Any Readers that offer new ways to sort?

[MacEachaidh]

Hi all,
I've recently bought a PMP, and I think I'm a bit spoiled now by how flexible it is in ways you can access your files or isolate different categories of your audio library so you can find the *type* of music you want very quickly, without having to page through album names alphabetically.

I know that file management is largely due to the tags I embed in the MP3s, which form an established protocol. But I was wondering about ways to sort and access eBook files.

My current Reader lets me store eBooks in folders (I don't use Calibre - don't like it, don't want it, though that's purely personal taste and no comment on the quality of Calibre itself), but it then compiles a menu list from the contents of those folders, drawn and sorted from both internal and SD card memory. It only really lets me sort the eBooks two ways: either alphabetically by filename; or chronologically, by order of increasing time since the file was last accessed (so that the book I was reading just yesterday is always at the top of the list, until I start reading another).

But since it seems the hardware of my Reader is starting to fail, and I am interested in looking at different brands for a replacement, I was wondering if anyone knows of any devices that offer other ways to handle things. Because I tend to read things by "what am I in the mood for?", I'd love to be able to group, say, my crime fiction books together, and my science fiction together, and my philosophy or current affairs somewhere else. I'm sure you get what I mean.

I've thought of putting a genre as the first word of the eBook's filename, which would sort this, but my device (and most others I've looked at, for that matter) only displays a limited number of characters in the filename, and if you've got several by the same author, you quickly reach a point where the book's actual name has flowed off the side of nthe screen and you've got several listings for different books that are visually indistinguishable in the menu.

Anyway, I hope you understand what I'm asking. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions, I'd be very happy to hear them. Thanks!

[Billi]

I would say, every other reader organises their books better.
On the Kindle and Sony you organise your books in "collections" that are based on tags like you know it from your music files.
Bebook, Cybook and Pocketbook devices let you store your books in "real" folders so that you can group your books in any way you wish.

[MacEachaidh]

Originally Posted by Billi

On the Kindle and Sony you organise your books in "collections" that are based on tags like you know it from your music files.

Thanks, Billi. How are these tags put there?

[CommonReader]

With the Sony you can create "Collections" and push the books in there (either directly via the Reader interface or via the Reader software on your PC), e.g. "history", "crime", German literature", "Spanish literature" etc.
As these collections just store links to the relevant books in the database you can push one book into several collections without wasting memory space.

[MacEachaidh]

Thanks CR. That makes a lot of sense for a Reader to be able to do.

Sony only recently made its devices available here in Australia, but none of them are manufactured here. Since the disaster(s) in Japan they've been out of stock and, as far as I'm aware, Sony hasn't put a date on when they might be back.

Most of the other brands aren't available here at all. Borders has just gone out of business completely in Australia, so that puts paid to it and its Kobos. And I haven't really seriously considered a Kindle because all of my books are in ePub format (and although I'm definitely not anti-Amazon, I do have a bit of an ideological issue with its level of control over Kindle users).

It's sounding like Sony might be the way to go, if I can source it locally.

[HarryT]

Collections on the Kindle work in exactly the same way as on the Sony.

[fjtorres]

There is at least one PC app that lets you easily create and manage Kindle collections from the PC. Check the Kindle forum.

Pocketbook readers offer *dual* file management systems; you can use either or both. (Check *their* Forum for tips.)
The first just presents all folders in the file system that contain book files nested as deep as you want to so you can create a library anyway you want. It uses actual book files so if you want the book to show up in more than one location you need to copy the file.

The second uses a "Favorites" listing: a set of nested folders that you name arbitrarily and contain links to files or folders. So if you link to a 'New books" folder, that link will present a list of all the books in that folder. And since it uses links, and they can be copied to different locations in the "Favorites" structure, you can have your books listed in as many locations as you want. The downside is that you have to create the links manually on the reader. Not a big issue if you link to folders for categories but if you want individual book links...

Oh, and most US Pocketbook vendors *will* ship to Australia. Several PB forum members got theirs that way.