Collections Wiki Update/Discussion Thread

Collections Wiki Update/Discussion Thread

Before the general release of Collections a number of LT volunteers in the Beta Group put together a Collections Wiki as a resource for use of this new feature. Hopefully this has proven to be helpful!

Collections Wiki Link –
http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Collections

As we all know, LibraryThing is not static – features and functionality change as Tim and his team constantly work to tweak and improve LT. This is one of the great things about this site, but it means that Wikis and Guides can quickly become out of date or incomplete as the software evolves.

With this in mind I propose that we use this “Collections WIki Update/Discussion Thread” as a means to try to keep the Collections Wiki relatively up-to-date. A link to this thread has been placed at the bottom of the Wiki to encourage those who have questions/suggestions to let us know.

What this thread is intended for…

If you see an error in the Collections Wiki – something that is just wrong, or has been updated since the Wiki was written: Please feel free to update the wiki yourself or post here so that the correction can be made.

If you have a question that is not answered by the Collections Wiki (that you think should be): Please ask here – and maybe someone will be able to answer it for us and we can update the Wiki accordingly.

If you have a suggestion for updating the Collections Wiki (but don’t feel comfortable updating it yourself): Please post it here.

Discussion … of the above (and other relevant topics that I inadvertently left out).

What this thread is not intended for…

Bug Reporting – If something related to collections is not working the way that it should be, please post in the appropriate Collections Bug threads in the “Bug Collectors” group.

Bug Collectors Group Link –
http://www.librarything.com/groups/bugcollectors

Improvement Recommendations (for the feature, not the Wiki) – if you have a great idea about how collections could be made even more fantastic, please post in the “Recommended Site Improvement” group.

RSI Group Link –
http://www.librarything.com/groups/recommendsiteimprov

**********************************
NOTE: The Collections Wiki and this thread are volunteer efforts – any and all are encouraged to join in and help make LT as pleasant and as useful for all as it is for us.

Anyone up for going through other WikiThing pages to make changes to reflect the fact that Collections is now live? No big changes are probably needed, but there are several pages that have sentences like "this will be dealt with by the proposed Collections feature," which could be edited appropriately and linked to the Collections WikiThing page.

For example (and I'm sure there are more):
http://www.librarything.fr/wiki/index.php/Your_library_and_your_books#Can_I_have...
http://www.librarything.fr/wiki/index.php/Frequently_recommended_features#Collec...

Some other links that might be useful - search results from the Wiki, pages mentioning:
- collections:
http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Special:Search?ns0=1&search=colle...
- wishlist:
http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Special:Search?ns0=1&search=wishl...
- "currently reading":
http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Special:Search?ns0=1&search=%22cu...

The Widgets page might also need a note on Collections:
http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Widgets

I went to look at some of these thinking I'd help do some changing and, on my first one, found something I thought might be better discussed!

http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Your_library_and_your_books#Can_I_hav...

The current text is: Can I have a wishlist that doesn't count as books I own?

A wishlist will be included in the soon-to-be-debuted feature "Collections". Always, you can feel free to add the books you want to your catalog, and tag them 'wishlist', 'wantlist', etc., if you like.

This seems to be a larger 'philosophy of collections' question than just indicating that now collections arrives. It seems to me that the entire question is now rather erroneous - it implies that everything not in the 'wishlist' collection should be something that you own.

I see what the question is getting at, but is there another way we could phrase it, or in fact an entirely new series of questions for this page that enlightens about collections, that gets around that default assumption?

Thoughts, suggestions?

ETA: Glancing at this page, it occurs to me that with other new changes (specifically, the edit box on the 'works' page, but probably other things too), this project could be bigger than just 'collections'!

I would probably take out the reference to ownership entirely, and possibly also the reference to keeping them separate, and so maybe I'd change the question wording to something like: Can I make a wishlist? or if necessary Can I have a wishlist that's separate from my library?

Then the answer could explain briefly that wishlist is one of the default collections, and point to the collections page. If it's necessary to say something about whether or not it counts or is separate, we could explain that the user can decide whether or not collections overlap.

