# Library Hub

> Your Calibre library as notes in Obsidian, with covers, shelves that stay current, a reading list and summaries.

Library Hub keeps one note for every book in your Calibre library, with its cover. On top of those notes it builds **shelves**: groups of related books that stay current as the library grows. It also keeps a reading list, writes summaries, and proposes fixes to a book's details that you review before anything changes in Calibre.

Calibre stays the home of your books. Library Hub reads it, and writes to it only when you accept a change.

![A shelf in the Shelf view: four books as cards with their covers](img/shelf-view.png)

## The words to know

| Word | What it is |
|---|---|
| **Book note** | One note per Calibre book, holding its details as properties. Your own sections in it are left alone. |
| **Shelf** | A note that lists a group of books. Shelves show as cards in the Shelf view, a view for Bases. |
| **Reading list** | Each book's reading status, and a queue of what is up next. |
| **Review** | A proposed change to a book's details, waiting for you to accept or reject it. |
| **Library panel** | A side panel for the open book, what needs you, and what has run. |
| **Write queue** | Accepted changes waiting to be written to Calibre. |
| **Provider** | A place your books live: Calibre, Audible. One note per book, whichever providers hold it. |
| **Template** | Which provider fields go into the notes, and the library Base. A pack is a layer of it. |
| **Pack** | An optional set of fields and rules for a kind of library. |

## On its own, and with Topic Map

On its own, Library Hub matches books by the words they share: titles, authors and the `context` in each note. It needs no model for this, and keeps no index. With [Topic Map](https://insurgently.com/docs/topic-map/) installed, it can also match books by what they are about: similar books by meaning, the shelves that suit a book, shelf health with trims and splits, and suggested shelves. That part comes with Topic Map's next release. Until then, each of those features shows one line where it would be: **Install Topic Map to …**. [Build shelves](shelves.md) lists what each mode covers.

## Coming from an earlier version

Earlier versions kept shelves under other property names (`collections`, `collections_exclude`, `collection_id`). The first time Library Hub finds them, a notice offers to move them to `shelves`, `shelves_exclude` and `shelf_id`. You see the whole move before it runs, and you can undo it as one run. Book vectors an earlier version saved are no longer used; you can delete them. See [Build shelves](shelves.md).

## What you need

- Obsidian 1.13.1 or later, on desktop.
- **Calibre**, with its **Content Server** turned on.
- **Model Hub**, for anything that uses a model: shelves, summaries and the review of book details. It holds your providers and keys and records what each call costs. Syncing notes and covers needs no model.

## Also from Insurgently

Library Hub needs Model Hub for its models; Topic Map reads its books:

- **Model Hub**: your AI providers in one place, with roles, cost limits and a ledger. https://insurgently.com/docs/model-hub/
- **Topic Map**: index passages from your books and notes, find the topics they share, answer with cited cards. https://insurgently.com/docs/topic-map/
- **Learning Editor**: feedback on your writing that learns your habits and never rewrites without asking. https://insurgently.com/docs/learning-editor/

Next: [Getting started](getting-started.md).