Fixes / seeking advice on "own, read, want"
Some recent fixes and improvements:
UPDATE: People are clearly confused by my categories. For the record, they were "(1) books you own, (2) books you've read but don't own, (3) books you want." I condensed that verbally to "own," "read," "want." "Read" is causing people to think I'm trying to capture to distinguish how many books you've read (including in your catalog). I'm trying to allow people to feel comfortable cataloging books that aren't currently in their library. Clearly this terminology isn't going to work. Any suggestions?
I'm working on adding a "collections" feature (name in flux and up for suggestions). At present LibraryThing presumes you own your books, although users have added tags for books they've read but don't own and for books they want. With the holidays approaching, I'd like to add the latter, at least. But I haven't decided on the approach. Here is my plan. Executing it require bringing lots of features online at once, not making incremental changes and seeing what you people think as I add each one. So here's a sneak peak. Comments would be appreciated.
I want to have a small number of fixed, non-overlapping categories. If users can define their own categories people will use "collections" instead of tags—for "at the beach house," "read but hated," etc. This will satisfy power users, but reduce universal value. Keeping the collection "buckets" limited will make it easier for people to view and understand other's collections. For example, the default view will include everything a user owns or has read, but profiles will have a link to users' "wish list." Predefined terms are also better for library-wide statistics—whose wishes are like mine, what users are wishing for generally, etc. This won't work if some people call it "wish list," others "want" or "christmas," etc. I don't want to get into users picking their own name and then giving the collection a "type." The system must be transparently simple.
I propose three collections: (1) books you own, (2) books you've read but don't own, (3) books you want. I'd like to use the short names "own," "read," "want." But people may misunderstand "read." "Want" is my attempt to avoid the Amazon-y "wish list." "Own," "read," "want" is also gramatically parallel. But can I escape this well-known name? Jacob Nielsen talks about a company replacing the standard "shopping cart" with a "shopping sled"—purchases plummeted!
I plan to implement it so that you choose what collection you're adding to on the "add books" page. (I'll have to think about how it works when you add a book another way; I don't want to make things too complex.) There will be an easy way to "power edit" books into one collection or another. The catalog view will show "own" and "read" together by default, but allow you to choose to see any combination of the three. Profiles will break it down three ways.
That's my plan. As they say, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. In this case, the enemy is the PHP programming language, not you, so help me out!
* I was shocked to discover that the 1969 parody of Tolkien, Bored of the Rings, has as its top recommendation Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Laugh all you want, but eight of thirty-two copies of In Search of Lost Time are owned by people who also own (the obscure) Bored of the Rings. You cannot argue with statistics! But why? I would also like to note that Amazon doesn't present a single suggestion for Bored of the Rings, and that most of LibraryThing's suggestions—Proust aside—are fantasy novels. LibraryThing beats Amazon again!
UPDATE: See the author page for National Lampoon. Bored of the Rings is split between three editions that LibraryThing isn't "combining." (User-contributed combination is on the way, I promise!) The main one has a review by wenestvedt, and picks out one really good suggestion—William Goldman's The Princess Bride, a fantasy/Medieval romp rather than a parody.
- I finally fixed the author cloud, both individual and the all-users cloud.
- Authors (eg., J.R.R. Tolkien) now include a "commonly tagged" section.
- Recommendations have been improved, incorporating a progressively severe bias against books by the same author. Recommendations remain randomly excellent and occasionally crazy (see *).
- Author links now work; some were "redirecting" in circles.
UPDATE: People are clearly confused by my categories. For the record, they were "(1) books you own, (2) books you've read but don't own, (3) books you want." I condensed that verbally to "own," "read," "want." "Read" is causing people to think I'm trying to capture to distinguish how many books you've read (including in your catalog). I'm trying to allow people to feel comfortable cataloging books that aren't currently in their library. Clearly this terminology isn't going to work. Any suggestions?
