this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2024
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I assumed everyone was using Calibre, but recent searches suggest that isn't always the case

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[–] lud@lemm.ee 13 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Honest question. Why host them? Finishing one book can take a while and they are incredibly small.

I just use calibre and sync with my e reader and phone occasionally.

[–] LynneOfFlowers@midwest.social 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

For me (I use Kavita) it’s because I want to be able to just pick up whatever device is in front of me at the moment and pick up the book where I last left off even if it was on another device

[–] lud@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago

Syncing progress seems like a very good reason for hosting. I didn't think of that.

Thanks!

[–] zeekaran@sopuli.xyz 2 points 10 months ago

Download whenever I feel like it. Share them.

[–] tenebrisnox@feddit.uk 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I do the same thing. I’ve tried Kavita and Audiobookshelf and ended up just keeping the books on a network share and then accessing them through Calibre. I am sideloading to a Kindle though.

[–] jjakc@lemthony.com 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

You can use calibre-web to send to your Kindle email. They will appear in the Kindle as "Documents"

[–] sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf 1 points 10 months ago

Because I have a really cool library and it should all be kept in a centralised place

[–] JVT038@feddit.nl 11 points 10 months ago (2 children)
[–] pezhore@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 months ago

This is the right answer. I have dockerized Calibre and Calibre-Web for initial intake, then use Calibre-Web's OPDS feed with my Moon+ Android app for reading on my tablet/phone.

Calibre handles type conversions, metadata sync, and file organization.

Calibre-Web works well for browser reading on my PC.

[–] nis@feddit.dk 2 points 10 months ago

Same here. My Kobo Libre 2 syncs with it over Wifi. It's nice.

[–] lemming741@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Does it work for ePUBs too or just audio books?

[–] lemming741@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Yup. It's got built in browser based text reader and an audio player.

FYI, readarr needs separate instances for audio and text. Wasn't worth the hassle for me

[–] thechadwick@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Academics focused, but Zotero indexing a large cloud storage drive.

Let's things organized by subject, tag, author, title, or whatever else I want. Also keeps my notes all in one place. Huge huge proponent and it's open source!

[–] sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Never heard of Zotero before, it seems to be quite capable

[–] thechadwick@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

The best thing is adding the metadata of a book by ISBN. That or simply search it on worldcat.org and adding by the browser extension.

Phenomenal citations manager.

[–] keyez@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

I use Kavita and KavitaEmail to organize and have a frontend for my books, and the latter to email them to my kindle if it's not on there yet. My kavita container is stopped most of the time because I already know what I'm going to read next and just need it up to sync or send new books.

Used to just have my library I exported from Amazon and ebooks com on a single folder on my NAS, kavita helped clean it up a bit.

I also tried audiobookshelf but mostly for audiobooks and podcasts and didnt quite fit my workflow I already had and liked using kavita and Antennapod.

[–] Mycatiskai@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago

Calibre for my Kobo, Librera FD on my phone.

[–] bitwolf@lemmy.one 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I tried Kavita but it didn't have the features I needed. I ended up just throwing them on Nextcloud and using Nextcloud sync onto my reader (Box Air 3c)

[–] sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf 1 points 9 months ago

What features did you need?

[–] falcon15500@lemmy.nine-hells.net 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I am using Calibre-Web mostly - but I have run into issues with thumbnail generation after my collection hit around 500000 books. I am just over 600000 now, but a large swathe don't have thumbnails unless I do a manual metadata search. I should probably look for an alternative, but at this point I CBF.

[–] sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf 1 points 10 months ago

Over half a million books? I'm so envious!

[–] jozza@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I'm just here to lurk and see what others say, as I've used Calibre in the past and it didn't really do the job I was hoping it would.

[–] Scrath@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Same. My organization scheme heavily relies on calibres custom columns and export schemas though so it would be hard for me to switch anyway.

The only 2 things I dislike about calibre are the lack of a server based version and the inability to assign a book to multiple series

[–] sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf 1 points 10 months ago

Yeah, I just want something that looks good, can link works by authors and shared universes and can sync reading progress across devices.

[–] rockhandle@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Why lol? The library interface is great and it can manage multiple users. I haven't used it for book hosting, but I am trying to keep an eye out

[–] rockhandle@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I know, it's just the fact that I use it for pretty much all of my media that I find kinda funny. Goes to show, it's really an amazing program tho.

[–] sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf 1 points 10 months ago

Yep, Jellyfin is super underrated.