Care to share your own collections list?

1. Books I Own
2. Books I Reviewed via the Early Reviewer program and got rid of. (This is only so the reviews don't disappear.)

Nice thread idea, countrylife!

It might be useful as a "recommend site improvements" thread even though it's not direct -- if Tim et al see that many of us are planning a similarly-defined collection X, then that might make it onto a predefined / default list.

My collections:
- laura's currently owned (inventory management)
- laura's previously owned (tags: kid giveaways, purges, lost, loaned & never returned, burned / destroyed by C)
- laura's read (in lifetime; "lifelist" if i were a birder) (read but unowned? or just read? ... necessary to have a complementary "unread"?)
- wishlist
- interesting
- borrowed: tags for BPL, HPL, etc ... includes unread & read
- other libraries: tags for marksteins, michele, ada, etc - wherever i read it, borrowed it, etc.

- laura special purpose -- will be duplicated from above:
:: lending library
:: fsf - comprehensive
:: info - comprehensive
:: private read
:: private owned
:: childhood / youth
:: clean for recommendations - no DVDs / opera, few if any superhero graphic novels, no books hated, may include wishlist
:: special collections for recommendation purposes

---------------------------------
... other thoughts:
- laura's private - if no flag to set individual titles "private", then use tags to indicate owned, read, ... why private, maybe?
- childhood/youth - note: this is by no means all children's / YA books, but rather books I read in my youth or childhood that I don't particularly associate with now. I still read a lot of YA that would be in my main collection, and there's a lot of non-YA that I read as a kid. - private
- previously owned - private... may become two: (1) discarded - privateand (2) lost/destroyed/etc. - private
- topic: feminist SF - note; would still be tagged as such, but putting them all together would allow certain kinds of manipulations that would be helpful
- topic: information studies - note; would still be tagged as such, but putting them all together would allow certain kinds of manipulations that would be helpful
- LENDING LIBRARY - I have a small set of books that I have multiple copies of specifically because I like to loan them out -- usually very hard-to-find small press books that I highly recommend, e.g., Illicit Passage by Alice Nunn.
- possibly I will use AV or MUSIC / VIDEO. Not sure.
- if all these are separate and we have "smart lists" I would probably do things somewhat differently.

(2) collections that I manage:
- spouse's
- kid's
- in-laws'

(3) ALL - should include EVERYTHING and I would turn it to private since it includes private items (but I would still want to see stats on it)

(4) YOUR LIBRARY - probably, would include all the mine (owned), spouse (owned), and kid's (owned); would exclude wishlist/interesting / in-laws', and maybe previously owned.

---------
... clearly if subcollections come about some of these could be nested. that seems like a crazy programming headache for Tim/Chris/et al, but I imagine it would make my life easier. Maybe not, though, because I would put different collections in multiple trees -- so I would need redundant collections to make everything correctly nestable).

ongoing editing as I read other peoples' posts & find my other notes

Under All Books, I'd have:

1. My Library
-- Current read (this can be a tag)
-- TBR (to be read) (this can be a tag)
-- Bookray (this can be a tag)
-- Bookring (this can be a tag)
-- On loan (this can be a tag
-- Borrowed (this can be a tag)
-- Early Reviewer (this can be a tag)

2. Wishlist

3. Reviewed But Gone

Countrylife, this is a very interesting thread and waaaay simpler than what's talked about! I like seeing how others plan to organize their libraries and can't wait for Collections to begin. This thread helps me visualize the possibilities much better from others' points of view.

1. My Library

2. My Childhood Books: I still own these books, but they don't reflect my current interests and cause problems for recommendations/Members with Your Books

3. My Watchlist: books that I've heard about that seem interesting, but without the real commitment implied by the term "wishlist"--I may or may not purchase these in the end. For convenience, though, I might use the default wishlist collection for this. But I would only use this collection if I could either eliminate it from All Books or hide/delete the All Books collection entirely, since my connection to these books is extremely tenuous

1. Everything else
2. Mysteries
3. Science Fiction (these are currently in another account. If we can merge them without reentering them, I'd move them to a separate collection in this account)
4. Crap in the attic
5. Things we read from the Library that we don't want to buy

1. Our library. (Fills the physical house.)
2. M's wishlist.
3. SO's wishlist.
4. Audiobooks in iTunes.
5. eBooks. (PDFs from Internet Archive / EEBO / Gallica / ... + Google Books My Library + odd scans from colleagues + ...)
6. Borrowed from the library (and returned).
7. Discards.

