New feature: Much better search
All requests eventually come true. Searching has been improved, replacing the old "relevance" search with a more Google-ish search.
The search page now look like:
The main improvements are:
Update: LibraryThing is still mostly up, but sometimes slow. I am working on the server issue on a number of levels and hope to show some progress soon. This is one issue I will lick, no matter how large it gets. That said, if you're David Pogue and writing up an article on LibraryThing for the New York Times, please don't publish it this week!
The search page now look like:
The main improvements are:
- Searching for "Greek history" now gives you all the books that have the phrase "greek history," not some lame weighing of books that have just one or maybe just have a word close to "greek."
- Book searches can use syntax like +greek -history
- You can now search LibraryThing for authors and tags. Instead of dropping you into a catalog with X-thousand books by J. K. Rowling or tagged "science fiction," these take will take you to the LibraryThing page for J. K. Rowling and science fiction.
- Book searches are still ordered by relevance, which means they can't be sorted by author, title, etc. I'll fix this soon.
- You cannot currently search the entire 1.5 million books for a single book. I'm going to add this, but add it in a way that you get the book-page, not a catalog page loaded 10,000 copies of Harry Potter. The main problem right now is speed; I don't want to introduce any more speed-hogging features.
Update: LibraryThing is still mostly up, but sometimes slow. I am working on the server issue on a number of levels and hope to show some progress soon. This is one issue I will lick, no matter how large it gets. That said, if you're David Pogue and writing up an article on LibraryThing for the New York Times, please don't publish it this week!
posted by Tim at 5:26 AM
40 Comments:
nice!!
how about only putting in one submit-button, making the searches combinable?
ultimately, only one searchbox, being able to search for "author:smith title:nice book tag:boring user:abc"
Search my watch list?
Mail to tspaulding@librarything.com is being rejected because you're over quota. You might want to think about getting an email account other than the one provided by your local cable service.
My email was to inform you of a major UI bug:
In catalog view (of your OWN catalog!), click the Social icon.
Now, on the right, click the pencil to edit.
It will tell you you don't have the right to do that.
Is there any way of going directly to a numbered page? I have been attempting to edit my tags and I find that I have to go through each page in order to arrive at the last one I worked on.
Excellent. :) Thank you!
Idea-wise, like my anonymous friend here, I've often wished the ability to combine searches was available. A search box on the profile would be great.
I'd meant to make them sooner, but my compliments on the profile changes. Very nice!
daniel,
i believe tim's contact email is in fact
timspalding@librarything.com
maybe this is the problem?
Mail: I think you may have been getting bounced--I was over quota--but note that my email is timspalding not tspaulding@librarything.com.
Expanding search: This will have to wait until I conquer the speed problems. But I certainly want to do that.
Going directly to a numbered page: Yes, you can. See over on the right side of the gray and yellow bar. It says something like "Page: [1] 2 3 4 5". Click on the number to go to the page.
ah, bliss. Thank you so much! It works perfectly.
I still wish the "book" search included information about the publisher ("Oxford University Press" is coming up empty now, so I know it's not searching on publisher). A search on comments would be nice but isn't crucial. I can use tags instead of comments for that kind of information ("beside the piano"; "loaned to Randi"), and those are fully searchable. For that matter I could add an "OUP" tag if I really needed to sort by publisher.
However, if information from the 'publisher' field could be added to the book search at some point, it would prevent those 4 or 5 of us who care about that from having to duplicate the information in a tag. I suspect that not that many people are going to need this, though; nor is it urgent in my case; by all means leave it fairly far down your priority list.
Thanks again! This is great, and what I really needed.
How do I go Directly to Page 44?
Good. But searching for words with accents or other special characters still doesn't work, or only sometimes works. ("Brontë" worked in a global search, but not in my own library. "Miéville" didn't yield any results in either.)
Also, the search tab doesn't appear on the front page. But maybe there's a purpose to that.
I'm not having any luck with the author search on LibraryThing (works on my own catalog). I've typed in Faulkner, Cornwell, Shakespeare, Burke, Christie, and various others and got "no authors found". When I typed in "McCourt", I got this:
* Franklin E. Court
* W. H. B Court
* Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
* Charles M. Court-Brown
* Hampton Court Palace
* J. Court
"Twain" got me two authors with the last name "Wain".
What's going on?
Page 44: I see what you mean. I can add a "jump to page" function if you have a very large number. Clutters up the interface, however. How about I do "[1] 2 3 4 5 6 6 ... 60 Other"?
Authors: I'll take a look.
Speed: The speed is killing me. I'm on the issue as soon as I can get to it.
Thank you for your response to my request for page search. I believe "other" would help to solve my problems.
When I tried searching my own library for two specific tags, I got this message:
[username]'s library is private.
I should add that I was properly logged in at the time.
Can you make it possible for us users who wish to keep our library "private" to search our own library when logged in? I don't fancy the idea of having to temporarily reset my profile to "public" any time I wish to search my own collection.
