Separate library into fiction and non fiction?

[vans]

Very new to Calibre so sorry if this is a very basic question.

I have added most of my ebook collection to Calibre. Ideally it would be good if I could group books as History, Biography, Fiction etc. or at the very least Fiction and Non Fiction. Is this possible?


Thanks

[Tome Keeper]

You can edit the genre's in Calibre and then search based on these.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by vans

I have added most of my ebook collection to Calibre. Ideally it would be good if I could group books as History, Biography, Fiction etc. or at the very least Fiction and Non Fiction. Is this possible?

Most of us use tags to label each book, then you can search the library via the tags. You can also restrict your library view to any search.

[vans]

Thanks for the both relies.

It looks like I have a very big job ahead of me correcting and adding Tags.

[Maggie-Me]

There are a couple easy ways to do, make sure you look at the bulk edit and you can drag numerous books on to the tag in the Tag Browser.

[itimpi]

Calibre will also allow you to split each type of book into its own library if that is the way you prefer to go. In this model the different types of books are held in their won folder strucutre, and there is a calibre metadata databse for each library. One use case where different physical libraries really makes sense is where you want different custom columns for the different types of books. Since custom column definitions are stored at the library level this is then the way to go.

Many people prefer to keep all there books in the one library and then use tags to tell the types apart. That way they get a global view of all the books, and also can search across all the books. As has been mentioned the Calibre 'restriction' capability of limiting the visible books to those that satisfy a particular search critieria makes it easy to have virtual libraries within a single physical library.

[vans]

Originally Posted by itimpi

Calibre will also allow you to split each type of book into its own library if that is the way you prefer to go. In this model the different types of books are held in their won folder strucutre, and there is a calibre metadata databse for each library. One use case where different physical libraries really makes sense is where you want different custom columns for the different types of books. Since custom column definitions are stored at the library level this is then the way to go.

Many people prefer to keep all there books in the one library and then use tags to tell the types apart. That way they get a global view of all the books, and also can search across all the books. As has been mentioned the Calibre 'restriction' capability of limiting the visible books to those that satisfy a particular search critieria makes it easy to have virtual libraries within a single physical library.

Thanks, that is interesting. My main problem is old ebooks in .lit format. I have been collecting ebooks since the 1990's but only statrted using Calibre a few days ago. Many of my oldest ebooks are in .lit format and currently have no metadata. Most of my newer ones are in MOBI or ePUB and they are OK. I think for me it would be useful to put all my .lit files into a separate library where I can work on the metadata and when ready bring them back into the main library.

[itimpi]

I also have a lot of LIT books.

What I do is add a TODO tag (I have set Calibre to do this automatically) whenever I add books. That makes it easy to find the ones that still need checking out and possibly correcting without the need to keep them in a separate library.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by vans

Thanks, that is interesting. My main problem is old ebooks in .lit format. I have been collecting ebooks since the 1990's but only statrted using Calibre a few days ago. Many of my oldest ebooks are in .lit format and currently have no metadata. Most of my newer ones are in MOBI or ePUB and they are OK. I think for me it would be useful to put all my .lit files into a separate library where I can work on the metadata and when ready bring them back into the main library.

In Preferences: Adding Books: there is a option to automatically add tag(s) on Import like @itimpi does.
Then you can Filter on the Tag AND sort the Date column to see which ones have been molding the longest

[vans]

Thanks everyone. I still have the originals of all my ltd files in a separate folder on a hard drive. I am beginning to think the easiest thing to do is to remove all my ltd files from the library and then re-import them using the automatic tags as suggested.

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by vans

Thanks everyone. I still have the originals of all my ltd files in a separate folder on a hard drive. I am beginning to think the easiest thing to do is to remove all my ltd files from the library and then re-import them using the automatic tags as suggested.

To remove them, you'll have to select them. Once you've done that, just hit "e" to bulk edit the metadata and add the tags you want. There's no need to delete/re-add them.

[vans]

Originally Posted by Starson17

To remove them, you'll have to select them. Once you've done that, just hit "e" to bulk edit the metadata and add the tags you want. There's no need to delete/re-add them.

Thanks, that was easy.

[Pinecone]

What I did was to make a custom column, called Genre and then use that for the purpose. You can do the same thing with it, select a number of books, then Bulk Edit them and set the Genre to whatever you want.

I also set mine to be a series like column, so I can put the books in the Genre in a specfic order within a collection of that Genre.

[blue_skies]

I recently discovered the option to "switch libraries" when I was having a strange issue with an empty library in an old location. I have since been wondering if it would be possible to divide my library into a "Fiction" library and a "Non-fiction" library to make it easier to manage.

If I did that, would I need to keep a main library with all of the books? Right now I keep my "Calibre Library" in my dropbox folder for offsite backup. Would I just make a "Calibre Library - Fiction" folder and "Calibre Library - Non-fiction" folder in the dropbox folder and copy the appropriate books to each so that I can use the Calibre icon choice to switch between them?

I have accumulated a ton of free books from Amazon and BN etc., and would love to manage them more easily without doing a lot of meta tag editing right now. I feel like if I could at least have them sorted by fiction and non-fiction it would be much easier to sort and manage.

I have watched the videos and appreciate the advice about using meta tags to search for different types of books. I have so many unfamiliar titles in so many different genres and categories that I don't even know if I'll like, that I would rather just sort them into two additional libraries and then use tags or an additional genre column to sort them further later on.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[itimpi]

Whether you keep separate libraries each in thir own folde is up to you. Note that if you do decide to split your library make sure you use the Calibre facilities fr copying books between libraries if you want metadata to stay intact.

I prefer to use saved searches in conjunction with appropriate tags to keep 'virtual libraries' within one physical library. You can apply a saved search as a 'restriction' to operate on a sub-set of the books and treat that subset as if it were a library of it's own.