Whether you’re a bibliophile or not, it is still very important for you to properly organize your books and e-books. You need to sort them out in a way that they’re easier to locate. It’s just that it takes a lot of time to create those card catalogues and if you are not the diligent type, you’d be more than glad to look for an easier option. Well, since we’re now living in a modern era, there are already a lot of free tools that you can use to organize your books. One good example is this free paper book and e-book management software called Alfa Ebooks Manager.

What Is It and What Does It Do

Main Functionality

What is Alfa Ebooks Manager? It is basically a free program for Windows that allows you to organize your paper books and digital books (e-books) into its e-library. Just think of it like you’re keeping a digital book catalogue wherein you can easily browse for a particular book or e-book. So instead of creating those traditional index cards, you can simply encode or update your e-library using your computer.

Pros

• Contemporary UI design, neat and responsive
• The free version is great for users who are mainly collecting a lot of paper books
• You can easily manage and organize your books and e-books in just one place
• Allows you to sort out your books by using multiple parameters – you can search by author, title, tags, ISBN, genre, publisher, tags, etc.
• Supports multiple e-book formats – PDF, MOBI, MP3, FB2, LRF, EPUB, DJVU, TXT, CHM, HTML, etc.
• Features four basic viewing modes – table view, list view, thumbnail view, wall view
• Allows you to edit or update your book’s details including its description, tags, rating, front cover and back cover
• You can set the program to automatically load your e-book file from your computer. Just double-click the book that you like to read and it will instantly load your book using your preferred e-book or PDF reader.
• Provides a quick search tool, you can also view your books in 3D
• Allows you to move your e-books between your PC and your e-book reader – this means that you can easily access the e-books that you’ve stored on your e-Reader or tablet
• There is no limit to the number of books that you can upload
• You can import/export your e-library content (import from CSV/export to XML, Text, CSV or HTML)
• Supports multiple languages such as English, German, Spanish, Dutch, French, Italian, etc.

Cons

• The free version has a lot of limitations which makes it difficult to use especially if you have a lot of e-books. This is because most of the operations should be done manually and you cannot automatically update your book’s data card (aka “book card”) using the information that you’ve taken from the web. If you want to access its premium features, then you need to upgrade to its Lite or Pro versions by paying $19.95 and $39.95 respectively.
• Does not allow you to directly insert a link or URL to cloud-based e-books
• Restricted web access – this means that you can use the web to search for any related information but you cannot directly import those details to your e-library (ex. updating your book’s front/back cover or default thumbnail via image search)

Discussion

The Alfa Ebooks Manager is a very reliable software especially if you need to organize your collection of paper books in a more systematic and hassle-free manner.

It is a great alternative for those who do not want to go with the traditional card catalogue system. Let’s just say that you have your mini-library at home and you wanted to arrange your books efficiently and in proper order. So instead of using index cards, you can just encode your book’s information on your e-library. This makes the encoding process a whole lot easier plus whenever you need to search for a particular book, you can make use of this app’s quick search tool. Of course, this does not mean that there’s already no need for you to arrange the books on your bookshelves.

Furthermore, this software is also good for organizing the e-books that you’ve already downloaded to your computer. It’s just that most of the encoding should be done manually since you cannot import any data from the web. The web update feature is only available for Lite and Pro users.

Just like any other software, the Alfa Ebooks Manager also has its good sides and bad sides. It’s good in a sense that it has a lot of options for user customizations. It has four basic viewing modes; you can customize its thumbnail view using its available templates, you can set parameters to filter your search results, etc. It is also a very stable program and it supports multiple e-book formats such as PDF, EPUB, TXT, etc.

However, it also has a couple of notable downsides. First of all, it is filled with restrictions – you cannot directly import any info from the web, you cannot add direct links to your cloud-based e-books, you cannot update your book’s thumbnail without downloading the image to your computer, etc. Second, it’s doesn’t allow you to sync the e-books that you have on your Cloud Reader. It’s like everything is in manual mode and if ever you want to access your e-library on a different computer, you need to install the Alfa Ebooks Manager software on that computer first before you can move or transfer your entire SDF database.

Conclusion and Download Link

Despite of its many restrictions, the free version of Alfa Ebooks Manager is still a good option especially if you are only looking for a simple yet very reliable tool for managing your paper book collection. You can also use this program to organize the e-books that you have stored on your computer’s hard drive but I don’t recommend this for those who are mostly reading their e-books via Cloud. You will just have a difficult time using this software. If you are looking for a good alternative, you could try BookONO or Calibre.

Price: Free – users can upgrade to Lite ($19.95) or Pro ($39.95)

Version reviewed: 4.0.30

Supported OS: Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8 (requires Microsoft .Net Framework 4)

Download size: 17.9MB

VirusTotal malware scan results: 1/47

Is it portable? No

Alfa Ebooks Manager homepage