(This actually is what we have presently. All but the first are spreadsheets and they all get merged into our PDAs.)

Hmm, at first blush, I'd say:

1. My library
2. Children's books
3. Textbooks
4. Borrowed books (i.e., books I've read that were borrowed from the library or family/friends)
5. To be read
6. Wishlist
7. Discards (I have no need for this at the moment, but I do anticipate purging books at a later date and foresee a possible interest in keeping reviews and such)

You know what would be far more useful to me than Collections? Nested tags.

My Library
(subtags: fiction/nonfiction, genre)
My Wishlist (subtags: damaged, series, childhood, from library)
My Watchlist
Childhood (picturebook, chapterbooks)
Unread
Damaged (subtags: replace, readable, missing cover)
Series (subtags: partial, complete)
eBooks (subtags: filetype, series, genre)
Private (still considering)
Discards (only if I can exclude them from _everything_, particularly recommendations)
Currently Reading (mainly as a recently read)

1) All books
2) Currently Reading (only if there are site wide stats attached)

The rest actually depend on how the social features will work.

There was some suggestion that you might get a Members with your books / recommendations for each collection. If so:
3a) Everything but graphic novels
4a) Everything but graphic novels and long series
5a) Non-fiction

If there's still only one members with your books (and you can include / exclude collections from that total).
3b) Books to compare with other libraries (which would be the only collection included in that stat). Although I guess I could do the above 3a - 5a and just change which is included.

All Books
Your Library
Reference
Topic A (i.e history, art?)
Topic B
Topic C

Ohhhh nice thread idea!

Lets see.... besides the "all books" and "your library" (which I'm still making up my mind about)...

Wishlist
Own
No Longer Own (ie, I *did* own it once)
Never owned (borrowed from friends, read at school, can't remember, etc)
From The Library
To Be Read

Those would be my main ones that I'd use most. I'm thinking about the following, not sure if I'd actually want them:

children/YA books

{different series collections}

special books (books that have touched me in a special way)

Definitely:
My Library (everything I own)
"Wishlist" (books I want to investigate further)

Maybe
Inherited books (books from my parents and grandparents)
Mysteries (so they don't influence my recommendations)

At the moment, I would probably rely on tags for everything else, but I may develop other ideas as I go along and learn from others.

I am really looking forward to the customizable collections since I like to use genre and/or other subject classifications rather than ownership status or read/unread status - these just don't seem like "collections" to me, but I think I'm different that way.

My goal is to use tags for subjects, places, people, themes, century written, etc. - that way I can see how these things cut across collections and look for interesting intersections that way.

Top Level:
All Books

Ownership status:
Your Library (Owned)
Unowned
Wishlist

Reading status: (I would rather these were checkboxes rather than collections, but it seems that using collections will be the only way to participate with the LT community. Oh well.)
Read
To Be Read
Currently Reading (maybe)

Genre/Classifications
Fiction
Poetry
Drama
Classical Literature
Reference
Essays/memoir
Art
Religion
Criticism
History
Gardening
Environment
Cooking
Travel

This may be too many, so I may smush all non-fiction into two collections: reference and nonfiction, then use tags to differentiate art/religion/criticism/etc. An awful lot depends on how collections really work in the end.

I'm currently thinking:

All Books
Your library
Wishlist
Read but unowned - this would initially be books that I found very interesting and want to remember something about by either a review or comment.
Books read this year - especially if we can get recommendations on our collections.

especially if we can get recommendations on our collections

It's already possible to get recommendations for individual tags, so you wouldn't have to wait for collections to get recommendations for the books you've read this year.

Good idea for a thread countrylife, reading other people's collections has given me ideas to think about...