Sometime after you fix the server issue, would searching the comments field be a possibility? I'm annoting some of my books with notes about where they are and that doesn't seem like a good "tag" to inflict on the whole database.
The authors problem is related to case -- it seems to be cutting out all uppercase letters? A search for "Braithwaite" fails but "braithwaite" succeeds. I figured this out from anonymous's McCourt->Court and Twain->Wain report.
My main request for searching: when you do a search on your catalog you should be able to sort the resulting list by one of the columns. Currently, if you search your catalog for an author, let's say, you can't then sort the books by that author by date.
There's something wrong with the Similar Libraries. First, I appear to share a book with a user who has a private library: how can that be? Second, when I click to see the title of the book in question, nothing happens.
Yes. This is much better. Thank you. The plus and minus is good, too.
But. I was really hoping for something that would use mysql. I'd really like you to provide a way we could construct something like a SELECT statement, WHERE publication IS LIKE "Oxford University" AND year IS 1984, say.
Failing that, echo the requirement to search comments, too (and remind you I put in a bug report that csv download wasn't including comments). Some of our entries have put a lot of information in the comments.
But I recognise your priority right now is database speed and stability.
I love the much improved search and profile page. Thanks.
On the "tag" issue brought up by "anonymous" and countered by "not my real name" ... I, too, often feel like my tags are "polluting" the tag pool, as the only ones I've used so far (I'm sort of waiting for the LC Subjects go live for informational tagging) refer to LOCATION within my library ... so each book I log in has a specific tag for it reflecting the bookcase, shelf, and position (ie. "filed C8-S2-B25"), which then allows my LT catalog to be in exactly the order the books are filed.
Obviously, these tags are totally useless for anybody else ... and I wonder if another (sortable) field might be added of "Location".
Further to the tag discussion... I think that tags are there to be used exactly as we see fit. (One of the most charming tags I've seen so far is "note found in book"!)
However, my own way around the personal vs. social tag dilemma is to add an @ sign at the beginning of my personal tags. So, I have tags called:
- @holiday05 (books received as gifts)
- @melodysbook (borrowed from friends)
- @interlibraryloan (library requests)
- @lenttomelody (books lent TO friends)
- @onorder (ordered from bookshops)
- @wishlist (for books I want to own eventually).
Some of these tags are temporary, and they're all uniquely mine; the contents of my @wishlist are irrelevant to anyone else (except, perhaps, anyone looking to buy me a present ;-). That's why I flagged them with the @ symbol.
All the other tags I use, namely everything without the @ symbol at the front, are category tags that describe the *contents* of the book - hopefully with enough accuracy that it's meaningful to others as well as to myself. One reason I tag so meticulously is so that friends who have interest in specific subject areas within my collection can locate those books for borrowing purposes.
(Incidentally, I'm helping set up LibraryThing for a nonprofit that has its own special-tagging needs, such as @missing, @needsrebinding, @2copies, and so on.)
Anyway, that's how I got around the "problem" ... which, of course, may be no problem at all.
The only possible hitch is that the @ sign puts the personal tags at the beginning of tag lists, which could conceivably be an annoyance to other users. Are there any special characters that are alphanumerically sorted to the end?
RE: tags
I suppose the question that is raised is "what are tags for?" In my view, tags are to help me sort and organize my library. While most of my tags are subject- or author-related, I have some that are not. As an amateur bookbinder, I use "bookbinding project - pending" and "rebound" (goal for the year: move more of the former into the latter!).
I think there will always be unique tags simply because many of us will have unique ways in which we want to identify our books. It's unavoidable.
I don't use a location tag, primarily because I just haven't gotten around to it yet, but I very much like btripp's idea of a sortable field for location (though he is clearly far more organize that I am)!
Speaking of personal use of tags, I think it's hilarious that three separate users have assigned the tag "lost" to the book The Art of Computer Programming: Sorting and Searching v. 3...
Chamekke, you asked, "Are there any special characters that are alphanumerically sorted to the end?"
Looking at the my shelf earlier today, I discovered that the last book was a libretto the data for which showed the title as follows:
[Les Huguenots] Gli Ugonotti (The Huguenots)
So it looks like that square bracket might work for you!
I suppose the question that is raised is "what are tags for?" In my view, tags are to help me sort and organize my library.
I agree with what lilithcat above wrote. I feel my tags are for my own use, and whatever I decide to use is not 'polluting' or 'inflicting' anything on anyone else. Isn't that the whole point of having them, so that you, the user, can decide what works best for you?
The vast majority, I think, of my tags are "normal", like "fiction". But I do have some admittedly silly and/or unwieldy tags, such as "but I don't like spam", "heavy enough to smite someone with", "the miraculous 97 cent sale", and "a book so big I have no idea where I'm going to put it"; they are for descriptive purposes and because it amused me to use them.
I like seeing the unusual tags people choose to describe their books, too. It's part of the fun.
lilithcat said: So it looks like that square bracket might work for you!
Thank you very much! I'll give it a try.
