Project DO Progress - I LOVE Calibre!

Calibre screenshot - isn't it cool?

Now that I’ve used this oh-so-cool ebook database management system for nearly a week, I have to say that I’m in love - Calibre has truly changed my life! After my initial failure and reinstall, I’ve been proceeding cautiously and performing small-scale tests instead of racing ahead all willy-nilly. And it’s worked – I haven’t had a single catastrophe!

As I said in a previous post, my first Project DO area of focus is my computer files. With over a thousand PDF documents on my hard drive, I was never able to find anything I wanted IF I even remembered a specific file was there. For the most part, all the ebooks and digital patterns I’ve downloaded over the past several years were lost to me.  And it’s not because I didn’t try – on several occasions, I tried to implement an organizational structure but nothing worked for long.

With Calibre, knowing what I have and finding it is no longer a problem. And I figured out the program doesn’t know or care if what I add is an ebook. It’s a database, after all – all it wants is data. So I made some separate libraries for my hardcopy books, as well. How clever is that? Of course, I can’t read the hardcopy books on Calibre but I can browse through them cover by cover and decide which one I want without taking them all off the shelves.  (And I can also make a note right in the database if I loan them out and to whom.)

Project DO Progress - Week 1

Well, without boring everyone by further singing Calibre’s praises (I’ve already alienated all my peeps here at home), I’ll get right to my progress. During this first week of Project DO, I have successfully organized:

·         261 Kindle ebooks

·         211 other ebooks

·         206 quilt/sew/craft ebooks and digital patterns (lots more to do)

·         48 digital magazines

·         147 hardcopy quilting/sewing/craft books

·         29 other hardcopy books (I’m just getting started)

Rather than having everything in one library, I figured it would be best to have the books separated by type (digital vs. hardcopy) and broad category (quilt/sew/craft vs. all else) so I made several libraries. So far, this has worked splendidly – I couldn’t be more thrilled! If I change my mind, however, it’s easy-peasy to copy or move them to another library.

Although I’ve made great progress, I still have much to do so it’s a good thing I’m closer to the beginning of the month than to the end. Although I’ve got most of my hardcopy quilt/sew/craft books entered, I’ve barely scratched the surface on all other types of hardcopy books. My Kindle for PC book list is up to date and I think I’ve got most of my other ebooks found and moved to Calibre, but I’m probably only halfway through the digital quilt/sew/craft books and patterns. And now that I have Calibre, there’s no reason not to download more! This could be never ending…