In a previous ProfHacker post, Amy introduced Calibre, a free and open-source program, which allows users to manage their e-book libraries. As Amy pointed out, Calibre allows you to convert content from various internet sources such as Project Gutenberg into the appropriate format for your e-reader, whether it is a Kindle, a Nook, a Sony, or something else.
One of my favorite features of Calibre its ability to download content from various news sources and RSS feeds. Basically, this program not only allows you to convert an e-book formatted for one proprietary device to another, but it will also grab material from an incredible number of web-based news sources and download it to your e-reader free of charge. For example, you might opt to download the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, The New Yorker, The Huffington Post, The Onion, or even the Yakima Herald-Republic. There are more than 300 options to choose from in English, and these are complimented by additional offering in languages other than English including Chinese, Japanese, Czech, German, French and many others (and additional sources in English from countries outside of the United States).
This feature can be terrific if you have a daily commute to work but don’t want to have to manage a newspaper, or if you’d like to load up your e-reader with current news to read on an airplane. Another benefit of the news feature is that users can schedule a regular download of their favorite feeds. There is just one catch: you need to keep the program running for the schedule feature to work. If you close Calibre, the scheduling feature is de-activated. Assuming that you keep the program open on your computer, however, you could schedule caliber to download a daily edition of the Washington Post to your computer.
When Calibre has fetched your favorite news, all you need to do is connect your e-reader to your computer. The program detects the e-reader and automatically downloads new content to the device.
Once the news content is on your e-reader, it will show up in the table of contents along with all of your other content. Selecting the New York Review of Books will bring up the first article in the publication, but readers also have the option of selecting the table of contents for the feed and then choosing the articles that interest them.
Finally, if there is a news source that you would like to have included, there are easy instructions on how to create a “recipe” for adding it to the Calibre repertoire as long as the source has an RSS feed. In fact, I was able to create a custom recipe for ProfHacker in just a few minutes.
For the more tech-savvy among us, the user guide also includes more complicated instructions for creating more sophisticated recipes that can customize the feeds in different ways. Be warned, however, that these instructions involve tapping into the recipe framework and getting your hands dirty with coding (Calibre recipes use Python).
In short, if you have an e-reader (or a SmartPhone with an e-reader app) and haven’t tried Calibre, it’s worth checking out.
[Creative-Commons licensed image from Flickr user cdsessums].
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7 Responses to Calibre Revisited
flowney - February 4, 2011 at 5:12 pm
Extending the value of RSS feeds further is Calibre’s built-in server. So if you didn’t get the chance to connect your mobile device to the machine on which Calibre runs, no problem. You will have access to your library from anywhere you can obtain an Internet connection.
Of course that host machine will need to have a fixed IP and access through whatever firewalls might intervene but this is usually something you can work out with the IT staff. Failing that, one can use DropBox with a third party app called Calibre2opds. The Calibre2opds/DropBox solution is a bit daunting for the non-technical faculty person but its evolving.
matchett - February 7, 2011 at 8:39 am
I’ve used Calibre some but it’s extremely slow and clunky. I work on a Mac — perhaps it runs better on a windows machine?
garysomers - February 7, 2011 at 11:40 am
Is there an open source way to deliver eBooks to an individual’s iPad without going through the Apple store?
george_h_williams - February 7, 2011 at 11:53 am
@garysomers: Yep. Once a book is in ePub format it can be added to iTunes (by which I mean the software that runs on the desktop, not the store through which one makes purchases). Then once you sync your iPad with your computer, those books will be transferred over to the iPad. My iPad, for example, has ePub-formatted books I purchased from O’Reilly, as well as ePub-formatted books I’ve created using Anthologize, a WordPress plugin. [Here's a screenshot of my meager list of books in iTunes.]
You don’t need a WordPress installation just to convert documents, however. Calibre, covered in the post above and in the earlier post that Amy wrote, will output ePub documents: check out their list of supported formats. Once you’ve converted a document to the ePub format, just add it to iTunes and sync your iPad.
oh_richard - February 7, 2011 at 7:10 pm
I find Calibre to be clunky on Windows too. The output/created book also seems to lose a lot of formatting – bold, font sizes, whitespace…
I finally gave up making epub files for my reading and just used pdf – the formatting is exactly what you would think it would be. Not everything can be turned into a PDF… but if you are making something for your students (handouts or a reading assignment), pdf is a better option (imho) than epub.
oh_richard - February 7, 2011 at 7:12 pm
Sorry – one more point. Many pdf readers (free and paid) allow you to sync your files through the itunes software, as well as wirelessly if your computer and ipad/iphone are on the same network. If not, you can sync through DropBox for example, and your ipad/iphone can just pull the file from there…
chrisaldrich - February 8, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Also useful is that Calibre has a built in email function so that those using the Kindle can have their newspapers, blogs, etc. not only scheduled for download, but it can automatically email them to your device and delete them from your desktop library.