Collections and "Members with Your Books" -

Collections, specifically the include in connections option, now impacts results and the numbers you see in the members with your books section on the profile page.

How are these numbers now calculated?

Collections and "Books you share" -

Collections are now impacting the results list on the books you share section when viewing other people's profile pages.

What is being done here? Is it just wishlists being excluded or is it only Your Library being included or something else?

Not sure if the answers to these questions should be on the collections wiki, the profile wiki or both.

>5 eromsted: Not sure if the answers to these questions should be on the collections wiki, the profile wiki or both.

Mmm. I'd go with both. But first we kinda need the answers to the questions. I think the algorithm only uses the works you have put in connections with "use for collections" when showing you numbers on the profile pages Members with Your Books/Books you share. When you actually go to the persons catalogue I think you are seeing "All collections" numbers - I could be wrong.

I can tell from my catalog that the "Members with your books" numbers are reflecting my "include in connections" settings. Do the other user's settings also influence these numbers?

The "books you share" numbers are doing something else. My large wishlist is included in my connections, but those books are not shown in the "books you share" box on other users' profile pages. My other collections not in "Your library" are fairly small so it's harder to tell about them. It could either be excluding the wishlist or only using the "your library" collection.

In the catalog it does look like books from all collections display in the special "share with other user" search. But there's something fishy here too. If I look at books I share with Tim in Tim's catalog I see 97 books. If I reverse the search and look at the shared books in my catalog I see 90 books. Huh?

One book that displays differently is Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things. In my library that book is in "Your Library," "Unread," and "Connections-Recommendations." In Tim's it is in "Your Library." This is so odd that it may be some other bug, but it makes it hard to know what's going on.

Does anyone know if there is a way to get your collections to display on your profile page in a list format (like they do in the Collections Manager) as opposed to a paragraph format? Once the number of collections gets beyond a small number, the paragraph format just gets difficult for me to read.

9> No, there isn't a way, though I think it's a good idea for a RSI.

Is there a way to make a collection not visible to the public?

11. No, there's no way to do that.

Several of us clamored for private collections when the feature launched, but the staff decided book privacy was more practical at the book level than at the collection level. Right now there's a beta feature (in development) for "private books." You'll see a checkbox at the bottom of the edit book page for any book you have. HOWEVER, I'm not really sure if it's working, or if so, how well. So, if you're concerned about people not seeing certain books, I would not rely on the private books feature right now: your best options are either not to catalog those books, or just go completely private.

Is there a way to search for the intersection of two collections? For example, I have a collection for "to read." Books assigned to this collection include both books I own and books I don't. I also have a collection for books I own. Can I search for books that appear in both collections; that is, something on my shelves that I haven't read yet? Obviously, the search needs to yield books found only in both collections, not books found in either.

If there isn't a way to do this, I will repost on recommended site improvements, because this seems like a needed feature to me. But first I want to make sure there isn't a way to do this already.

Thanks.

See here:
http://www.librarything.com/profile/MEMBERNAME/stats/collections

Great! Thanks for the quick response.

Is there a maximum number of collections that can be created - have added 11 and doesn't seem to want to add any more - using Iceweasel 3.5.16 (i.e., Firefox 5.0).

Update: I've just been able to add a collection using a mobile 'phone browser and 3G connection, but I'm still unable to using my laptop and that's even having just booted a copy of Tails https://tails.boum.org/ -- LibraryThing when logged in is a https site and I'm surfing though Tor, so I'm not sure what is going on here!

I currently have 21 collections including the default ones. I am also using FF but version 6.0.2. 11 is not a limit but there may be one.

Can I view two collections at once? I.E. I have the collection "to read." Then I have collections for "hardcopy", "audio" and "ebook". I want to view "to read" and "audio" so I know what audio books are next on my list to listen to; I don't want to view all of my "to read" and have to shift through all the information. Is selecting two collections possible?

>18 BarbF:
It's rather buried, but yes you can view the overlap of two collections.

From your profile or home click on Statistics/Memes.
All the way at the bottom left click on Collections.
Find the heading for "to read" and then click on the link for "audio."

