Book Collector Manual
for Windows edition
Welcome to Book Collector Download and Install Navigating the Main Screen Adding Books How to search your Collection Adding Books Automatically Adding Books Manually Barcode Scanning Adding e-book Files Search Settings Importing from text Managing your Wish List Importing from Windows/XML Field Defaults Editing Books Editing Multiple Books List Items and more Adding Links and Files Update File Links Find Cover Image Managing Pseudonyms Editing List Icons Adding a Box Set Changing the layout Sorting your Collection Custom Field Names Using Folders Custom Views Edit, Merge List Items Customizing Book Collector Activating Connect Sync & Share Linking your books for Connect CLZ Books for iPhone/iPod CLZ Books for Android CLZ Books HD for iPad Loan Manager Printing a Simple List Lists for insurance purposes Using the Filter screen Updating Book Collector The Options Screen Print screen Keyboard Shortcuts Creating a Backup Data Submission Guidelines Lists for insurance purposes Collection Statistics Validating Book Collector Field Reference
Linking your books for Connect
Before uploading your books to Connect from the Windows or Mac software, you need to "link your books". Let me explain what linking is exactly, and why you need to do it.
Book Collector Connect and Linking
Book Collector is built around the Collectorz.com central online books database. For the online user databases in Connect, all factual book details (like plot summary, nr of pages dimensions, etc...) and cover images are used and shown directly from that central, shared database.
This factual book data is not stored per user. Instead, it is stored only once, in the central database, then linked to for every Connect user that owns that book.
This factual data is not uploaded to Connect when you sync your data from Book Collector. It only uploads your personal data fields like Collection Status, Purchase information, Notes, Rating, etc...), plus the link to the corresponding entry in the central database (basically just the CLZ Book ID of the central entry).
So in order to see full Book details and cover images in Connect, it is essential that your local book entries are linked to the corresponding entries our central database.
Without linking, your book entries will show up as simple Author / Title entries, with just your personal data. No cover image, no plot summary.
How to link your books
First, if you have been using the Add Books Automatically screen to catalog your books, selecting and downloading the data from our online book database, then most of your books will already be linked.You will only need to link the books that you added manually.
The fastest and easiest way to link your books is to use the Link Books screen in your Book Collector program for Windows or Mac. It has been designed to let you link many books quickly. Read the Sync with Connect topic for more information.
Alternatively, you can link while in the Connect online software, by clicking the little link icon. However in Connect, linking can only be done one-by-one.
The advantages of the Linking and Data Sharing system
This system of linking and sharing central data has many advantages:- Automatic Updates: When our content managers update the book information in our central database (e.g. to add a better cover image, to improve the credits list, or to fix a typo), you will immediately see those changes in your online collection.
No need to "Update Books Automatically". You online collection always automatically shows the latest and greatest version of the data and cover art.
- It's FAST: Sharing the factual book data means that its retrieval can be optimized (e.g. by caching), resulting in a smooth experience when browsing your online book collection. Also, uploads from your desktop software are lightning fast, because only your personal data and a simple ID value needs to be uploaded.
- It's efficient: Shared factual book data is only stored once, which means our servers are not clogged by duplicate copies of data and images (that are all the same for every user anyway). This made it possible for our systems to make daily backups of your collection data.
What if a book is not in the Collectorz.com central online book database?
Hopefully this won't happen too often, but here's what you can do to handle this situation and to help us improve our central online book database:
- First, you can upload and keep un-linked books in your Connect collection. Unlinked items will show up online with just Author and Title information. Plus your personal data of course. And if your local entry had a cover image, it will even be uploaded to Connect automatically.
TIP: For books not available in our central database, make sure to include the barcode in your unlinked entry, so that our Content Team can spot popular "un-linked" barcodes and add them to the central database. As soon as they do, your entry will automagically be transformed into a full entry with all book information. - Also, if you *do* have full information for that book, maybe even scanned the cover image, then please Submit it to us for inclusion in our database. You can do this from the Windows edition of Book Collector using Edit / Submit to Collectorz.com.