I'm working on adding a "collections" feature (name in flux and up for suggestions). At present LibraryThing presumes you own your books, although users have added tags for books they've read but don't own and for books they want. With the holidays approaching, I'd like to add the latter, at least. But I haven't decided on the approach. Here is my plan. Executing it require bringing lots of features online at once, not making incremental changes and seeing what you people think as I add each one. So here's a sneak peak. Comments would be appreciated.
I want to have a small number of fixed, non-overlapping categories. If users can define their own categories people will use "collections" instead of tags—for "at the beach house," "read but hated," etc. This will satisfy power users, but reduce universal value. Keeping the collection "buckets" limited will make it easier for people to view and understand other's collections. For example, the default view will include everything a user owns or has read, but profiles will have a link to users' "wish list." Predefined terms are also better for library-wide statistics—whose wishes are like mine, what users are wishing for generally, etc. This won't work if some people call it "wish list," others "want" or "christmas," etc. I don't want to get into users picking their own name and then giving the collection a "type." The system must be transparently simple.
I propose three collections: (1) books you own, (2) books you've read but don't own, (3) books you want. I'd like to use the short names "own," "read," "want." But people may misunderstand "read." "Want" is my attempt to avoid the Amazon-y "wish list." "Own," "read," "want" is also gramatically parallel. But can I escape this well-known name? Jacob Nielsen talks about a company replacing the standard "shopping cart" with a "shopping sled"—purchases plummeted!
I plan to implement it so that you choose what collection you're adding to on the "add books" page. (I'll have to think about how it works when you add a book another way; I don't want to make things too complex.) There will be an easy way to "power edit" books into one collection or another. The catalog view will show "own" and "read" together by default, but allow you to choose to see any combination of the three. Profiles will break it down three ways.
That's my plan. As they say, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. In this case, the enemy is the PHP programming language, not you, so help me out!
* I was shocked to discover that the 1969 parody of Tolkien, Bored of the Rings, has as its top recommendation Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Laugh all you want, but eight of thirty-two copies of In Search of Lost Time are owned by people who also own (the obscure) Bored of the Rings. You cannot argue with statistics! But why? I would also like to note that Amazon doesn't present a single suggestion for Bored of the Rings, and that most of LibraryThing's suggestions—Proust aside—are fantasy novels. LibraryThing beats Amazon again!
UPDATE: See the author page for National Lampoon. Bored of the Rings is split between three editions that LibraryThing isn't "combining." (User-contributed combination is on the way, I promise!) The main one has a review by wenestvedt, and picks out one really good suggestion—William Goldman's The Princess Bride, a fantasy/Medieval romp rather than a parody.
posted by Tim at 11:34 AM
65 Comments:
I was just wishing that there was a simple way to distinguish between my owned/read/desired books.
I think it will be very useful. You rock!
"own", "read", and "want" are potentially overlapping sets! There are books I've read but don't own and want a copy of for my personal library. Also, I have about 100 books tagged "toread", even though I own them. (And I've seen others do similar things here.) You can address the first problem and, as a bonus, eliminate the need for the "toread" tag by asking folks to choose "owned", "not owned", or "want" and then "read" or "not read".
I should add that, for users like me, the last choice should be between "read", "not read", and "in progress". (Yes, I have a ridiculously large number of books "in progress". There are no flat surfaces in my house not covered with books or other printed matter, except the ones where the CDs got there first!)
In checking out the new recommendations, I noticed that it recommended "Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern" by "Douglas R. Hofstadter" even though I have cataloged "Metamagical Themas" by "Douglas Hofstadter". Those two "authors" have already been combined, so I'm guessing it's the difference in the title that's throwing it off? The first is hardcover, while the second is a paperback; they have different ISBNs.
I'm not noticing a *huge* difference in the books being recommended. And I'm still getting tons of scifi and very little nonfiction in my recommendations, even though most of the books I've cataloged so far are nonfiction. (Which is not to say that scifi is inappropriate to recommend--I own many of the books being recommended but haven't cataloged them yet.)