16>

There's no hard limit, but the UI is deliberately designed to be unwieldy for large numbers of collections (more than a couple dozen or so); the thinking is that Tim wants to subtly push people to use tags for things where tags should be used (like subject matter), since there's an entire useful social cataloging scheme built around them, rather than to have several hundred collections. Eleven is entirely reasonable, though, so I'm not sure what's going on in your case.

Very helpful! Thank you, thank you. That works perfectly.

A question phrased as a hypothetical situation.

Let's say I have Book A in two collections, "Read" and "Recommendations from Friend X", and Book B just in "Recommendations from Friend X". I have also un-check any/all the check marks for collection "Recommendations from Friend X", so there not in my connections or recommendations, and are currently inactive.

Will Book A still be included in my connections and recommendations?

I'm assuming Book B won't because its only collection has those features disabled, but does disabling those features in one of the collections a book is in override the enabling of those features in other collections?

Thanks in advance for the help,
Amanda

Will Book A still be included in my connections and recommendations?

Yes. Enabling takes precedence over disabling. That's the reason that you can't have a "Don't use these books for recommendations" collection for books that you own or have read that you rate poorly, since if you still put those books into My Library or Read But Not Owned then they will still be used for recommendations.

Is there a way to find books which aren't in a specific collection? I want to know what's not in "my library".

No, there's not really a good way to exclude one collection for just viewing. However, if you want to do some bulk editing, there are steps you can do with power edit to help do things to all books that aren't in a particular collection.

Actually, there is, though it's rather buried. From your profile or home page go to statistics/memes. Then way at the bottom of the left column select collections. Then down at the bottom of that page you will find "Books not in collections." Here's a direct link to that page.

Neat!

That's perfect. Thank you.

Is there a way to export or print a collection rather than one's entire catalog?

Actually, I just realized it seems to be possible to print what's in a single collection. That may be all that I need.

H E L P! I was trying to delete this book thatwas on currently reading from 3 years ago and I delete all of my books. How do I get them back?

I just looked at your catalogue and you have 629 books. How many should you have? When you are looking at the Your Books tab, do you perhaps have it set on Currently Reading rather than All Collections? (look at the top left)

I want to be able to add a book to my library and have it end up in Your Library, not in any other collection, without my having to remember to uncheck the little tickbox for my custom collection every single time I go to Add Books. How to do this?

(I'm using collections to tell me that to find a book in collection 'box 1' I must go open up the Uhaul box labeled 'books 1'. I suppose I could do this with tags instead of collections, because I know books default to Your Library when I haven't any custom collections, but my feeling is that tags are for characteristics of any copy of this book and collections are for my specific copy of this book.)

Only other collection it needs to end up in is "all collections" - that can't be helped.

But I think you can pretty much get it to function the way you like if you make "your library" the default collection - in other words: when you move it back on top. Right now you seem to have "box 1" as default. You can change the order of your collections from your "home" tab.

You can also edit them from the Add Books page. You drag the lines to fall into the order you desire.

Hi, I'm not sure if this has been answered elsewhere, but I couldn't find it, so sorry in advance.

Is there any way to see all the books within specific multiple collections? For example, I wanted to see all books except "Wishlist"...

(I have the same question for tags, is there a way to view books in multiple tags, but this is probably the wrong place to ask...)

>35 ScarletBea:

Some options are available here for collections:

http://www.librarything.com/profile/MEMBERNAME/stats/collections

e.g. inverses (all except) are at the bottom.

35>

There is, but it's pretty well-hidden.

From your profile, go to "Stats/Memes", and then scroll all the way down to the bottom. The very last option, under "Other", is "Collections". Click on this, and you'll see "Collections Overlap", which will take you to all books in any two collections (for instance, in "Library Books" and "Currently Reading") or to all the books that aren't in any particular collection (like your "All except Wishlist") example. You can't do anything more complicated - you can't see all books in A and B but not C - but it's pretty good.