For my part, thus far, I think it'll look like this:

All Books

From the list of defaults being bandied around on the other thread:
Your Library (which hopefully will encompass all books that I physically own)
Wishlist
No Longer in Library (which may be the default 'Unowned' if we get it, if we get 'Read but Unowned', I'll set this up as my own collection)

My customised collections:
Antiquarian
Fiction
Non-Fiction
Reference
Plays
Poetry
My Daughter (For the books I'm accumulating for her once she's old enough to read .... she's only just managed to walk so I think I've got time!)

The status attributes (like read, unread, reviewed etc.), I will deal with using tags as with the classification within each collection (e.g. Classic Lit, War, History etc.....)

Subject to change once I play around with the live collections option ....

> 17

Many of these books are not cataloged because they were from the public library and my current library only has owned books. That's one of my main reasons for wanting collections.

*tries*

No. I'd have to know more, and think more, to decide what would work best for me.

I'm vaguely considering the possibility of a Series In Progress collection. That would be somewhere between a wish list and a watch list.

> 9

I would love to have that. Aside from its usefulness, it would provide a pleasure similar to that of picking up a marionette or a mobile: it's flat and seemingly tangled when lying on the table, but hold it by the right end and everything falls into place. It would be fascinating to be able to hang one's mental universe from the ceiling and to follow its various branches and convergences, to check its balance...

/lyrical fit

Let's focus on collections now and see if we can smuggle this into Tim &co.'s to-do list later.

Thought I would answer for the school library I am currently cataloging.

All books - very important

Wishlist - especially if we get parents looking at our catalog

Then for custom collections:

Elementary - our main collection (in the library)

Primary - For our youngest students, i.e. preschool (in the main preschool/primary building and including those in daycare)

Jr. Elementary - Books in the 6-9 year-old class

Sr. Elementary - Books in the 9-12 year-old class

MTTI - For our adult classes in Montessori education

These are really location collections but are very much the way our Procite Databases are labeled.

I may also create a checked out collection, especially if there is an easy way to move between collections.

Tricia, aka hailelib

My library - probably, as now, all books I own that I want to display publicly

Wishlist - I'd use one or more wishlists as something like the watchlists others have described: to note interesting books I want to look into for my research or personal reading. If I can make more than one wishlist using custom collections, I'll probably separate this into a wishlist for things I intend very soon to buy or to check out from the library, and other lists for watchlists.

Currently reading: I'd probably use this if it was linked to a profile widget. I might rather use something like Recently Read, Recently Reading, or a better name (books I've been reading lately) if I could set it to work with a profile widget.

Childhood books - books I own, books I used to own, and books I read as a child: probably private, certainly separate for recommendations purposes etc.

Borrowed books or My Other Books or something - these would be books I feel some connection to but that I don't own. "Read but unowned" doesn't quite work here: some of these might be read, but some might simply be books I've used extensively for work, but may or may not have read in full. Simply unowned, with no presumption for "read" status, could work for this.

Various locations collections - I'm not sure yet, but I might create a couple of collections to help me keep straight which of my books are where. I don't want to do this with tags, because they would dominate the first 2 or 3 of the list of tags. I might not do it with collections, either, though, since it's really only me that needs to know what's in storage, what's at home, what's with family, etc.

I'll probably create several other custom collections to manage various reading lists and research lists (effectively, something like additional wishlists), other types of books that I might want to separate from others or make private (e.g. expensive collectibles, if I had any), or other lists that might occur to me along the way.

ETA: I didn't think to list All Books (because I think of it as more of a view than a collection) but I would use it for meta-editing across multiple collections, and I'm assuming it will include all books I've listed on LT, across all collections.

My Library. This is the set of all books currently in my LT account.

Wishlist.

Read but Not Owned.

If and when fully functional collection-based recommendations are introduced, a Use for Recommendations collection -- this will cover most of My Library and some of Read but Not Owned.

I have zero interest in content-based collections; I'm happy with tags for that.