As a user whose entire library is "read," but "not owned" I am looking forward to this. Are check boxes too complicated? Three check boxes with the "own" default checked?
There are books I've read but don't own and want a copy of for my personal library.
That would solve this problem, right? When adding from Amazon they could be in the tags popup below the entry field. Just a thought.
Perhaps instead of "own, read, want", you could use "own, borrowed, want."
I know that this doesn't solve the problem of whether or not the "borrowed" item is currently in the library or not, but at least it makes the distinction without making a statement as to how much of the library has been read or not.
"borrowed" doesn't solve the issue I pointed out, though. I do think "borrowed" (I have it, but it doesn't belong to me) and "on loan" (it belongs to me, but somebody else has it) would be useful, but they're orthoganal to the ownership and readness (got a better word? ;) ) issues.
Dear Tim,
You move into more opaque waters. It's probably impossible to tell whether someone owns a book except if you visit the owner's house and beyond examining the books live with him or her for a while. Online it would be impossible to tell whether someone read or wanted to read a book. This is a private non-reachable experience for the most part (hard tests have been devised to tell but these are not full-proof).
It depends what you view as the purpose of Library Thing. Occupation and entertainment for its users?
In my experience real respect (I understand using the word real is problematic as respect may be pretended) is given to what is persuasively accurate or true.
Information offered is seen in the context it appears in.
Sylvia (another pseudonym)
Thank you so much for fixing the author cloud (one of my favourite features)!
"I want to have a small number of fixed, non-overlapping categories."
I understand the allure of the parallel "own/read/want", but they are not "non-overlapping"! Certainly there are books that I both own and have read (though the "to be read" pile is reaching Everest proportions), and there are books that I do not own, have read and now want to own.
But I'm loving the idea of being able to list books that I have read and do not own, particularly since we'll be able to separate those from the books we do own. Presently, I use my LiveJournal to journal those books, but it's not easily searchable, even using a "book review" tag.
And thank you so much for the "commonly tagged" section! I have quite a few books that are not tagged, simply because I couldn't figure out what that tag should be. Seeing what tags others have chosen is a big help.
Perhaps "Sylvia" should have said that it's impossible to tell whether someone owns a book or whether the book owns them.
But, that issue aside, "want" in the context of LT means not, I think, "I want to read it" but rather "I wish you'd buy it for me". ;)
Since many of us here have, I suspect, a rather intimate and, perhaps even obsessive, relationship with our books, perhaps it's also worth thinking about issues like bookcrossing.org in this context. Let's take Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age as an example. I read it. I own a copy. I've also given copies to a few friends, some of them tagged with BCIDs from bookcrossing.org. I would like to be able to add an entry in my "library" for each of the copies I've given away (preferably tagged with a BCID in its own field, but the comments section will certainly do). So, I'd have one copy that is "read" and "own". The others would be, what? "not read"? and "not owned"? Would LT then understand that, yes, I do own the "book" and have read the "book", even though some copies in my "library" aren't marked "owned" or "read"?
I suppose I could also have a copy marked "want", couldn't I? Because I buy another copy whenever I find one cheap to give to another friend. But I wouldn't want folks to interpret that as "you should buy this for me". Similarly, I just discovered that my copy of The Peter Principle is missing a cover, and I'd like to replace it. So I guess I might "want" a copy of that, too.
Hmmm... Maybe Sylvia is right after all. ;)
Hmmmm . . . {draws a Venn diagram} . . . Owned --> Not owned, mutually exclusive. Read --> Not Read, mutually exclusive. Want probably excludes Owns, but not necessarily. Want could include Read or Not Read. Hmmmm . . . Seems to me that Owned/Not Owned is the first split. Then designate Read/Not Read. Use Comments for WANT with a way to sort or filter based on Comments to produce a list of Not Owned AND Wanted.
So, to put it another way, there's a difference between a "book" that's some particular (though not invariant) collection of words written by some particular (though also not invariant) author; a "book" that's a collection of (mostly invariant) words written by a particular (usually invariant) author manifested in a particular medium (paper of various sizes, CD, ASCII text, etc.); and a "book" (that thing sitting over there on my shelf).
