Calibre-An Elegant E-Book Librarian

Regardless of your take on the iPad as a do-everything replacement device for laptops and netbooks, other e-book readers (EBRs) are gaining a substantial foothold. Devices such as the Kindle and the Nook provide access to volumes of literature and documents without having to lug a fully-functional computer around.



However, EBRs do not completely replace the need for notebooks and netbooks. Depending on your specific needs, both laptop/netbook-based EBR software and a stand-alone e-book device can be indispensable for portable access to work-related and recreational reading. A Linux app called "Calibre" bridges the gap between both reading devices.
Calibre is a free, cross-platform e-book library management application for Linux, OS X and Windows. This open source app goes far beyond letting you access your collection of e-books on a computer. In many ways, Calibre does for e-books what other Linux apps do for your digital picture libraries and music collections.
My first exposure to e-books other than those distributed in PDF format was a handy EBR app called "FBReader,", a free e-book reader that runs on Linux desktop and portable computers. It is a handy program for accessing the thousands of free titles of literature stored on the Internet. It works great as a basic EBR, but its functionality is limited to that narrow focus.
I discovered Calibre while searching for a program that converted e-book formats to the .fb2 code that the FBReader uses. Do not try out Calibre if you are looking for an app to break the Digital Rights Management (DRM) lock some publishers use to protect the purchase price of ebooks they sell. Calibre will not help you there.