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EBook Management (reddthat.com)
submitted 6 months ago by lenuup@reddthat.com to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

I am setting up a new server for my media and wanted to ask for your best ways to manage an ebook and comic collection. I have been using calibre so far, but it is not really designed to be managed remotely.

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[-] hypnotic_nerd@programming.dev 14 points 6 months ago

Try audiobookshelf I use it for both audiobooks and ebooks. It has a best user management and has also mobile apps

[-] Strit@lemmy.linuxuserspace.show 5 points 6 months ago

I agree. Try it. I only have a couple of ebooks in mine, but it's a pretty good experience, even on the mobile app.

[-] skoberlink@lemmy.world 12 points 6 months ago

I tried to avoid Calibre for as long as I could. In my opinion, it's way too opinionated about how everything is organized. Instead of working with you, the user, it forces you into line with how the developer thinks it should work. The developer is also kind of an ass to his community and, as a dev myself, I have some concerns over some of their choices.

All that said, I finally gave in recently and converted to Calibre because there's nothing else that works as well. It's too niche of a space for there to be much competition. To use it remotely - or, more accurately for my use, headless - the docker image I use sets up a VNC viewer to work with the application.

For actually browsing the content that Calibre organizes, I settled on Kavita. There's no competition for Calibre's organization but Kavita is easily the best content browser I've tried. If you've organized and tagged your ebooks with Calibre, it does a great job of making them available on the web and offers an OPDS server as well as the web viewer. I am more into ebooks than comics or manga but I have a few that Kavita also manages well.

[-] code@lemmy.zip 8 points 6 months ago

look at calibreweb for web front end. it is VERY good, It even syncs to my kobo wirelessly. love that app

[-] thirdBreakfast@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago

I've just been down this exact journey, and ended up settling on Kavita. It has all the browse, search and library stuff you'd expect. You can download or read things in the web interface. I'm only using it for epub and PDF books, but its focus is comics and manga so I expect it to shine there.

I don't think it does mobi, but since I use Calibre on my laptop to neaten up covers and metadata before I drop books on to the server it's a simple matter to convert the odd mobi I end up with. Installation (using docker inside an LXC) was simple.

It's been a really straightforward, good experience. Highly recommend. I like it better than AudioBookshelf (which I'm already hosting for audio books) which I also tried, but didn't like as much for inexplicable reasons. I also considered Calibre-Web, but that seemed a bit messy since I guess I'd use Calibre on my laptop to manage my books on a NAS share then serve it headless from the server with Calibre-Web? I might have that completely wrong, I didn't spend any time looking into it because Kavita was the second thing I tried and it did exactly what I wanted.

[-] code@lemmy.zip 4 points 6 months ago

i use calibre on desktop to clean uip library like you. After any updates i sync it to a dir on my nas that calibre web uses. its a really good setup and passes the wife test

[-] thirdBreakfast@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Thanks - I thought it would be something like this I just hadn't made the effort. Calibre-web just runs as a server?

[-] code@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 months ago

Yup. Has an easy docker setup. Also if you have a kobo you can sync your shelfs wirelessly. Love it

[-] wintermute@feddit.de 10 points 6 months ago

Calibre-Web can be used remotely just fine...?

[-] ikidd@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Calibre over Guacamole, Calibreweb, with Openbooks for usenet searching of books.

spoiler

***
version: "2.1"
services:
  calibre:
    image: lscr.io/linuxserver/calibre:latest
    container_name: calibre
    environment:
      - PUID=0
      - PGID=0
      - TZ=America/Denver
    security_opt:
      - seccomp=unconfined
    volumes:
      - ./data:/config
    ports:
      - 7080:8080
      - 7081:8081
    restart: unless-stopped
    labels:
      - com.centurylinklabs.watchtower.enable=true

  calibre-web:
    image: lscr.io/linuxserver/calibre-web:latest
    container_name: calibre-web
    environment:
      - PUID=0
      - PGID=0
      - TZ=America/Denver
      - DOCKER_MODS=linuxserver/mods:universal-calibre #optional
    volumes:
      - ./data/web-config:/config
      - ./data/:/books
#      - ./data/Calibre\ Library:/books
    ports:
      - 7083:8083
    restart: unless-stopped
    labels:
      - com.centurylinklabs.watchtower.enable=true