LT already tries to make this distinction, though it sometimes fails to figure out that two "books" tagged with slightly-different titles or author names are really the same "book"; and it also counts two copies of a given "book" sitting on my shelf twice for some purposes it arguably should not.
I'm saying that "readness" and "desire" are things we attach to a book in the first or second senses, even though we're ostensibly cataloging books in the third sense.
I've watched several music related sites fail to make this kind of distinction with "albums" and they always wind up going back and trying to do it right, but messier.
I'm still working through the comments, but I wanted to stop one idea. My categories were (1) own, (2) read but don't own, (3) want. "Own," "read," "want" was a shorthand for that—the problem is using "read" to mean "read but don't known." The shorthand works for me, but I think it doesn't for others.
I am alergic to a matrix of boxes—read, not read; owned, not owned, etc. I think I'm just going to add "wish list" and leave everything up for tags. I do want a way for people to aspire to books. More in a sec.
I own both Proust and Bored of the Rings... :-)
Was just trying to think through the possibilites . . . I'm alergic to our cat, but he's still here! I'm too old to remember many of the books I read, but don't own. Heck, I have to take a list I printed from LT to the book store with me to keep me from buying duplicates!! Others are thinking about this on a 'higher' level than I'm able to. Whatever comes out of this will be good - like all the other features.
I definitely would welcome a "read" list, as I have probably read more books than I own (and I haven't read all of the latter) over the years - mainly library books. It would be nice to acknowledge those books, and review, tag and allocate ratings as appropriate. Not really a technically able type so happy to go with the flow!
Would it help avoid confusion if each of these headings had a hyperlink to a pop up box with a short description of what is intended by those terms?
Librarything continues to go from strength to strength !
I'm leaning toward a wish list alone. (And yes, it's really a "buy this for me, Dad" list, at least in my case.) Maybe I should go through the site and try to eliminate references to "owning" books. LibraryThing can be for anything—owned, read, lost, etc. The social features presume you've got *some* connection to the book. (If you indexed books you'd never ever read, you'd get connected with all sorts of people you don't care for.) I use it mostly for my own collection, but I've added a few books that have somehow gone AWOL—John McWhorter's Power of Babel, for example. It wasn't my fault that the book went missing, and it still feels "part" of me.
For read vs. unread status, to me that seems most logically dealt with using a tag. (for those who want to catalog books that they don't own but have read, this wouldn't necessarily help-- but I don't foresee personally) using LibraryThing for that purpose
OTOH, I can see the definite appeal of having a separate catalog of books that I want but do not yet own. This would be nifty-- and hopefully the process of moving from one catalog to the other (when the book is eventually acquired) would be a simple one.
I'm still in the process of adding my books to my catalog and have just barely started looking at the social statistics and tags. One feature I'd really appreciate would be:
If I click on a book in my catalog to view the social statistic, and it shows the tags that others have used for this book, if I could click (or right click or something) on the tag and have that tag added to my catalog entry for the book. (I guess basically, I'm imagining something a la delicious in this respect).
Finally: (and not exactly relatedly): How do I delete entries in my catalog (specifically, I have a number of accidental duplicate entries that I'd like to get rid of).
Thanks!
There's a couple ways to delete. The easiest is to click "see more" on the gray and yellow bar. You'll see a red X for each book. Click to delete.
I need to blog about suggested tags. I am happy to consider suggested tags from your own set, but I'm allergic to suggesting others' tags. It invalidates the whole tags-as-mental-model thing. Guiding users to tag disturbs that. It introduces a "right" way to tag. I'm fascinated by the mental categories people have. Witness vampire smut! And the "related tags" feature connects these outliers with what other people are using for the same books.
I suggest "have read," rather than "read."
This would clarify that you mean past tense ("have read"), not future tense ("yet to be read").
Sorry, I can't think of any single set of mutually exclusive states that covers everything here. Mainly, I can think of books I've borrowed that I also want to own myself, some day.