Here's a direct link to yours:

http://www.librarything.com/profile/ScarletBea/stats/collections

As for tags, unfortunately the search function isn't working right (and hasn't ever really worked right); you should be able to select the "tags" dropdown in the "Search your library" box and put in two or more tags, but it doesn't work (it instead searches all the fields whenever more than one option is entered).

Welcome to LT, by the way!

Thanks all, that worked.
And... I found the Stats page :))) (both books AND numbers slight geek hehe)

I'm interested in producing a list of books in a particular category from My Books. I'd like people to be able to get more information about books on the list if they want--as though they were looking at a database. But I don't want them able to go into my books and start making changes in entries. I have tried exporting a link to a page, but I can't restrict access if I do that. I've played with widgets a bit, but am not sure if that's working. It seems like there should be an easy way to provide a list to others on the web without allowing them to muck around in my records. Also seems like a good way to introduce people to what LT can do.

Nobody can muck about with your data. They'd have to be logged in as you before they could.

You can create a link to your catalog which other people can see. Just see.

40>

Just to clarify what JerryMmm said, the regular link to your catalog is the one to use. Look at my catalog - you can see it, but you can't edit it. The reason why you can edit it when you follow the link to your own catalog is that you're logged into your account. Try looking at the link when you've logged out if you don't believe me.

Thanks JerryMmm.

And thank you lorax. These answers make sense. I thought I was emulating what a visitor's experience would be, but of course I was logged in at the time so objectivity wasn't really possible.

43 > It's handy to remember, too, that your experience looking at someone else's catalog even when you're logged in, is the same experience someone else will have looking at yours.

Hello,

sorry if this has been asked before, but I tried to read the collection page and I didn't found what I was looking for

Question: I need to have a direct URL link to a given collection, is that possible ?

Rationale : my whole collection is here.
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/jmfayard

In particular I have a collection named "Self help, IT, Work, Business, Life" that will be useful to me for finding interesting jobs and/or business partners

But the idea is that they jump right to this collection.

And maybe I will have tomorrow a second collection for music lovers for example, that don't care about IT at all.

Hence the need for direct access with URLs

Maybe even a private URL, because if I had a "porno & cie" collection, I wouldn't want to mix it up with the others.

When you're viewing the desired collection, scroll all the way to the bottom and you will see a little "permalink" icon (a chain). Click on that and you'll get a large monstrous URL:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=jmfayard&collectionname=selfhel...

There is no collection-level privacy and no working book-level privacy. Don't put any books in a public account you don't want the world to see.

Or use: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/jmfayard/selfhelpitworkbusinesslife

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/jmfayard/selfhelpitworkbusinesslife should also work. I find the permalink more useful for things like a combination of a certain collection and a tag. http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=MarthaJeanne&tag=Biography&... will show you all the biographies in my 'to read' pile, sorted by author. That is overkill for just the collection.

Changed the URL. Did the first search wrong.

Sometime recently, one of my collections disappeared. It was a self-created one called "personal shelves". I don't know when it happened. I just noticed the other day when I went to add a book and it was no longer there. One of the books in my collection that already had the tag showed it for a moment but when I removed other collection designations ("currently reading" and "to be read"), it disappeared from the entry as well. Now I don't see it anywhere on any of my books. Help!

>49 klpm: This could be related to the recent downtime recovery issues. See https://www.librarything.com/topic/289941

I was thinking that could be it but didn't see anyone else having issues with collections. I'll comment over there too though! Thanks!

I'm just getting started here and trying to wrap my mind around when to use Collections vs when to use Tags so that I can set my library up correctly (most efficient and user-friendly) from the get-go instead of changing things months down the line when I realize I would have been better off creating a collection instead of a tag. I've read the wikis, but I'm interested in hearing from users if they wish they had done something differently or what works best for them when designating new collections vs new tags.

Any insight on how you decide what you want to be a collection and what you want to be a tag?

I'm leaning toward collection for Subject Matter and What Am I Doing With This? In other words, what is this book's intended use. Did I buy it for me to read? To gift to someone else? Did I acquire it specifically to donate it and never plan to read it? Do I want to sell this book on Amazon or at Half-Price Books after I've read it? In these examples, I could designate a GIFTS collection and a DONATION collection and a TO SELL collection.