To start with I'd probably just use collections instead of the tag numbers I currently use and explain on my profile. So this would probably translate to:

All books (all the books I have listed in LT)

1. My library (the books I own or jointly own)
2. My husband's books (the ones that are just his so that I can keep them out of recommendations)
3. Wishlist (books I want or probably want to buy - subdivided by tags if necessary to indicate how keen I am to get them)
4. To look at (books I would like to investigate further - either borrow from library, look at in bookshop or read reviews to see if I want to read/buy them)
5. Reference only (books I don't own whose existence I want to note but don't want to do anything else about for now - eg specialist titles that might be of interest if really get keen on a subject)
6. Have read but don't want to buy
7. Discarded (have owned but got rid of)

For each of these collections I would then hope to be able decide whether it was private or visible to others and whether it was included in recommendations or not. Assuming I was making some of my collections private and not in recommendations, I would then expect All books to follow this (though I presume the default would be for All books to be public and used in recommendations for people who choose not to use collections at all).

1. All-- Everything except wishlist

2. My Library--books I physically own, including audiobooks and eBooks

3. Currently Reading-- Books that I have started to read and not yet finished.

4. Wishlist--Books that I am interested in purchasing and would like to add to MY LIBRARY.

5. Curiosity Piquers--Books that were recommended to me, or that I heard about and have
sparked my interest. I have not made a committment to purchasing these books yet because I
don't have enough info on them yet for them to make the Wishlist.

6. Browsers--These are pretty much reference books that I probably will never (or weren't made
to be) read cover to cover. I would tag them into sub-categories such as educational,
professional, historical, cook books.

7. Read but Unowned--I don't particularly care for the title, but haven't thought of a better way of
phrasing. These books have been read, but are not a part of MY LIBRARY, however they
would appear in ALL since they have been read and in my possession at some point. I might
develop tags to clarify where the books were originally obtained or returned to, but I doubt it.

I thought about creating a collection for my children, but I think it would be easier to assist them with creating their own page. Great learning opportunity as well and less work for me :-)

Your Library all books I have entered at LT

my books the YA and other books that are mine
my husband's books the books that belong to my husband
no longer owned

and maybe I would use
wishlist and private

Owned
Read
Unread
Wishlist
My Books and Sarah's Books (subsets of Owned, with some potential overlap)

I wonder if it would be possible to do "joins" on multiple Collections, like return all books in Read but not Owned. Or even create a new Collection that's defined by a join on existing collections. Now that would be handy. (It can be done with tags now, but it would be an awesome feature for Collections.)

Mooched
Currently Reading
Son's
Dad's
Wishlist
Shelved
Audio
PDF
TBR

Your Library
Wishlist (not Your Library)
Unowned (not Your Library)
2 Collections for my children's books which are currently in separate accounts (not in Recommendations, I'm not sure if I want them in Your Library or not)
Possibly another for my wife's books which are currently co-mingled in my main account but distinguished by tags.

28: Mooched! That's what other tags I wanted to turn into collections. The books I've mooched and the ones I've given away through BookMooch.

I'm hoping to use collections for:
Wishlist – books I plan on buying, or possibly borrowing, or that I would want gifted to me.

Watchlist – including what Bookworm called 'Curiosity Piquers' in #25, and what Fancett called 'Reference Only' books in #24.

Your Library – books I currently own, including books currently lent out to others, and books currently on loan to me (from friends or the library)

1. On Your Shelves – books I can actually physically access, a subset of Your Library (I'm trying to stay with LT's second-person naming.)
2. Boxed Away – another subset of Your Library: books I own that are currently in storage while I'm away at Uni.
3. Currently Reading – really would work more like 'recently read', or 'on my nightstand', or 'reading this month.' I'd like it to be self-populating, and/or to do something widget-y.
4. To Read – I might want to use a collection for this (another subset of Your Library), to avoid tbr cluttering up my tags endlessly.

Unowned – books I owned and discarded, books I had on loan, books I read growing up that are still at my parents' house, etc. Includes books that for whatever reason I owned but did not read, (hence why I'm not calling it 'read but unowned'.)

That's what I can think of for now. I might also create collections for books I read as a kid, school/professional books, and other more content-based categories depending on how recommendations change based on collections.