Tom, why are you allergic to the matrix of checkboxes?
I know I'm not the only person who set up two catalogs, one for books owned and another for books I've read-but-not-owned. I'd rather keep them all in one catalog, then use a tool other than tags to differentiate.
I think you're taking on an astounding task with this feature. I'm looking forward to see how whatever you choose turns out.
Language: *Your* erudition is very clear (you have more books tagged "onomastics" than some people have books). The rest of us have to fake it. :)
I, and I think you, think of books as lifetime possessions. I simply do not alienate them. If they get lost somehow or, for example, get wet and moldy as my Procopius Loebs did, I still consider them part of my library. Once a Spalding, always a Spalding. :)
Other people—saner people, perhaps—borrow books from libraries, sell books, donate books, etc. If I were one of those people, I might still want some sort of record of what I'd read. It might even be more useful. I mean, I can spend some time with my shelves if I forget what I've read.
Your wishlist vote has been tallied. Since it's also my vote now, it's been counted as five votes. Jimmy Carter should monitor these elections—something's fishy here.
On the checkboxes: It just feels clunky to me. Adding books should be as easy as possible—easier than it is now. Anything that makes it more complex, anything that requires thinking has to pass a very high barrier. I think I can conscience having a "Add to" drop-down, particularly as I think I'm going to stick it under "advanced options" and not visible by default. But a matrix of checkboxes? Too much.
Just a feeling. I get convinced a lot on this blog—I'm now convinced own, read, want is a bad dichotomy—but sometimes I dig in my heels. :)
I like the idea of the wishlist. One of the things I have enjoyed about the "similar libraries" feature is the discovery of books I did not know about on a variety of subjects. I had even added the tag "covetous wishlist"!
Thanks!
Tim -
Your comments today have me ROTFLMFAO!
And, about the voting, by coincidence, I've just spent the better part of the afternoon researching electronic voting, since Connecticut is purchasing new voting machines. Your state probably is, too, and if you're not involved, I urge you to become involved... It's a scary, scary topic for anyone with a clue about security... (Avi Rubin's page at http://avirubin.com/vote/ is one good place to start.)
Odd woman out here, as I'm not as enamored of the "wish list" idea as others seem to be. It just doesn't have the same "feel" as a catalog of my books, or even a catalog of books I've read (which I'd much rather see), and therefore doesn't seem terribly appropriate for this site.
But, then, I don't have to use it! ;-)
Hmm, I suppose I can see your point about other people's tags can overly influence one's own. I'm not sure that I agree that this is a problem, but it's something I definitely will ponder more.
Have suggested tags from one's own tagging categories, though, as you suggest, that could be helpful as well.
So about feature design... I hear you on the "clunky" thing, Tim, and I see how making two decisions and two clicks might seem worse. But IMHO they are two much *simpler* decisions. Also, one of them can be blown off by those who don't care about the read/unread distinction; so for those people, it's much easier.
I think the comments here make it clear that people are coming to LT for two very different reasons. One is to catalog their books and have a record of what they own, and maybe where the heck it's located. (Wish LT had been here when I put so many of my books into boxes...) For that, the own/not owned/want dimension is relevant, and it can easily default to "own" for those who only care about cataloging their vast holdings. (I thought I only owned 1000 books; I'm almost to 1000 and I'm only halfway through!)
The other reason people are here is to make connections with new books and/or new people. (I've already added a few books to my wishlist and a few blogs to my bookmarks because of LT!) For language, who wonders why some of us want to catalog things we have read but don't own, there's the reasoon. Thus, some but not all of us will find the read/not read dimension useful. (And I expect that it will improve LT's recommendations.) Or, read/not read/now reading, if you follow my earlier suggestion.
So, folks who *just* want to catalog their personal library can default to "own", maybe click an occasional "want", and ignore the other dimension.