That would leave Tags used to describe a book in greater detail - the actual book - not what I plan to do with it. Like, instead of just a collection for Children't Lit, maybe I have tags with age ranges.

What about books in a series? Would you suggest SERIES as a Collection or as a Tag? One of the main reasons I had for joining LibraryThing is to be able to easily track books I read that are in a series. So I can remember which I've read, which I haven't yet purchased, etc. For those of you who have been here a while, which way (tag vs collection) do you think would be more useful to me?

>52 originalslicey: Welcome to LibraryThing!

Your question isn't addressed in this thread. May I direct you to a couple that have discussed this question?

https://www.librarything.com/topic/135599

https://www.librarything.com/topic/148413

The other thing you can do is explore other member catalogs to see how they did it. The collections and tags are all listed on member profile pages. That's what I first did.

There is a bulk edit feature you can use too, if you change directions mid-stream.

>52 originalslicey:
People have a lot of different opinions on what is best, so it might be difficult to find a consensus.

If you anticipate having a large number of maybe tags/maybe collections, I'd recommend tags. You can have an unlimited number of tags on any book. The Collections function gets clunky beyond a certain size, so I cut way back on my Collections.

Your friend in this decision is the little lightning-bolt icon at the top of the columns when using catalog view (aka the 'Your books' tab). This activates Power Edit, which allows you to add or remove tags or change collections en masse. For example, you could pull up all the books tagged "yikes", add them all to the "eek" collection, and then remove the "yikes" tag. Three operations. You do have to remember to add to eek before deleting yikes, though.

I'd recommend exploring all those buttons across the top of the catalog view if you haven't already.

Hi Everybody,
I am new here.
Could you please tell be how I can delete a book from a collection ? Is there any way to delete all books from a collection and start from scratch ?

There are several ways to remove a single book from a collection. One is from the edit book page but the easiest is probably the folder icon in the little list of icons at the end of a book record on the Your Books tab.

Removing all books from a collection is a job for the Power Edit mode of Your Books which you get to using the lightning bolt icon at the top of the Your Books page (between the up/down arrows and the printer icon). In power edit mode use the Collections tab (don't use the Delete Books tab since that will remove the books entirely from your catalog).

You can also go into the pull-down Collections menu, choose Edit Collections and simply delete the offender. The books will remain, only that Collection designation will disappear. Note that you can't delete the default collections, only ones you created yourself. For the default collections, Power Edit remains your best bet.

All your items need to be in at least one Collection, though. If the Collection you're deleting is the only one you are using, you could simply change its name. Of course, again, that doesn't work for the default collections.

If I have added a title to my "Wishlist" and I later purchase a book, what is the best way to add/move that book to my library, so I don't have duplicate listings.

Usually, I add the book that I now own and try to remember to go to the Wishlist and delete that title from there.
If I were to simply move that book from Wishlist to another collection, the book information would not match the book I actually own.
For example, the version in my Wishlist is a hardcover, but I purchased the paperback edition. Is there any way to update the information of my book - maybe by rescanning the ISBN - so that I would just move a book from Wishlist to a different collection, but make sure that the true book info is up-to-date?

Being able to just move a book between collections would also mean that other info remains intact. Such as the date I first added the book and any tags I included when I added it to my Wishlist. Otherwise, this info would need to be added again to the edition of the book I actually purchased.

>58 originalslicey: You can edit your book.

>59 MarthaJeanne: I know. That's not what I'm asking.

When you ADD a book, for instance by scanning the barcode, all of the correct information is automatically generated for that specific edition: format, number of pages, dimensions, etc.

When you have a book on your wishlist, that book doesn't usually match the edition you might eventually buy. So, after I own a book and want to reassign that book from Wishlist to a different collection, none of the book information will match. It takes a lot longer to update all of that info manually for the book that already exists in my library as a Wishlist book. Which is why I generally delete the book from my Wishlist and then re-add it to a specific collection by scanning the barcode, so that all the book info is correct.