To follow other people's heirarchical setup, I'm planning to use something like:

1. All books in my LT

2. All books I physically have access to (My Library)

3. (by owner)
My books
Mom's books
Books from childhood
Family books

4. (By status)
To Keep Forever (favorite books, read)
To Read
Recent Reading
In Storage
On My Shelves (the current "moved" tag)
Wishlist
Got Rid Of (for non-recommended books that I want to preserve data for)
Not owned (for books I recommend but I don't own)

5. (Not so much by content as by bookself - would include only on-my-shelves books)
Parascience
Fiction
YA
Non-fiction
Poetry and writing
Collectibles
Folio/Large format
Special collection (which would rotate depending on what I'm currently focusing on in my library)

6. Depending on how collections come out, possibly
Not books (periodicals, comics, pamphlets, maps, audiobooks, ebooks, DVDs, etc., some of which I've already put in and some of which I haven't)
Handcrafts (blank books, hand-made or very-small-print-run books by friends and family, my own writing binders)
Merge in the skstarwars account, which is a Star Wars collection shared between me and my sister
To give away / to soon recieve (especially if I could private this one)
Borrowed / loaned
....and depending on just how things shake out and just what functions we get, possibly more.

It's interesting to see that three or four groupings of books not fully covered in Tim's default lists have come up here several times under different names but with the same sort of purpose (numbers are the earlier message referring to them - apologies if I have copied any wrongly):

A. Interesting (3) Watchlist (5 and 31), Curiosity Piquers (25), To look at (24) - basically ones we want to investigate further before deciding what other collection to put them in. (If something like this does get included as a default 'Watchlist' is perhaps the clearest name.)

B. Browsers (25), Reference only (24) (only a couple of mentions here but also on the main Default list discussion with variations on 'Reference') - for things not read cover to cover but want to know exist whether you own them or not.

C. Previously owned (3), Reviewed but gone (4), Discards(ed) (7, 8, 10, 24), No longer own(ed) (13, 26), No longer in library (18) - 'Discards' is perhaps the shortest and clearest of these variations.

D. Things we read from the library that we don't want to buy (6), Borrowed from library and returned (7), Borrowed books (8), Never owned (13), From the library (13), Read but unowned/not owned (16, 23, 35), Borrowed books/unowned (22), Have read but don't want to buy (24). This group seems to include books that make up part of our book life but are not part of our physical libraries. Either just 'Borrowed' or 'Unowned' without any implication of whether they had actually been read or not might best cover these and would perhaps suit more people than the proposed 'Read but unowned'.

If Tim can be persuaded to include these as defaults they may well save lots of us using different wording for basically the same concepts in our user-defined collections (and even if not it might be good to informally agree on preferred names for these concepts in the same way that 'Wishlist' has become a generally agreed and accepted tag/collection).

Sorry that this goes on a bit, but it seemed useful to look at the proposed lists so far to see what they had in common beyond the generally accepted Defaults and not including locations, other people, subject uses which are likely to be personal to individual members.

>33 fancett: I agree that it would be good to include the most common ones in the default list. For names, I like Watchlist, Reference, Discards (or Discarded), and--the one place where I differ from you--Read but Unowned. I think Unowned is a bit too ambiguous to be worthwhile; it would logically include Wishlist and Watchlist, but I don't think people really intend for those collections to be part of this one.

One other category that seems common is Childhood Books or Children's (5, 8, 10, 13, 22, 32), though it's occasionally unclear whether this means books from a person's own childhood or books belonging to their children.

I've been thinking of both "default" and "predefined" collections.

There could be many predefined collections, which would facilitate particular social networking, calculations, recommendations, and whatnot among them. For instance we could look at the aggregate "your childhood" collections, and see how your childhood measured up. The people who want to do "Reference" collections could do that. We could look at the aggregate "currently reading". Smart collections could feed in here, so that "read in 2008" and "read in 2007" and so forth could also be predefined.

But among all those predefined collections, only a small number of them would be "default visible" -- say, "Your library", "All books", "Wishlist".