I very much agree with your distinction between types of users. I keep that uppermost in my mind at all times—don't irritate either group. So, I don't plan to "push" wish lists on anyone. If you use it, it will appear on your profile and as a view option in your catalog. If you do not, you will not see it.
I don't want to be too dogmatic about the tag issue, but it's my choice for now. Among librarians, there's a lot of interest in "folksonomies"—classification/finding mechanisms arising from user-created tags. LibraryThing is, among other things, the first real field test of the idea as applied to books. Can folksonomies be a useful alternative or addition to traditional/professional classificatory schemes? As "science" I don't want to change the experiment half-way through. :)
How about breaking this puzzle into 2 parts.
1. OWN
a. used to own
b. currently own
c. want to own
d. borrowed
2. READ
a. finished reading
b. still reading
c. want to read for the first time
d. want to read again
The two sections can be mixed and matched to one's hearts delight.
Tim,
We are among those who want their catalog to consist of books actually physically present in our house. However, I recently realized that I also want a list of books that I have borrowed from others, the public library, etc. that were particularly good and that I might want to see again or perhaps even buy one day.
For instance, I am currently reading a library book called 'The Unfolding of Language' (which my husband grabbed and read first!) for which we will probably want to remember author, title, and where to find it a year from now.
An ability to maintain a separate listing of such books in LT would be wonderful. I would also use a 'wish list' for books by favorite authors that we really, really want on our own shelves. For me the two are not necessarily identical. (One reason being space limitations. Once there are books in every room one becomes very selective about buying more.)
This particular post seems to have generated a lot of discussion! Anyway, keep up the great work and thanks.
- the pwh half of hailelib -
andyhat -
Coincidentlly, I just came across a rather unusual set of "tags" for LotR by "librarychick" that suggests there is a limit:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?tag=+++seven+for+the+dwarf-lords+i&view=librarychick
I vote for wishlist - but then I think I was one of the people who was voting for it before anyway. At any rate, it's a common category which can be understood by all users and filtered in sensible ways.
As for the rest, there's too much emotion caught up in the owned/read business. I haven't added wishlist books yet because I don't want to add books that I don't own, but once I can make the distinction I'll be happy to.
Perhaps all that's really necessary is a per-tag option to exclude books with that tag from your "default" listing. I'd expect wishlist books to do that by default, but that way I could add "have read", "banned books" or any abitrary tag and simply nominate (for reasons perhaps known only to myself) that these books aren't to be included in my catalogue.
It makes the meaning of the tag less explicit, but also allows all the flexible tagginess that I'm coming to love.
Ooooh..I'd like to second felius's idea. Combine it with an option to exclude books with a certain tag from public listing and I think you'd have the best solution for personal use.
Speaking of too many strange fields, and of different types of users… I have a secondary LT account to track the books I'm reading, as I read them. I'm crossing my fingers that someday I can add the fields "started reading" and "finished reading" instead of having to type that as well as the dates each time in the comments. Any thoughts on that yet, Tim?
postzavtra said...
How about breaking this puzzle into 2 parts.
1. OWN
a. used to own
b. currently own
c. want to own
d. borrowed
2. READ
a. finished reading
b. still reading
c. want to read for the first time
d. want to read again
These makes a lot of sense to me and covers the range of my reading experiences.
Comments on the wishlist feature.
You should be able to transfer the book from the want to own.
If you add the book to your library manually it could remove it from the want list, but present an option to put it back.
Other people should be able to mark in some way that they are buying something from a users wishlist (you don't want two people to buy you the same book).
It would be useful to have a category of books read but not owned, though it would a bit alter the original concept of "cataloging YOUR books online". A "want" list? I don't like the idea.
Moloch
I would like to be able to list both read and wanted books on here. Feliu's idea sounds good - an option on each tag that says whether books with that tag should be listed in the main library, or only in searches for that tag, or only accessible to the catalog owner.
Or just have two tags, 'wishlist' and 'have read but don't own' that are included in your tag list and can be added to books as normal, and any books with those tags are not included in your basic catalog.
I'm not very interested in a wish list, but I'd definitely like a "read" catagory.