I'm wondering if there is a way to move a book from Wishlist to a particular collection and then re-scan the copy I already have to update the information for the correct edition that is in my hands versus the edition that was selected when I added that book to my Wishlist.

>60 originalslicey:

So what are you asking exactly? The collections can be edited while editing the book - which will move the book to the new collections. You can also use power edit or assign from the work page. And during the edit you can fix whatever other data needs fixing since the initial addition.

If you rescan the ISBN, it will add a new book and it won’t change the old one. You need to edit the old one manually. Import/export may also work but not for all fields and manually editing (to change the isbn and anything else) will probably be the fastest way.

So, I see the answer is that no, there's not an easier way.
Because editing manually the ISBN, format, pages, dimensions, etc to match the copy of the book you actually own takes a lot longer than just deleting the entry of that title from Wishlist and adding it to a different collection by scanning the ISBN anew.

I would rather have all of the info for the new book correct and to delete the old book than to mess with changing all the info manually, because just assigning the book to a new collection won't do that.

I was just hoping there was a different answer because sometimes I forget that I have a particular book in my Wishlist and wind up with two entries when I buy a new book and scan it in.

>62 originalslicey:

Yeah... there is no way to partially update an existing book with a new scan...

I'm a newcomer to LibraryThing and have a large collection of Choral Music which I want to catalogue. Some of it has been entered already as it is in book form, eg The Oxford Book of English Anthems, and Handel's Messiah, which I have tagged Choral Collection and Vocal Score respectively. But I have a mass of individual pieces of Sheet Music to be entered so I need a separate Music Collection. I would use the 'built-in' Music Collection provided by LibraryThing for Music CDs; so can I create a 'Printed Music Collection' or can anyone think of a better name? This could then include Choral Music either in book or individual sheet form, Piano Music, Guitar Tutors, Recorder Music or Popular music all tagged accordingly.
Assuming I am thinking along the right lines, would I move the books listed above to my Printed Music Collection or put them in both My Books and My Printed Music?
Or should I just use the Music Collection already available and put all the printed music in there with my CDs and LPs and tag them as 'Recorded Music' to distinguish them from the printed?
All advice will be gratefully received.
E-bookworm

For anyone reading this page on Collections who is interested in finding your books that are NOT in any Collection other than the default "All Collections" - this includes "orphaned" or "Lost and Found" as described in other topics.
The references to the Statistics/Memes functionality are no longer operative. The Charts & Graphs tab will allow you to look at all your Collections (select Overview, then look in the Books folder on the left menu), including the overlapping ones (books that are in more than one Collection), but I did not see an equivalent to the inverse-collection for orphan books.

I would really like to have that back, because I want all my books to be somewhere meaningful among the Collections, and that would be an easy way for me to find the ones that need fixing.

>65 librisissimo: The "books not in collections" section is at the bottom of the "collections" page of the Charts & Graphs, below the Collections Overlap.

Can others view Collections I've created? And if so, how do I make them private?

Yes, others can see your collections unless you make your whole library private. You seem to have done that, so your whole library is private, including the collections.

I am currently unable to edit my collections. When I press on the "edit the collection" button, nothing happens. This applies to all of the different instances of the menu on the "Your books" page. I running LT on Edge with windows 11. I have tried allowing popups. I have tried using Firefox. This is new (this year). I haven't had any trouble with it in the past.

>69 pamur: That sounds like something that goes in Bug Collectors:
https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/897/Bug-Collectors

Is there functionality to separate out a collection into a new library? I've been using LibraryThing for so long that my kids are now leaving home, and I'd rather like to just pass over the collections of their books as a new library.

If there isn't, I'm assuming that 'export collection' and 'import' will do the job for me.

>71 fred_mouse: I'm assuming that 'export collection' and 'import' will do the job for me

Don't assume that: https://www.librarything.com/topic/219575

On the positive side, there have been mentions lately by the developers about working on import and export, so perhaps this may be fixed soon. (Where soon is to be taken in the context of the six years since that thread was created.)