Calibre - Project DO Secret Weapon

I found out about Calibre (pronounced caliber, btw) just before the New Year. Beings I’ve been particularly frustrated with the ebook mess I’ve created on my Kindle for PC, Cruz Reader and hard drive, Calibre sounded like a godsend. Designed specifically to manage your ebook library regardless of format type, I figured I’d be able to have every ebook in one place, all organized and searchable. Well, hold on a minute – not so fast! You know how things often don’t work out exactly as you'd planned?

So… what went wrong?

I might look and sound like I know what I’m doing computer-wise much of the time but the truth is I often know just enough to get me into really big trouble! And my initial experience with Calibre was no exception.  After downloading Calibre, there I was, enthusiastically moving forward without a clear understanding of…well…anything. This led me to creating a bigger mess rather than cleaning one up, I might add.

So what did I do first? I moved my WHOLE Kindle for PC library onto Calibre. It sounded like a good idea at the time but trust me, it was not! Most likely my method was at fault but there’s no way I can relate how I got to the point of completely eliminating Calibre from my computer but that’s what I ultimately did that first day. (Ok – truth time – it was actually my techie BIL that saved me from myself after several hours of me messing around where I had no business!)

Calibre - back in business

After much thought, I realized that Calibre might still be the answer to my ebook organization problems. I just need to be smart about how I try to use it and what I put in my Calibre Library. Most importantly, I need to become familiar with how it functions before I dump in several hundred books. So, I re-downloaded it and am starting over WITHOUT including any Kindle for PC ebooks. At this point, I’m simply going to use it as a Project DO secret weapon to declutter and organize the countless ebooks littering my hard drive.

If you’d like to give Calibre a try, you can download it from the Calibre site. If you don’t have the Quick Start Guide after it’s all installed on your computer (I did the first time, then I didn’t the second time – still don’t know why) you can download that from the Denver Public Schools website.