Personal Library management

From MobileRead

Managing your personal library of eBooks or even regular books can become a daunting task. This page is intended to provide some solutions to the problem.

[edit] Home Library

Do you have an extensive eBook Library? How about printed books? Home Library aims to provide a top-quality eBook management software solution, powerful enough to handle any situation, but simple enough that anyone can use it. But, Home Library is not only for eBooks--it works to organize printed texts as well. Perform keyword searches on your collection, keep companion content handy, and easily backup your library for safe-keeping.

Planned features include:

• Self-contained library -- All electronic media (ebooks, supplemental materials, etc.) is copied to a separate directory, to keep everything centralized and managed.
• Automatic information retrieval -- Through the use of Amazon's Web Services, book information can be automatically retrieved, just by entering the book's ISBN.
• Find similar books -- Find books that may be similar to ones already in your library.
• Support for any document format -- The actual format of an ebook doesn't matter to Home Library. It can deal with whatever by simply opening it in the system's associated application.
• Library backup/restore -- A user's entire library can be backed up into a compressed archive, and later restored (either to the same system, or a new computer).
• eBook export -- ebook files may be exported to a new file, named according to the book's title/authors/publisher/publication date, with user-customizable formatting.
• Batch eBook import -- Add multiple files, or entire folders, in one go.
• Attach supplementary materials -- supplementary materials (such as zip files, CD ISO images, etc.) may be attached to book entries.
• Full-text search capabilities -- electronic media is indexed, and the actual contents of files are used in searches.
• Auto ISBN retrieval -- file names (and perhaps even file contents) are scanned for potential ISBN's.
• Categorized browsing -- books can be categorized, like folders on a computer. A single book may appear in multiple categories.
• Library index -- a file can be created containing all books in a particular category, organized by book (listed in alphabetic order), or by author (each author listed alphabetically, with their books under them).

[edit] Combination Solutions

Reading and conversion software can also provide for personal library management. Tools that fall into this category include:

• Calibre - extensive management and conversion for Sony LRF files and others.
• GEB Librarian - provides management and conversion for RB and IMP files.