Beta. Books & Shelves is not released yet. These pages describe the build in progress.
Privacy and costs
What is sent where, what costs money and where your files are kept.
What leaves your machine
| Where | When | What is sent |
|---|---|---|
| Your Calibre Content Server | Always; by default it is on your own computer | Requests for your library, book files and covers; accepted changes |
| Open Library | Looking for covers or a book's details, unless you turn online lookups off | The book's ISBN, title and author |
| Google Books | The same, only if you add an API key | The book's ISBN, title and author |
| The providers you set up in Model Hub | Anything that uses a model | For summaries, the book's text. For lookups, its first pages. For shelves, its title, authors and a sample of its text |
Model calls go through Model Hub. With a local provider there, a book's text never leaves your computer.
There is no telemetry and there are no ads.
What costs money
Books & Shelves is free. Syncing notes and finding covers cost nothing. The providers you set up in Model Hub may bill you for the rest:
- Summaries are the large cost: a whole book's text is read. Each run shows an estimate first.
- Book vectors are small per book and are made once.
- Lookups read a few pages per book.
A call billed well above its listed price stops a run. Model Hub's limits and budgets apply, and its usage view shows what Books & Shelves has spent.
Where things are kept
| What | Where |
|---|---|
| Book notes | Books/Library by default |
| Shelf notes | Books/Collections by default |
| Review notes | Books/Review by default |
| Cover images | Books/Covers by default |
| The reading queue | Books/Up Next.md by default |
| Logs, the write queue and book vectors | The plugin's folder, inside your vault's configuration folder |
| A Calibre login and a Google Books key | Obsidian's keychain |
Your Calibre library
It changes only through the write queue, after you accept a change, and when you agree to an EPUB conversion that another plugin asked for.
Other plugins
Another plugin in your vault can read your book list, shelves and book files through this plugin's API, as any plugin can read your vault.