your view of the library to just your unread books. If you want that restriction every time you open that library, go to Preferences->Behaviour.

Thanks for that came as I was answering the above post.

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by goldberry

Does Calibre offer a quick way to rate books or do you have to bring up metadata and enter and save?

Just click/double click in the rating column in the library view and you can change the number by typing it or using the up/down., you don't have to use the edit metadata dialog.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I prefer to have an Unread column using star ratings. If it has no stars, I've read it. One star means I want to read it someday. Two stars is higher on my reading list. Three stars is my immediate reading list, such as a series I'm working on. Four stars is for the book I'm currently reading. I use the tag browser to select a list of a certain number of stars. A large advantage of stars is it is easy to see at a glance what the read status is.