Frequently recommended features

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Features on this page are frequently requested ones. Please don't start new threads about them on the forum. The LibraryThing team knows they are wanted.

See also:

• "Recommended Site Improvements" data from individual suggestion polls thread (begun September 2010)
• Browse Category:Recommended site features
• Recommend Site Improvements group threads

Collections

• Collections and related functions are perhaps the most frequently requested feature. Collections introduced 2009.
• Wish list: A list of books that are desired but not owned. This will be handled by the Collections feature. ([1]) Wishlist included as a default collection.
• Owned/unowned/read/unread flags: This is more general than a wish list in that books can be marked owned but unread as well (books on a wishlist would likely be both unowned and unread). This may be handled by the Collections feature as well, but we'll have to wait to see what exactly it is.
• Currently reading tracking (this will be handled by collections) ConceptDawg
• Ability to track Collections by author name rather than by book title

Combining/Series/Multi-Author

• Option/Flag to set title/author at particular name, meant to correct misspellings instead of choosing from variations
• Better Author System (Author/Translator/Illustrator/Editor)
• Ability to "explode" works/separate multiple books at once
• Super- and subwork concepts (including short story collections, anthologies etc); see also cataloging serials
• Book separation by ISBN
• Work Links/Disambiguation
• Lists (as distinct from the "series" introduced in January 2008)
• Adding authors (e.g. renaud - dufaux) made up of a scénariste (dufaux, jean) and a dessinateur (denauw, renaud)

Privacy

• read-only access, a feature that would enable people to see the catalog but not edit it
• Private books
• Private fields (private comments now live 1)
• Allow selective access to private libraries (eg., friends)
• Private tags
• Privacy by collection

Import/Export

• Export library in RIS, BibTeX, and other formats for commmon bibliographic software programs
• Import library in RIS, BibTeX, and other formats for commmon bibliographic software programs
• LibraryThing<->Facebook Widget (3rd party versions exist)
• Custom Import Formats
• iPod Export (currently in beta testing: ConceptDawg)
• More Library/Bookseller Sources (Google Booksearch, international libraries, etc)
• Use LibraryThing as a source on the Add Books page - OverCat implemented
• Allow adding multiple books/multiple copies from a single search (on LT or from Add Books). This is not the same as Universal Import.
• Add the 'Comments' field to the list of fields exported.
• Add the 'Comments' field to the list of fields IMPORTED.
• Backup of library (some XML-format or other), in case LibraryThing is hit by earthquake/fire/flood/tornado/bankruptcy/IRS/Department of Homeland Security/gremlins/China
• Export all fields in the database.
• Export each tag as a separate field
• Allow manual import to upload multiple records from file (title, author)
• Better RSS feeds (sortable, filterable, use reading dates as pub dates, etc.)
• Export by collection (or just add the "collection" field to the exported data)
• Import wishlist from Amazon
• API for adding a book to a persons library, simulating a manually added book, to make it possible to export from Calibre (many ebooks don't have ISBNs) to Librarything.
• Choose from all fields which fields to export and the order they are exported in.
• Select which fields to export (e.g. being able to choose to export info from common knowledge etc.)

Library

• Page through catalog by jumping to letter
• More columns in library view/alter column width
• Drag-and-drop books/Better sorting (series, etc.)
• Support for Hebrew books based on the United Libraries of Israel (ULI) catalog. If you need technical help with it, or with Hebrew, don't hesitate to contact LT user 'ijon' at asaf.bartov--AT--gmail.com. Details on the Z39 interface are available
• Manually enter book by copying from another, also known as, "fix the green plus"
• A direct link to the book on Google Book Search where it can be viewed/searched online
• Check box if book is "book club edition"
• Ability to delete multiple books. (I'm cleaning out my library right now, and as far as I know, I have to hit the "X" on each book individually and then wait for the page to refresh - VERY time-consuming.)