But users should be able to choose levels of visibility for any of the collections, whether predefined or user-defined:
{x} don't use (not visible to anyone even user)
{x} private (visible only to user)
{x} public (visible to anyone)
{x} primary (one of the short list of default collections)
(x) default (the default collection presented on first logging in, and presented to browsers of the catalog; only one "default" can be checked)

>35 lquilter: I love this idea.

>35 lquilter: So clever!
I like the idea of having some pre-defined collections outside of the 'default'. It seems like a good way to entice new users or non-power users to use collections, too.

Wishlist
To read
Owned (I will use Your Library for this)
Read (that's past tense, already read)
Childrens
Husband's
DVDs
possibly Books, to view all but dvds

Wishlist
Watchlist (Don't want yet.. but interested in)
Unread
Read
Own
Borrowed
Private
Gifts

#33 Nice summary, fancett!
#35 I like this plan too - especially the childhood collection comparisons - fun! I would chose My Library as the default collection to show on login.

I expect to use the following:

My Library (what I own)
Read but Not Owned (for books borrowed from friends or the library; also for keeping reviews of things I don't own)
No Recs (for things I don't want to have recommendations based on, but want to record that I own. This might end up being private, but not sure yet.)

On my other account, which is my fiction collection, I plan to use the same, plus separate collections for my books and my husband's; this is currently managed by tags, but this causes odd recommendations, group invitations and friend requests.

I keep my wishlist on Amazon, and don't think it's really worth the trouble to maintain it in two places. I've got my friends and family trained to look there for birthday and Christmas presents, and don't want to mess that up :-) I know many other people want this feature very much, though - not disrespecting it at all.

I might, however, use a Watchlist collection, for things I want to keep an eye on, investigate, or whatever, but don't know yet that I really *want* to own. This would be one I wouldn't want factored into recommendations. Good idea, guys!

If it develops that there is a mechanism for connecting with other members based on Currently Reading, I might do that, but am thinking presently that I don't care about it. I go through books pretty fast, so it's a lot of work to always be tweaking it.

I really like lquilter's idea in 35 too - i.e. a short and basic default list then a 'more' button that displayed the suggested names for some of the other collections quite a few people seem to want and roughly agree on (wouldn't really matter if they overlapped so could have both 'unowned' and 'read but not owned') plus an invitation to create your own collections if none of these names are suitable. That way when we all started using collections there would be a more standard terminology for collections suggested (though not imposed) which would give more scope for these standard but non-default collections to be aggregated/looked at or even added to the default later if wanted.

My collections will depend on how they work. As I've said elsewhere, I really want tags with hierarchy/bundling. If we're going to be able to see tags sorted by collection, then I will try using collections to separate My Library into major subcategories (which, to keep within the spirit of collections, often reside in different locations and are used for different activities). I don't have names for all of my categories...

Your Library (includes only, but not all, books I own)
--- subject categories: crafts, computer, math, genealogy, cooking, etc...
--- core (most significant for current interests)
--- professional (overlaps other collections, neither subset nor superset)
DVD (I watch rather than read, but the purpose is similar and there are author / lecturer overlaps -- may be a subset of Your Library)
Family & Friends (books I own that are not "me", are associated with other people for various reasons)
--- subdivided by person
To Be Discarded (occasionally I purge to make room for more, though the current crop isn't in LT and entering it is probably not worth the effort)
Private (includes some of Your Library and some or all of Family & Friends, or may be entirely separate depending on how things work)

If I ever decide to enter books I don't own, then I will include all of the above in an Owned collection.
I might begin a Wish List, but for now it's essentially on Amazon.

9: You know what would be far more useful to me than Collections? Nested tags.

Yeah, me too, but I'm gonna see whether collections help with my organizational troubles.

35: I've been thinking of both "default" and "predefined" collections.

I like this!

77: I wonder if it would be possible to do "joins" on multiple Collections, like return all books in Read but not Owned. Or even create a new Collection that's defined by a join on existing collections. Now that would be handy. (It can be done with tags now, but it would be an awesome feature for Collections.)

This sure would be handy.

Currently:

I Have Read This
I Own This

These two will likely overlap.

