CalibreI find Calibre one of those most useful eBook tools for people like me who still like to have a downloadable copy. I can see the writing on the wall on that—I fully expect the kids I know to grow up with a ‘read once and then move on’ model which they’ll learn from level-based school programs like Raz-Kids and translate into library and Netflix-esque borrowing. But I am ‘old school’ as far as eBooks go. I want my own copy to clean up, categorize and store in my own library.

But like the music nerds find with their iTunes collections, I notice from time to time that my Calibre library seems to need a little pruning. Books get added, but somehow they don’t get a genre tag. Cover art is missing, or hideous. The TBR pile grows and grows and grows…

So what is my to-do process for cleaning things up? What is my eBook equivalent to all of those ‘how to clean up your iTunes library’ posts that Lifehacker is always running for the music people? Read on for my complete step-by-step.

1) Update your app, and your plug-ins. I am usually pretty good about downloading app updates, but I sometimes forget to update the plug-ins. Calibre should have a little alert for you in the bottom right corner, if any of the plug-ins have newer versions. Click on it and follow the instructions to get your program up to date.

2) Download any books you haven’t added yet. I like to keep my whole library in one place; I always download any purchases, even cloud-available ones from Amazon or elsewhere. If you subscribe to the DRM-cleansing philosophy, Calibre can take care of that for you. But even if you don’t, you can still add your books; you can’t edit or convert anything with DRM on it, but Calibre can add it to the library, and let you tag it and sort it as you wish.

3) Tidy up your tags. What I do is sort alphabetically by clicking on the top of the row; it won’t do much with books that have more than one tag, but it will show me which books don’t have any; I like to have at least one tag on a book so I have some way to find it later. With that said, I have found that less is more with tags. I have some basic genre ones, and then custom fields for age level (if it’s a kids book) and date finished. That’s it!

4) Update your covers. Do a quick visual scan for any books without a cover. When you find one, just open the ‘edit metadata’ box and click the ‘download covers’ button. You’ll be able to pick and choose from several sources. Hint: I like to have matching covers for books in a series, and sometimes I have found that a Google Images search can get me a nice-looking set. Just save the image to your desktop and you can import it in manually.

5) Prune your To-Read list. I have an ‘archive’ folder in Dropbox for books I don’t want to delete per se, but don’t want cluttering up my library either. For example, I sometimes buy book bundles like Story Bundle or Humble Bundle which has a book or two I want, but then comes with seven other ones. Some of these ‘other ones’ I likely won’t ever read, but I can’t quite bring myself to delete them since I paid money. Into the archive they go! I also delete any freebies which, on second glance, don’t interest me.

6) Send some books to your devices. The best way to get books read is to have them ready to go! I usually finish my pruning by using the Send to Kindle app to send some unread TBRs onto my Kindle cloud. Then I am ready to read!

So there you have it—a streamlined, cleaned up library ready to browse and read from!

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"I’m a journalist, a teacher and an e-book fiend. I work as a French teacher at a K-3 private school. I use drama, music, puppets, props and all manner of tech in my job, and I love it. I enjoy moving between all the classes and having a relationship with each child in the school. Kids are hilarious, and I enjoy watching them grow and learn. My current device of choice for reading is my Amazon Kindle Touch, but I have owned or used devices by Sony, Kobo, Aluratek and others. I also read on my tablet devices using the Kindle app, and I enjoy synching between them, so that I’m always up to date no matter where I am or what I have with me."

4 COMMENTS

  1. I think I know what delay you’re referring to – it’s a setting in Calibre. It tries to stagger sending emails to avoid being flagged as spam, though it’s really not necessary if all you’re doing is adding a couple of books now and then. However if you’re trying to send your entire library, you might need the setting (or connect it with a cable, probably better).

    http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1857970&postcount=9

    I have mine set to 5 seconds. (Oh yeah and you’ll also need to add the email address you’re sending from as a safe address in your Kindle account settings on Amazon if you haven’t already)

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