Fields

• A quotes field so you can save quotes extracted from the books and then find them. It's very useful for thesis writing.

There is a Common Knowledge quotes field.

• Tag Replacement along with mass add/delete (This maintains tag order)

You can replace tag names on the Tags page.

• Longer max field length (Author, Title, Tags, Author Pic Copyright)
• Library Value (Tim opposes this. See post #143.)
• Circulation module for tracking book loans (Workaround: Use tags/comments)
• Custom fields
  • Edit tags from tag cloud/merge 1 tag into another from tag cloud
• Allow importing subject headings from a library, when the original source record is not a library. (??? Timspalding)
• Adding own subject headings (Workaround: use tags)
• Work or Book Synopsis field

There is a "Book Description" field. One is automatically generated from amazon.com data; others can be added by individual members. See member book descriptions.

• Field specifically for linking to url of online book.
• Page Count field
• Location field (e.g. Living room, work, office)

Can be handled by collections and/or tags.

• Acquisition number (owning library catalog number) field.

Could be satisfied by a custom (per library) field.

Note that Entry Date is a timestamp and is therefore a de facto unique ID (but not settable to pre-existing values)

• Original title field: title in its original language typed in by owner or coming directly from a reader having the original version or any other source.
• Original publication date field

Suggestions

• Move books from fiction<->nonfiction for own suggestions only, not affecting other people
• Exclude certain books from consideration when making suggestions (this is possible now in a limited, workaround since with tags, by tagging everything else with some placeholder tag, but the full flexibility of being able to work on arbitrary subsets of your library -- or even to *exclude* a particular tag rather than include one -- is still desired)
• Be able to mark suggested books as 'don't show this' (e.g. to prevent the recommendation for a partial work because you own the full version)
• See suggestions for a certain set of nontagged books (search results, etc)
• Consider ratings (yours and/or others) when making suggestions -- computationally very expensive, and probably unlikely
• Be able to set books not to match on when suggesting other libraries of interest.
• Be able to rate a book in the negative. Currently the only way to indicate disliking a book is to give it 1/2 a star, or not to rate it at all, which is misleading. Can we get a symbol for dislike?
• Use intelligent Headers - replacing such autogenerated fields as tags with more useful Collections, and the Date Entered Field with Series. The ability to sort the printable page by any of these categories.

Misc.

• On the Review page, the list of others reviews should have a default order by date (agreed by conceptDawg)
• Better non-Latin character handling (Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, etc.)
• Indication of logged-in status for other users [Tim against this, probably]
• More frequent Zeitgeist updates
• multiple 1, multiple 2 (for anyone who wants to collate a longer list)
• Not have to choose 'European Date Order' every single time a date is to be entered
• Spoiler alerts for reviews [Tim is pretty opposed to this one]
  • Talk September 2007
  • Talk April 2007
  • Talk August 2006 [Tim comments on this thread but he doesn't seem opposed to spoiler warnings]
• Show which books are in your library on Author/Tag/Work Suggestion pages.
• Change Default Author Picture within own gallery

Okay, this is not a frequently-requested feature—one user hates President Carter! Correction. Two users.

• A tagging system and/or categorical structure for groups - Implemented; see Tagging of groups
• Change the the colour scheme of the site; give it more of an identity, less bland looking.
• Allow greater customization of home page (e.g. embed "Meebo Me" widget)
• On the Events page, allow events to have more than one author/writer included.
• On the Events page, have a 'show preview' (like this wiki) button, before submitting the final events (prevents typo's)

Big Changes

• Support other media, eg., CDs, DVDs, etc.
• Use LT offline

This Wiki

• RSS feeds throughout.
• Interwiki links: Manual:Guide to setting up interwiki linking
  • External: w:LibraryThing, Wikipedia:LibraryThing
  • Internal: series:The Lord of the Rings, work:3206242
• Eliminate index.php from the URL. See Manual:Short URL
• Project:Copyrights should say what license contributions are under.