Library Shelf

A shelf of your books and films in Obsidian: one ledger note per library, no file per title unless it earns one.

Getting started

Click the library icon in the ribbon (or run Open library). The first click creates Library/Books.md, Library/Movies.md and a Library/Library.md hub, then opens the hub. Every click after that just opens it.

The reading desk

The hub opens with a desk drawn as a bookcase: what you're currently reading on the lower shelf; the last thing you finished, how many are in progress and on the wishlist, and your average rating on the top one; and the year's finished titles as a row of little books filling toward your goal. Prefer a plain card with a goal ring? Switch Reading desk to Classic card in settings.

```library-desk
goal: 30
```

Adding

Type a title in the Add a title… box at the top of any library page and press Enter. The lookup runs straight away — books search Open Library, films search TMDB — and Enter again adds the top result. Click any other result to add that one instead.

On a Books or Movies page the box adds to that page; on the hub, pick where from the dropdown beside it. Adding a title that's already there offers to record another read, change its status, or add it as a separate entry.

Films need a free TMDB API key. The first film search asks for it in the dialog; paste it once and it's saved.

Importing

The import button on the page bar (or Import from Goodreads, StoryGraph or Letterboxd) takes your exported history and adds it to a ledger. Titles already there are skipped, so importing twice is safe.

Searching

The Search this page box narrows every shelf on the page as you type. Every word has to match something on the card: title, author or director, shelf, year, status, or a date you finished it — le guin, manga, ishiguro 2024. Escape clears it.

Editing from the shelf

Right-click a cover or a table row (long-press on mobile), or click a cover that has no note:

The ledger

Everything lives in a fenced yaml (or json) block shaped { library: [ … ] } inside an ordinary note, so you can always edit it by hand too. The rest of the note is left alone.

```yaml
library:
  - title: Hiroshima Diary
    author: Michihiko Hachiya
    shelf: Non-Fiction
    isbn: "9780807845479"
    status: active
  - title: Arrival
    director: Denis Villeneuve
    year: 2016
    shelf: Sci-Fi
    status: done
    rating: 5
    finished: [2024-08-19, 2026-01-04]
```

Giving an entry its own note

Right-click → Create note, or run Create note for a library entry. It makes the note, puts a library-card block at the top, and writes note: into the row. The card shows the entry's cover, status, rating and read dates, always read from the ledger.

```library-card
```

Shelves and hubs

A library-shelf block draws a shelf anywhere. With no from it reads the note it's in; a hub reads several ledgers. The hub the ribbon creates is a good starting point:

## This year

```library-shelf
from: [Library/Books, Library/Movies]
year: current
sort: -finished
total: finished this year
goal: 30
```

Which entries to show

How to arrange them

How it looks

active covers get an accent outline, wishlist dims until hover, abandoned desaturates. Group headers fold on click. Editing a ledger repaints every open shelf that reads it.

The search and add boxes are a library-bar block. Put one at the top of any note with shelves; ledger: Library/Books pins where its add box writes.

```library-bar
```

Covers

An explicit cover always wins. Otherwise, with Derive covers on:

• isbn → Open Library, then Amazon (a print book's ISBN-10 is its Amazon ID)
• asin → Amazon

Anything that still misses shows a titled card in the theme's accent color.

Appearance

Four CSS variables, settable on .lib-shelf in a snippet:

Settings

Ledger folder · notes folder · default layout · reading desk · cover width · derive covers · TMDB API key.

Licence

MIT