Tim, I like your original idea. The three categories made sense to me.
I second "not my real name"'s suggestion that we be able to import from our Amazon wishlists! I also have a crazy number of books on my wishlist, since I use that as my "want to read" list.
One problem: my Amazon wishlist, and probably others', also includes a large number of CDs. How could we import just the books?
I would "vote" for the ability to designate a book that I have read but do not own. Including those within LT (and being able to rate/review them) would, I believe, give a better picture of my tastes and generate better recommendations.
I do realize that I can add these books to my catalog now and simply tag them "borrowed" or "read don't own" or something like that. I have resisted so far because somehow it offends my sense of order.
Personally I don't think I would use a want/wish list.
This is a big thread so half-way through I started making notes in point form, but surely missed some of my brilliantly inspired thoughts (:
* I’m both types of user - I only use Librarything as a catalog of books I believe I currently own. But this is a great way to get suggestions for new books. I really want support for "read but don't own" and "want to read" because those can affect suggestions. I also want to be able to review and vote on books I've read but don't now own. I don't consider these other two lists as my catalog.
* Private tags - one user mentioned he might not want the public to see some kinds of tags - though he didn't put it that way it sounds reasonable and not too difficult to me
* The "ownership continuum" and “readness continuum" seem to be very sound concept - just the details are lacking
* Readness: I currently use “unread”, “unfinished”, and “read” – but only for “linear” books such as fiction, pop-sci, history – but not for reference books, language teaching books, and probably other stuff - I've noticed from this thread that there are synonyms such as "to read" and "in progress" which the tag-associator doesn't find.
* What about non-compulsory checkboxes, dropdowns, etc, for each continuum, but with defaults of “I own it” and “blank”, or possibly even “blank” for ownership too - most people won't use them until they start wanting to play with books they don't currently own
* Views: I do want a view of my “own” and a view of my “wishes”. I probably want a “community” view with everything together, but not necessarily. I probably would never use a “only books I’ve read but don’t own” view
Sorry it's such a mess - hope some can make some sense of it ):
Fifty-two comments! HELP!
I would like to see the three categories as you originally outlined. How about you just label 'em like this:
Mine Now. (for owned)
Mine Once Upon a Time. (for read, not owned)
Mine Someday. (for wishlist)
If I add those, I'll bet "mine once upon a time" fills up with fairy tales...
One source of unease I have about LT being a "wish list" or "read, but not owned list" vs. an actual catalogue of books that one owns is that I and others have adopted LT for insurance purposes. I worry that the legitimacy of this purpose might be lost. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind a way to keep track of my bibliophilic desires, if available. One possible solution is to keep these categories separate and allow users to add books to any or all of the categories. I can't suggest anything on programming issues, but having separate tabs on the main page for "your collection," "read," and "want/desire" whereby the integrity of user catalogues is maintained would be fantastic.
In any case, best of luck on this one, LT!
Also, on the point of tagging books in the three categories rather than having them separate to begin with, I think it would get very unwieldy/clunky for those with larger collections to go through and tag individual books under all these categories. My collection is a piddling 479 and it takes me forever to tag. ;)
In fact, I don't think there's so much need to make "books I have read but don't own" an actual list like the others. All I want is to be able to add ratings and reviews to them when I see that others own them.
If you went without an "add books" feature for these, you could just split the "add books" tab into "add to my catalog" and "add to my wishlist" thus avoiding the whole radio button matrix problem.
I also think you oughta include a library tag... as in, books i have read from my local library. so many people come into my branch asking about the book they read last year in November... but our software doesn't capture all books ever taken out. So this would be a neat tool, here, cuz you are my hero.
I'm definitely in favour of some way of listing books I don't own and want to look at (at the library) and/or want to buy (this is what I use LT for at present though I hope one day to get round to cataloging books I own as well). The idea of some kind of separate catalogue to be chosen as you decide to add a book appeals as this would save adding an ownership tag for each book. It would also mean that those who wanted to use LT just for owned books could ignore the 'want' catalogue, or vice versa. Read or not could apply to books in either the owned or wanted lists, so would perhaps be better as as a tick box in both catalogues.
