Electronic Books, E-Readers and Library Management

[TopCatUK2]

Hi all.

Just been reading some stuff on the 'Lists' forum, which lead me to think about this.

I have a vast amount of PDF's etc that I need to sort and I have a Sony E-Reader (trust me, from what I have seen and tried to help people with, MUCH better that a Kindle).

I use Calibre as my library management software for my e-books as it is free to download and seem to be updated every couple of weeks or so. There are forums for it's use and you can also log support tickets if necessary. In addition, you can create you own columns, tags etc. Another advantage of tis is if you acquire a book in,for example epub format, but you need to convert it to mobi format, Calibre will do this for you.

http://calibre-ebook.com
.
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=166


Although I agree that it is a very good idea to have printed versions of stuff, I have so many electronic resources that need sorting and reviewing for good/bad/erase, Calibre is going to be my best bet for now. I've already put a few bits in my library (erm...book addict so I have about 13,000 e-books of non-prepper stuff) and thanks to the flexibility of Calibre, I created a 'Genre' column, so I can sort via Prepping or Survival in that column and then in the 'Tags' column, I would start with non-fiction, prepping, survival...and then add more individual tags such as water purification, water storage, food storage, food dehydration, canning, fire making, gardening, etc etc. This way I can search via keyword in Calibre for the appropriate subject.

Of course, the weakness in this prep is that I do not yet have any kit or knowledge on acquiring the right kind of kit to support my laptob and ebook reader ie the right kind of solar charger, battery and inverter. My sole historical technical knowledge is that of building and supporting pc's and that is pretty much fading as my job's have been around application support and systems/business analysis in the last 6 years, rather than hardware.

I think I've set myself rather a mammoth task, but feel it will be worth it, as I've been reading things like '98.6 Degrees' by Cody Lundin and 'Self-Sufficiency' Abigail Gehring on e-book in last couple of weeks, in between fluffly fiction stuff.

Any thoughts, comments, suggestions on different e-books, library management systems, e-book readers etc? Organisation strategies, must have books?

[pigeonsniper]

Hi all.

Just been reading some stuff on the 'Lists' forum, which lead me to think about this.

I have a vast amount of PDF's etc that I need to sort and I have a Sony E-Reader (trust me, from what I have seen and tried to help people with, MUCH better that a Kindle).

I use Calibre as my library management software for my e-books as it is free to download and seem to be updated every couple of weeks or so. There are forums for it's use and you can also log support tickets if necessary. In addition, you can create you own columns, tags etc. Another advantage of tis is if you acquire a book in,for example epub format, but you need to convert it to mobi format, Calibre will do this for you.

http://calibre-ebook.com
.
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=166


Although I agree that it is a very good idea to have printed versions of stuff, I have so many electronic resources that need sorting and reviewing for good/bad/erase, Calibre is going to be my best bet for now. I've already put a few bits in my library (erm...book addict so I have about 13,000 e-books of non-prepper stuff) and thanks to the flexibility of Calibre, I created a 'Genre' column, so I can sort via Prepping or Survival in that column and then in the 'Tags' column, I would start with non-fiction, prepping, survival...and then add more individual tags such as water purification, water storage, food storage, food dehydration, canning, fire making, gardening, etc etc. This way I can search via keyword in Calibre for the appropriate subject.

Of course, the weakness in this prep is that I do not yet have any kit or knowledge on acquiring the right kind of kit to support my laptob and ebook reader ie the right kind of solar charger, battery and inverter. My sole historical technical knowledge is that of building and supporting pc's and that is pretty much fading as my job's have been around application support and systems/business analysis in the last 6 years, rather than hardware.

I think I've set myself rather a mammoth task, but feel it will be worth it, as I've been reading things like '98.6 Degrees' by Cody Lundin and 'Self-Sufficiency' Abigail Gehring on e-book in last couple of weeks, in between fluffly fiction stuff.

Any thoughts, comments, suggestions on different e-books, library management systems, e-book readers etc? Organisation strategies, must have books?

I totally get where you're coming from here. Too much stuff to print but it could always come in handy and its easy to search using an e-reader. I keep mine on my Ipad and I'm intending to get a solar charger like this one
http://www.paramountzone.com/mobile-charger.htm . My Ipad is also useful for mapping and GPS stuff and if I switch the wifi and GSM off the battery life lasts longer. I realise that there is some risk involved but it's something I'd use alongside other "off-grid" methods. If you know anything about bittorrents then you can find some useful stuff online, it's mostly American orientated but it's useful nonetheless.

[tanstaafl]

I am totally with you on this subject and keep everything on my readers but disagree with you about the Kindle and think it is the best way to go.

Leaving aside the fact that you can have a kindle app on anything these days ( I have the app on my tablet, phone, laptop and my 2 kindles )
and the new apps that allow me to right click any document or webpage and "Send to Kindle", you can even right click on this very thread and send material to your kindle.

The main "Prepper" thing that the Kindle has going for it is time between charging, if I turn off WiFi I can get up to 4 weeks use from my work kindle (stays in my locker at work and is used daily) and I expect that if I just use it for information use (ie not reading novels) I could get longer.


I am looking at a solar charger but with a 4 week+ charge anything short of TEOTWAWKI I doubt I will need one.

[Bladerunner]

I'm after a good hand crank charger for my kindle as well.
I have looked at a few but they don't seem to generate enough power in a short enough time.
Anyone have any ideas or suggestions?
I would prefer a hand crank over solar if possible.
I already have a couple of small solar chargers.
I found this one but an engineer friend of mine said it wouldn't be that good.
Does anyone have a different opinion or even own one?

http://www.k-tor.com/hand-crank-generator/

Be lucky

[Steve R]

I have printed off several of my prepper ebooks using Calibre as a hard copy back up.

[tc556guy]

My electronic books consist largely of PDFs, with a sprinkling of video, Word docs, etc.

Currently something in the area of 70 gigs of information.

I developed through trial and error a system of categorizing that I think works for me and will be most likely to get me to a particular text in the event I'm looking for information on a topic.

[Slazanger]

My electronic books consist largely of PDFs, with a sprinkling of video, Word docs, etc.

Currently something in the area of 70 gigs of information.

I developed through trial and error a system of categorizing that I think works for me and will be most likely to get me to a particular text in the event I'm looking for information on a topic.

Are you using Calibre or some other software to manage it ? I have a lot of work related pdfs and what not and thats getting a bit messy, and thats only getting worse as i add sci-fi and gardening into the pile!

[tc556guy]

Are you using Calibre or some other software to manage it ? I have a lot of work related pdfs and what not and thats getting a bit messy, and thats only getting worse as i add sci-fi and gardening into the pile!

No, nothing that fancy. Its simply a folder -within a folder within a folder system that's good enough for me to drill down from general topics to specific areas to find a PDF on a particular topic within a few seconds.