# Best way to manage a huge ebook collection?



## Ian Marks (Jan 22, 2012)

I only discovered the Kindle universe late last year when someone suggested I look into publishing some of my fiction in the Kindle marketplace. I soon discovered that Amazon offers a free reading app for the PC (and Mac, and Android, and iPhone, etc.), and then started taking advantage of all the free books that are available every day. Even though I had yet to buy an actual Kindle, I started hoarding downloading free books each morning and reading them each night on my computer. What a great deal!

I've accumulated a huge collection of ebooks - some of which I actually bought - and now I'm just about ready to buy my first Kindle. I'm more interested in long battery life than a color display or the ability to surf the web, so it won't be a Fire. I just want to read books.

So what would be the ideal way to manage a really large collection of Kindle books? Does anyone make some kind of wireless, stand-alone storage device that can hold my entire collection (which will doubtless continue to grow) and can communicate wirelessly with a Kindle? And is there a particular Kindle model I should buy to make this happen?

Thanks in advance for your replies.


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## NightGoat (Feb 2, 2011)

Well, if you're getting a Kindle all of your Amazon books are going to be available to the device from Amazon's cloud. You can even email books/documents to your device through Amazon.

The only time I've used a wirelessly accessible device was to use Calibre (installed on a PC) as an ebook server to get books onto my iPad or Android tablet. So, for Kindle and Kindle purchased or freebies, no extra device is required.


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## chilady1 (Jun 9, 2009)

One word - CALIBRE.  It has made managing my very large book collection easier.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I find the tools on Amazon to be sufficient for me.

There's MYK. . .you can search and see what you have, delete books you no longer want or send them to different devices.

Then there's "your collection" which actually has ALL media you've purchased from Amazon. . .you can limit it to just ebooks if you wish. It's the easiest way to see at a glance when you purchased things; you can order from earliest to latest and vice versa.  And put in ratings for your own information.  If you use the 'rate and share' feature at the end of a book -- available on newer Kindle models -- those ratings will be logged in "your collection" if you have it set to do so.  

At the top of that page is a link to "kindle.amazon.com" which links to 'your media library' which allows some further sorting.

They're slowly improving things so these databases are all working together better and better.  It's enough for me.  I don't see a need to export anything to a third party application.

Oh, I should say, though, that Shelfari, an online book community, also allows full importation of Amazon content and it has a few more features that many find useful.  Kinda like Goodreads, as I understand it.  I'm a 'member', but don't really use it, though, so you'd probably get better intel from someone else. 

I like to use www.fictfact.com, a completely separate site, to keep track of the series I'm reading.  (They also have a free monthly Kindle give away.  )  You can rate things there too; not sure if it goes back to your Amazon account or not; I suspect not.  I think it's just for their community.

There's also


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

I use Calibre and really like it.  Among other things, it lets  you alter metadata on books when the publisher has incorrectly formatted the author's name, etc.  

Speaking of Calibre: does anyone know if Calibre can do different databases?  I am keeping a separate database of books for my parents - and it's annoying to have their books (which are of no interest to me) mixed in with my books.  Can one separate them somehow within Calibre?


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

DYB said:


> I use Calibre and really like it. Among other things, it lets you alter metadata on books when the publisher has incorrectly formatted the author's name, etc.
> 
> Speaking of Calibre: does anyone know if Calibre can do different databases? I am keeping a separate database of books for my parents - and it's annoying to have their books (which are of no interest to me) mixed in with my books. Can one separate them somehow within Calibre?


Yes, you can have as many libraries as you want in calibre. Click on the arrow at the lower right of the library icon and choose 'switch/create library', type in the path name and library name you want to save it as and check the box next to 'create new empty library'. You might also want to check 'copy structure from existing library' too.

Once you've saved your new library you can go back and forth between libraries using the same menu - they'll appear lower down. Go to your current library, select the books you want to move, right click on any of the ones you've selected and choose 'copy to library' and a list of the other libraries appears and you choose where to copy. You can also delete them from the current library at the same time.


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## Morf (Nov 18, 2010)

Ian Marks said:


> Does anyone make some kind of wireless, stand-alone storage device that can hold my entire collection (which will doubtless continue to grow) and can communicate wirelessly with a Kindle? And is there a particular Kindle model I should buy to make this happen?
> 
> Thanks in advance for your replies.


To finish the Calibre selling job , as NightGoat mentioned, Calibre can more-or-less do the wireless bit as well!

There is a web server in Calibre, so if you have Calibre installed on your PC with all the books in the library, you can browse the library from your Kindle using a wifi connection through your home router to your PC and download books directly from it.

The setup is a little complicated, but well explained on the Calibre website. If you try and have problems, feel free to post and we'll try to help!


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

Linjeakel said:


> Yes, you can have as many libraries as you want in calibre. Click on the arrow at the lower right of the library icon and choose 'switch/create library', type in the path name and library name you want to save it as and check the box next to 'create new empty library'. You might also want to check 'copy structure from existing library' too.
> 
> Once you've saved your new library you can go back and forth between libraries using the same menu - they'll appear lower down. Go to your current library, select the books you want to move, right click on any of the ones you've selected and choose 'copy to library' and a list of the other libraries appears and you choose where to copy. You can also delete them from the current library at the same time.


Awesome! Thanks!


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