Book metadata

[brothom 177]

I've been trying to get my books digitised but I'm having the simple issue of not being able to "search" for meta data for any of my books.

I have a library of type Books at X:\Books which has a file, for example X:\Books\Foundation (1951)\Foundation (1951).epub.

The item is indexed as the file name and updating the meta data does nothing. Identifying the item always returns "no results".

Am I doing something wrong? Do libraries of type book not support identification? Do I need an additional plugin?

[GrimReaper 4739]

9 minutes ago, brothom said:

Do I need an additional plugin?

Have you tried installing OpenLibrary plugin from the Catalogue? 

[brothom 177]

6 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

Have you tried installing OpenLibrary plugin from the Catalogue? 

Weird, I can't find any plugin containing "library" or "open" or "book" within the Catalog. Under which category should it be, Metadata? It's annoying there's no search bar for plugins.

Nevermind I managed to find it by just slowly scrolling through the list. I'll check it out and come back here if I still can't figure it out.

Edited July 18, 2025 by brothom
Typo

[brothom 177]

Okay even after installing Open Library meta data still can't be found and according to the logs the cause is simple.

2025-07-18 14:07:49.360 Info HttpClient: GET https://openlibrary.org/search.json?fields=isbn,key,cover_edition_key,lending_edition_s,author_key,publish_date,publish_year,title,author_name,cover_i&title=Foundation (1951)

This causes a book called Byron and Shelley (Byron Foundation Lecture, 1951.) to be found. Because the word "Foundation" and the word "1951" are both found in the title.

Searching without the year:

https://openlibrary.org/search.json?fields=isbn,key,cover_edition_key,lending_edition_s,author_key,publish_date,publish_year,title,author_name,cover_i&title=Foundation

Immediately returns Foundation (1951): So I changed both the folder and filename to exclude the year and the book is now matched.

The same goes for another book.

X:\Books\The Great Explosion (1963)\The Great Explosion (1963).epub (no result)

https://openlibrary.org/search.json?fields=isbn,key,cover_edition_key,lending_edition_s,author_key,publish_date,publish_year,title,author_name,cover_i&title=The Great Explosion (1963)

X:\Books\The Great Explosion (1963)\The Great Explosion.epub (result!)

https://openlibrary.org/search.json?fields=isbn,key,cover_edition_key,lending_edition_s,author_key,publish_date,publish_year,title,author_name,cover_i&title=The Great Explosion (1963)

X:\Books\The Great Explosion (1963).epub (no result)

https://openlibrary.org/search.json?fields=isbn,key,cover_edition_key,lending_edition_s,author_key,publish_date,publish_year,title,author_name,cover_i&title=The Great Explosion (1963)

So it seems the naming conventions for Book Naming (https://emby.media/support/articles/Book-Naming.html#:~:text=For books%2C it is recommended,generally yield the best results.) don't really add up - adding the year to the file makes it so Emby basically never finds the item via openlibrary because it adds the year to the title.

 

Edited July 18, 2025 by brothom

[Luke 42077]

On 7/18/2025 at 8:33 AM, brothom said:

Okay even after installing Open Library meta data still can't be found and according to the logs the cause is simple.

2025-07-18 14:07:49.360 Info HttpClient: GET https://openlibrary.org/search.json?fields=isbn,key,cover_edition_key,lending_edition_s,author_key,publish_date,publish_year,title,author_name,cover_i&title=Foundation (1951)

This causes a book called Byron and Shelley (Byron Foundation Lecture, 1951.) to be found. Because the word "Foundation" and the word "1951" are both found in the title.

Searching without the year:

https://openlibrary.org/search.json?fields=isbn,key,cover_edition_key,lending_edition_s,author_key,publish_date,publish_year,title,author_name,cover_i&title=Foundation

Immediately returns Foundation (1951): So I changed both the folder and filename to exclude the year and the book is now matched.

The same goes for another book.

X:\Books\The Great Explosion (1963)\The Great Explosion (1963).epub (no result)

https://openlibrary.org/search.json?fields=isbn,key,cover_edition_key,lending_edition_s,author_key,publish_date,publish_year,title,author_name,cover_i&title=The Great Explosion (1963)

X:\Books\The Great Explosion (1963)\The Great Explosion.epub (result!)

https://openlibrary.org/search.json?fields=isbn,key,cover_edition_key,lending_edition_s,author_key,publish_date,publish_year,title,author_name,cover_i&title=The Great Explosion (1963)

X:\Books\The Great Explosion (1963).epub (no result)

https://openlibrary.org/search.json?fields=isbn,key,cover_edition_key,lending_edition_s,author_key,publish_date,publish_year,title,author_name,cover_i&title=The Great Explosion (1963)

So it seems the naming conventions for Book Naming (https://emby.media/support/articles/Book-Naming.html#:~:text=For books%2C it is recommended,generally yield the best results.) don't really add up - adding the year to the file makes it so Emby basically never finds the item via openlibrary because it adds the year to the title.

 

Yes we need to start parsing the year out of the name. Thanks.