  openbooks:
    ports:
      - 7082:80
    volumes:
      - './data/:/books'
    restart: unless-stopped
    container_name: calibre-openbooks
#    command: --persist
    command: --name fgddfghjasrtrtcgv --persist
    environment:
      - BASE_PATH=/
    image: evanbuss/openbooks:latest
    labels:
      - com.centurylinklabs.watchtower.enable=true

[-] Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
LXC Linux Containers
NAS Network-Attached Storage
Plex Brand of media server package
VNC Virtual Network Computing for remote desktop access
VPN Virtual Private Network

5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 15 acronyms.

[Thread #347 for this sub, first seen 13th Dec 2023, 10:25] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

[-] tochee@aussie.zone 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

For downloading, I use Readarr or manually download from where I buy the books. A lot of the time the books I buy have DRM so I end up pirating them anyway 🤷. When readarr sends a book to calibre, it tells it to convert it so I've always got epub and mobi available.

For accessing my library, I use calibre-server, which I think comes bundled with the calibre desktop app. It's got a basic web interface for uploading, editing some metadata, and downloading; and an OPDS API which my e-reader can use to download books. If I'm outside my home network I use my VPN to access it because I don't trust calibre to be secure enough for internet exposure lol.

Don't recall why I chose this instead of calibre-web but it works fine for my purposes. I don't read comics though.

[-] Tsubodai@programming.dev 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Similar story here. Readarr (two instances, one for ebooks, another for audio). Calibre server with a watchdir to add books from libgen/elsewhere, and organising stuff. Calibre-web because trying to use calibre server on a phone is painful. WebDAV connection through phone app (Moon+) as a backup (LAN only).

Oh, and Audiobookshelf for the audiobooks, but I generally prefer reading

[-] tochee@aussie.zone 3 points 6 months ago

Ayy Moonreader+, I use that one too. So responsive.

[-] x3i@lemmy.x3i.tech 5 points 6 months ago

I'm currently using Calibre and Audiobookshelf, where the latter is basically just using the folder structure of Calibre with and additional folder for some audiobooks. Works okay but is not the greatest solution. The calibre library web interface is quite nice (not the weird VNC-style admin panel, the one on other port). People also mention lazylibrarian a lot but I never tried it.

[-] DeJaVuLXXXI@lemmy.one 4 points 6 months ago

I’m using the calibre-web version with several kobo ebooks. It pretty good. The best user experience is with the kobo epub format.

[-] sudneo@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

I think lazylibrarian is user to search and download books automatically. Are you using calibre as in the native tool, or calibre-web?

[-] x3i@lemmy.x3i.tech 1 points 6 months ago

Native tool, not the web. So far, I have not felt the need to use anything else; calibre does decent management and connects to my koreader installations on ebook readers, while the abs app handles all interactions with phones. The latter has good wife-approval but the syncing through calibre to readers is complex and not super reliable, so it still requires "admin intervention"

[-] code@lemmy.zip 1 points 6 months ago

yep lazylib for books and mags. that feed calibre which cleans and converts to kepub, then that all is synched to nas for calibre-web

there are people that only use lazylib as it has odps server aswell

[-] fireshell@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I’m currently using Calibre/Calibre-Web and Audiobookshelf for podcasts and audiobooks.

[-] pacoboyd@lemm.ee 3 points 6 months ago

This is my setup. Caliber-Web is nice because it just points to your Calibre application database. It's more robust than the built in web server and I can set it up to sync with my Kobo over wifi.

[-] AbsurdityAccelerator@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

I have komga running in a docker container and the tachiyomi app on my tablet for comics.

[-] PigeonCatcher@l.antiope.link 2 points 6 months ago

Maybe give a try to Readarr. It can download books from BitTorrent network seamlessly.

this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
67 points (97.2% liked)

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