Thanks for all your hard work on this Tim, and the best of luck in developing a system that suits us all!
What about using colors? For example, red text for those "Read" (pardon the pun), Green for those "lent/barrowed/on the move/lost", blue or yellow for those unread. It would be nice to choose your own colors, like when organizing messages on outlook. On there, one can choose colors for e-mail from or to specific people, etc.
Would that be a difficult feature to develop?
Regarding the colors, Tim could easily get you halfway there by using appropriate classes in his HTML for the pages. Then you could choose your own colors by applying them via a user style-sheet in your browser.
I would have owned & read as checkboxes, default option 'yes' for both, and if 'owned' was 'no' my view of the entry would automatically have a "Find in a Library" OCLC (??) link.
Actually, I'd splot "Find in a Library" all over. I love that service.
Interesting, there's no satisfying every need. For my twopenn'orth I think I'd clone the tagging code and have a new tag box for 'ownership' so folk could tag their books their way. What this would do is to separate the 'ownership' tags from the 'content' tags as I do think those are two pretty distinct ways of looking at books.
Bob
Can you just let people specify their own categories to appear in this list? Personally, I would like to use it to indicate which member of the household owns/wants the book (Bill's book, Lisa's book, Sam's book, Bill's wishlist, Lisa's wishlist, etc., etc.)
I have four: own, for things I own. read, for things I've read, which may be on the same book as own. tbr, for things I want to read, regardless of whether or not I own it. And wish list or want, for things I intend to purchase.
I am using this site to maintain my own version of a bookography.
There are several "Key Tags", that may be of interest:
List of Candidates:
These are books that I would like to read. The list is huge, and will not likely be completed before I die. If you have read any of these, what did you think?
Library of Candidates:
These are books that I'd like to read and actually own. They are probably sitting on my shelf or next to my bed.
In Medias Res:
These are books that I'm currently reading.
Living Library:
These are books that I've read, but may or may not have in my posession at the moment. Though, I rarely read a book on loan, I do on occasion. I am equally reluctant to loan books, but will none the less. One must be a good citizen after all. This list will never be definitive. I cannot remember all the books I have read. And does one count the books from one's education? I have decided not to, in most cases. I will have to come to terms with the regretable fact that this list will always be a mystery.
Castaways:
These are books that I started, but for one reason or another, tossed aside. One's life is too short to read a book that isn't to your taste.
I just sent you an email about this! Feel free to ignore it.
I would love the "read" versus "own" feature. Has it been implemented yet?
Coming in on this really late, but it seems to me that this info is basically of personal interest. That is, I don't really care if someone else bought, borrowed, browsed or stole their copy of a book. But I do like to keep track of that for my own sake. So, instead of using tags, or having specialised checkboxes for all possible combinations, how about just having user-specific, user-creatable lists/categories/sets, whatever you want to call them. These are different from tags because:
a) They are not social - there is no linking between similar categories in different users.
b) They can be ordered - by whatever order makes sense to the user. I'd suggest not sorting at all, but allowing the user to reorder the contents to their liking. Maybe an option to 'sort contents by name/date/author' which only happens when triggered, not every time. Depends how complex you want to make that.
Any book can be added to multiple categories, and people can make up their own 'Books I've Read', 'Books I've borrowed', 'Books I loved in High School', whatever.
To me, that seems a reasonable compromise.
One other suggestion would be to somehow make the UI seem less oriented to books I own, as opposed to borrowed, etc. I'm not exactly sure what should change to make that the case, and maybe it's just me, but I've always felt it was intended that way for some reason.
These comments are probably not being read any more, but if they are, see
http://groups.google.com/group/Librarything/msg/213225df33df0b99
where I attempt to refute some of your point. ;)
Though I have some minor corrections in different posts in the same thread where I have also expounded on the idea...
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