PDF Library Manager Suggestions?

[canpolat]

I have scanned some of the very old books I had (which are unlikely to be published as e-books in the near future) and am looking for a tool to keep track of them (and hopefully add some additional metadata which is not possible to add directly into the files).

Calibri, I guess, is the first tool that comes to mind. But its strict folder structure renders it unusable to me. I want to keep all my files in a folder (or construct my own structure, but I don't want the hierarchical structure dictated by a Calibre). Here are some initial requirements:

The tool is able to:

1. Scan a folder and index all the PDF files in that folder
2. (Optional) Parse the metadata of the PDF files
3. Keep additional metadata entered by the user (fetching from web s also OK, but for the books I have I doubt it will be of any use)
4. (Optional) Update relevant metadata according to user input

Support for no other file format is required. Ideally the tool should be free software (as in freedom).

Any suggestions?

[canpolat]

The only tool I could find so far is eLibrary (http://openelibrary.org/). But it has many problems:

1. It doesn't seem to be maintained any more. And the latest source code on the development branch doesn't even compile in Visual Studio 2012 (it may compile with an older version, I haven't checked it).
2. The user interface is not intuitive at all: it has many useless steps when importing data from the web (Google Books); you have to click through all the books when importing a folder so importing folders with many files is very difficult.
3. Some of the tool-tips are missing and some of them are wrong. This makes the UI even more confusing.

It looks like the developer put quite some effort into this project, but didn't have time to clean things up. Perhaps it may be useful for very small libraries. I'll keep looking for alternatives...

[BetterRed]

if your still looking have a look at Citavi - there's a free version

BR

[absk82]

Canpolat,
I would like to mention https://register.blib.us to you, which does exactly what you mentioned along with several other features (and it is free).
I am one of the developers. If you do end up checking it out, please let me know if there is anything that I can help with or any feature that you think would make the deal for you.

Thanks,
Abhishek

[canpolat]

@absk82, Blib looks like a decent service. But I was looking for a desktop application. I don't want to upload all my files to cloud just for having a catalog. But thank you for the suggestion.

[absk82]

We do have a desktop application as well, but we have not released it yet. We will be releasing it very soon.

[canpolat]

Sounds interesting. Please keep us posted.

[petike1]

I'm a developer of a free desktop software. Maybe it could help you: http://mediamant.com

This is the very first version, there are a few glitches here and there, but it works with my large library reasonably well.

[canpolat]

Originally Posted by petike1

I'm a developer of a free desktop software. Maybe it could help you: http://mediamant.com

This is the very first version, there are a few glitches here and there, but it works with my large library reasonably well.

Hi Peter,

From the video on the main page, your program seems to do many of the things I had in mind. I generally don't care where my books are located. I would rather give the program a bunch of folders and expect it to rescan it (on demand). So, if it used attributes like book title, author and publisher for displaying the books, I think it would better fit my needs. The tagging looks pretty neat, though.

Are you planning to release the source code of the program under a free license so that others can contribute?

[petike1]

Originally Posted by canpolat

Hi Peter,

From the video on the main page, your program seems to do many of the things I had in mind. I generally don't care where my books are located. I would rather give the program a bunch of folders and expect it to rescan it (on demand). So, if it used attributes like book title, author and publisher for displaying the books, I think it would better fit my needs. The tagging looks pretty neat, though.

Are you planning to release the source code of the program under a free license so that others can contribute?

My plan is to mix the tags and attributes in a flexible way. In the video you can see them as tags, but the parts separated by colons are separated in the database too.

In the next version you can say "show me 'book title:' and 'publisher:' tags as columns in the grid". The part before the colon will be the header, the part after the colon will be the value in the grid.

That way you can create custom attributes on the fly. "Drummer:" for music "Director:" for movies, as you see fit.

I have thought of open sourcing it, but for the time being I would like to move forward with it alone to get it into shape, to create the DNA for further developement.

[canpolat]

^ Sounds cool. Looking forward to further development of the tool. Please keep us posted.