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#1 |
dog ear
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Managing physical books with an electronic format as well? Merge?
Looking for some group input on cataloging practice -- sortof an edition vs. work taxonomy problem.
Some years ago I merged up my physical catalog (3555 books) into my Calibre catalog. I wanted to ensure the actual paper ISBN remained uncorrupted, so I added a "paperisbn" column. (Also, though not perfectly maintained, I also have a "PBook" tag, and for many, a shelving location tag. #paperisbn:true is the absolute source of truth, though.) Today, if I have a digital copy as well (about 1500 of those), I've got it in a separate row -- but then attributes that are more about the work vs. the instance. e.g. read flag, rating, etc., are harder to maintain, sort, etc. Wondering if any of you have experience with merging or not-merging this sort of catalog entry, or thoughts on what I might gain or lose. Thanks. |
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#2 |
the rook, bossing Never.
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Each different paper edition has a different ISBN. If an equivalent ebook has an ISBN (it might not, they don't need them) it will always be different from all the ISBNs for paper editions.
I makes sense to "merge" different electronic formats that have the exact same content (like conversions). Really Calibre is a Catalogue, not a library, when anything other than ebooks that transfer to an ereader is considered. PDFs versions of a real ebook are a special case and PDF only versions are a special case. Better to keep paper & electronic entries separate. I'd even have separate entries for different paper formats, never mind different editions. |
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#3 |
Custom User Title
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For me, it depends on the book itself. If the edition is sufficiently different (mostly case for public-domain stuff) I keep them separately.
But if it's the same publisher and I got the eBook to supplement (or replace - I've lost books to mold or my cats getting happy with their claws) my paper copy I keep them together. |
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#4 | ||
dog ear
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Quote:
Quote:
That leaves a problem of denormalized and diverging data on the separate editions, though. As a practical example, let's say I have Code:
Author Title isbn paperisbn Read Tags Marcus Aurelius Meditations 123456789X 123456789X 1/1/2001 PBook Marcus Aurelius Meditations 2345678910 Daniel Keys Moran The Long Run 3456789012 |
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#5 | |
dog ear
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Quote:
In that theory, using my previous example, I might have Code:
Author Title isbn paperisbn Read Tags formats Marcus Aurelius Meditations 2345678910 123456789X 1/1/2001 PBook epub Daniel Keys Moran The Long Run 3456789012 mobi Code:
Author Title isbn paperisbn Read Tags formats Marcus Aurelius & Gregory Hays Meditations 2345678910 123456789X 1/1/2001 PBook epub Marcus Aurelius & Martin Hammond Meditations 4567890123 Marcus Aurelius & C.R. Haines Meditations 5678901234 1/2/2002 epub Daniel Keys Moran The Long Run 3456789012 mobi |
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#6 |
Custom User Title
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Check the Find Duplicates plugin. You can either use it to outright search duplicates, or mark as exempt and view the exemptions. This makes tracking down the books for changing read status a bit less tedious.
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#7 |
the rook, bossing Never.
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Use "Export" and make a backup. Then to be sure to be sure make a copy of the "Calibre Library", and all sub-directories, or whatever it's called. Store those on something else (like USB stick, SD card, USB HDD, another PC, but probably not a Cloud Service unless it's your own hosting and a private subdirectory).
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#8 | |
dog ear
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Quote:
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isbn, library management |
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