Having trouble accessing e-books & articles in recently added library

[Luke 42078]

Quote

The search for images (magnifying glass) does not return any data, either.

Make sure the book has an isbn filled out in the metadata editor.

[RLanger7228 73]

On 3/28/2025 at 2:27 PM, Luke said:

It does not currently retrieve this. We'll have to look into whether or not open library makes this data available.

Fair enough.  I will wait to hear back from you on that.  Are there other metadata fetchers for books available that also might be added to Emby (like there are several for videos)?

 

On 3/28/2025 at 2:28 PM, Luke said:

Make sure the book has an isbn filled out in the metadata editor.

There is no specific ISBN field in the metadata editor.  I tried including it under tags, but it still doesn't find any images.  Which other field should I try including it?

FEATURE REQUEST: Add a specific ISBN field and an AUTHOR field (& perhaps a PUBLISHER field) for books, or at least add PEOPLE so an author can be selected.  This would also allow a SEARCH by author.  I know you said book features were being worked on, so please include this.

[Luke 42078]

ISBN has been added to the metadata editor as part of the upcoming 4.9 server release. Thanks.

[RLanger7228 73]

11 hours ago, Luke said:

SBN has been added to the metadata editor as part of the upcoming 4.9 server release.

Great!  Is there a listing of other added features included in that release?  Do you have a target date when that release will be available?

[Luke 42078]

hi, no ETA but we're working hard on it. Thanks.

[RLanger7228 73]

On 3/30/2025 at 2:07 PM, Luke said:

hi, no ETA but we're working hard on it.

FOLLOW-UP:  In the absence of a solution, I started manually editing the book Metadata and images.  When I started in on PIERS ANTHONY & ISAAC AZIMOV, I found that all the books I had were IDENTIFIED by Emby (just as the Edgar Rice Borroughs books were), but instead of the Date as the only data imported, it was the book images that got imported.  There was no metadata information at all, except for the book title itself which replaced the file name that had previously filled that field.  I manually edited the Description, Date field and Genres of one book before Identifying it, and that data was wiped clean when Identified, but a book image was added and the Display Name & Sort Name were changed to the imported book title.  Editing the metadata after Identifying left my edited medatata intact.  This held true for all the dozen or so books by these 2 authors I had the chance to Identify & edit today.

It seems kind of odd that the metadata fetcher import different data for different authors (or different dates of publishing?  Bourroughs published in the early 19-teens, Azimov in the 1950's-1980's & Anthony in the 2000's).  All the Identifications showed a book cover before accepting the choice, even the Borroughs books.  So, why would Bourrough's books import the date but no image, then the others imported an image but no date, and NONE imported the description or Genres?  Quite a puzzle.

I seem to excel at finding computer problems that typically have to be escalated to 2nd & 3rd tier support on other platforms, though I suspect that the simple problems solvable by most 1st tier support staff are usually within my level of computer skills.

Any Suggestions?

[Luke 42078]

Hi, this isn’t a puzzle. It imports data based on what you clicked on the identify process. If you don’t find a suitable result then I wouldn’t click on anything. Does that clear things up?

[RLanger7228 73]

Not really.  What I find puzzling is that different books have imported different parts of the metadata for each item: Some date only, some image only, none have imported the item description or genres.  I tried clicking on different items that were showing the proper book cover and they all were missing data.  A few even imported the book title in Spanish, but none of them imported Description or genres.

When I reorganized the book library folders & renamed many of the book files to match Emby naming criteria, a lot of books automatically IDENTIFIED & imported the cover image, but also not the description or genres.

I have basically given up on getting this data automatically and have begun to edit each item manually.  I go to GoodReads.com for the description and copy/paste the description into the book's Emby metadata.  I also get the publish date from there.  I manually add the Genres.  Doing a google image search, I can get an image URL to update the book image.  It's a bit tedious, but fortunately my e-book library is not as large as my other media.

it's frustrating to have to do this much manual editing when the other media seems to import it automatically.

[Luke 42078]

That just depends on what is available on open library.

[RLanger7228 73]

I guess that is the bottom line.  It is just curious why all the data is provided when doing a search on their website (cover image, genres, date & description), but only selected & different items get imported into Emby.  It is what it is - it is just a bit frustrating.

Are there any other metatadata fetchers for books that can be used in Emby?

[Luke 42078]

It's OpenLibrary. An update to the plugin has gone out that should be able to get a description in more cases than before.