Some tag comments:
I understand where people are coming from about personal tags. In general, the system will continue to "mix" them pell-mell. I am loath to tell people how to tag.
I do, however, want to provide some ability to hide tags from others' view. I like the @ sign as a marker of that. This would be useful for tags like "@stole it" and "@mistress."
Using [, or better [ .. ], around a tag would be another technique. But it's more work and it seems right to sort them to the top.
The only problem with @ is that Yahoo uses @ to mean "alias" or "sim-link" in the Yahoo directory. (So if you're in a category like "Reptiles and amphibians" you might see an alias like "@kids--dinosaurs," something related but not a "child" of the current category.) Perhaps this is not a problem if @ tags are never seen by others.
Lastly, whatever is chosen, I'm not sure that every tag-handling routine currently anticipates these as input. I need to make sure of this. Until then, I'm not going to vouch for the functionality of tags like [@%$#!@{.
i would just like to add that one of the things i love most about LibraryThing is the fact that tags can include spaces. i am so sick of how other sites force me to use one-word tags, please may this never happen here!
nperrin
Tell me about it! The non-space rule is some crazy transference of programming logic to the real world. Programming variables have to be one word. Thus was born camel caps--WhenYouSpellSomethingLikeThis--and the underscore. Why this strangeness needs to forced on users is beyond me.
Unrelated bug report:
When I do an author search for "Murakami" there are 3 results for Ryu Murakami that I'd like to merge but one gives an error:
Clicking on "Ryˆu Murakami" gives the error message:
You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ') AND books_sort_author NOT IN ('murakamirycircu') AND book - fatal error (5*)
The URL is:
http://www.librarything.com/author/murakamirycircu&norefer=1
Apologies for this being off-topic, but I just wanted to stay how much I liked the addition of "fun statistics" to the profile page. They really are fun - and I've spent far too long comparing "library obscurity" ratings, when I should have been working. Many thanks for this.
Any chance we're going to get the "similar libraries" feature back? I found that a really good way of getting pointers to new-to-me books and authors that I might enjoy.
Jessica
Along that same topic, I'd like to be able to see the non-distinct works easily. I suspect I made a data entry error as I can only think of one duplicate I have. If I can also get a way to search my library over the phone while I am in the bookstore then I'd really be in heaven.
532 Number of books
527 Number of distinct works
Could we have a "most obscure libraries" category on the Zeitgeist page?
OK, I'm off topic also, but I was afraid posting to something in the archives wouldn't get a response.
I'm having trouble with adding scanned covers. The first one I did came out great. Clear and sharp. The second one was too fuzzy - out of focus looking. I thought I used the same procedure each time: Scan into Paint or MS Picture It. Reduce size to under 200K. Save as .jpg. Upload. I've tried various other things with the same result - poor image quality.
Then I looked back in the archives to where this feature was introduced. There was a post about having to wait for an update before the new image replaces an old one. If this is still true, then perhaps all my attempts today are going to waste.
What is the best way to scan, resize, and upload covers?
Is there actually an update delay issue if you are replacing a cover image?
I just tried replacing one cover with a completely different image. After the upload, the original image was still displayed. Sooooo, there is a delay issue.
Will wait for a reply and/or advice from you more knowledgeable folks.
For some reasons, when you're in Edit mode, changes to pictures don't usually show up. But if you hit Submit, your change will still take effect.
It's one of those peculiar LibraryThing refresh issues. The other one is that if you leave a comment on someone's page, the page just hangs there and never seems to refresh... it *appears* still to be working on posting the information you sent.
What I do is to open a separate window almost immediately to see if the comment has been posted - invariably, it has - and then I close the window that's "still working on it.")
Basically, things often work even when they don't appear to.
I went away for a half hour or so. When I came back, the new, different image had replaced the old. So I replaced that. Signing out and signing right back in doesn't result in the update, nor does immediately opening a new window. I'll wait 30 minutes or so and check again.
Now, for image quality . . .
On the cover upload thing ... I was having the same problem, especially for books that I'd already put in a cover for ... what I found was that I'd have to DELETE the first cover, then wait overnight ... everything else I tried just returned the previously-uploaded cover! My guess is whatever "holds the space" for an uploaded cover for a particular book in one's library doesn't clear out when you delete the image, but it gets re-set (if the previously uploaded image is marked for deletion) some point overnight, probably when the Zeitgeist page update happens (which seems to be random, but generally 1-5am EST ... see the very bottom of that page).
As far as picture quality ... you might do better in reducing your images further before uploading them ... I've found that something in the 200x300 pixel range (generally 20k to 30k .jpg files) works well. Since LibraryThing tends to show the covers at a bit less than 100x150 it's really over-kill to load in a 200k file! I know that some programs are better than others in doing reduction/enlargement of graphic files, and perhaps starting off with something closer to the "target size" would ensure a sharper on-page image.
Btrip, thanks for the advice. Last night I had field day on Google finding missing covers. Will get back to scanning in a few days.
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