Create portable libraries by embedding metadata in Calibre

https://test.roelof.info/portable-libraries.html

An article by Roel Roscam Abbing on embedding metadata in files shared with Calibre (not calibre-web).

A snippet from the article:

"Tools like Calibre make it possible to organize digital publications into meaningful collections by adding a wealth of metadata to files. This makes it possible to organize and search publications according to theme, publisher, authors, year and more. There is also a ‘description’ field which allow for comments of different kinds, such as an abstract of the publication, or personal notes on its (ir)relevance. A well-tended collection which has been thoughtfully annotated can become a valuable research tool for individual or collective researchers.

The big downside however is that the annotations exist separately from the files in question. This means that if the document in question is shared, the rich annotations are lost. This is because by default Calibre saves all the meta-data in a separate file. It is however possible to embed metadata in digital publications, doing so can help turn a folder of PDFs into a portable library. This article will show how this can be done and discuss the benefits and potential downsides."