I Want This / I Am Interested In This

will be useful, and maybe even dividing it up into

I Want To Read This
I Want To Buy This

I can also see

Private

being useful.

Unless they show up on the defaults, I will include separate "Books I Own" and "Books I Borrowed or Got Rid Of" (this may be split, but I haven't decided yet). In fact, I may use these two to the exclusion of a "Your Library" collection; unless we can disambiguate our default collections, I can practically guarantee such usage.

I'll also make sure I have a "Reference" collection, and possibly a "Textbooks" collection.

Still thinking about other collections. I'll cross that bridge when it shows up.

I wonder if it would be possible to do "joins" on multiple Collections (#27)

Speaking of "Joins", I'd like to see the ability to join the same kind of collection across catalogs. As in, if I have a "Reference" and you have a "Reference", we can opt into telling the system they're similar in nature -- no matter how entirely unrelated the content.

I started using LibraryThing exclusively for books I've read since April, 2007. I really want to know things like, "How many books have I read in the past year?", "What books have I read that I should consider for Hugo Nominations?", and "What books have I started, but not finished?" (Books don't get a rating until I am totally done reading them.) So the first pass for me is a Collection of What I Am Reading Now. Then there are all the books I own, but don't plan to read right away. That collection runs to thousands of books. Then there are collections separated by Major Categories (have more than 500 of this type) and separated by location. Which gives me:

Reading/Read
Science Fiction
Cookbooks
Mysteries
Comedy (mostly cartoon books)
Nevada
Hawaii
California (only a few books there)

That's a start. I would probably also use Not Owned (books I read from some other library) or Discarded (for books gone to PaperBackBookSwap), if those are universal collections. I might even make several other collections for specialized categories like Quilting or Needlework depending on how ambitious I am and whether or not it will be easy to add books from local databases. I don't need Private though my husband would if he ever decided to use LibraryThing. And I don't need Wishlist. My Wishlist is stacked up on my To Be Read Pile and will certainly be added to the Reading/Read pile.

I've been thinking about this for a *long* time. I think when collections arrive I would want:

* Juvenile
* Wishlist
* Maps
* Read, but not owned
* SO's books
* Everything else
* All books

I have to say I'm a little discouraged by some of the lists I've seen here and elsewhere.

It looks like collections will, for many people, replace tags, and significantly diminish the usefulness of tags for sitewide purposes (tagmashes, recommendations by tags, sitewide tag searches, etc.)

I don't think there's any way around this if user-defined collections are allowed, but it does make me sad.

54: I agree. To quote caffron from the defaults thread:

I know what the idea of collections once was, what it was once going to be used for. Now I just don't know. I'm not trying to be snarky...this is a Beta site and things change and that's OK. In 2005, collections were about statistics, and ownership mattered. In 2007, they were an organizational aid unique to each user, similar to tags, and ownership status was suddenly passe if not elitist. There seem to be more recent comments that collections are about excluding items from view and from recommendations. Different purposes call for different defaults.

I may end up having a wishlist, but all I really want is My Library, and Read but Unowned. These three were the original three collections Tim called for in 2005 and those who want them now are seriously in the minority.

>54 lorax:

I also agree. The only "subjects" I might make collections of are a "professional" collection (which is still iffy for me) and a DVD collection.

Mostly I would use collections to differentiate status and ownership: read/unread, owned/unowned, mine/husband's/child's.

If I could do it my way it would look something like what follows.

All books (Everything which follows would be in this):

Your Library (This would be what I have now... Only books I own and this would be what my numbers are based on): On Loan, Books about Books, Sherlock, British Authors, Private, Youth fiction, and probably many others.

Wishlist (not in your library): There will be at least a handful of different collections in this as I have several groupings I collect within. (ie. Mysteries, books about books, pulp fiction, and so on)

Bibliographies (not in your library): This would also hold multiple sub-collections to cover a variety of topics in which I'm interested.

ETA: I will probably have genre fiction collections in Your Library.

ETA again: Also, If I could have it my way Wish lists and Bibliographies would not show up in my number or stats in any way shape or form. I don't care if others can see them if the look at my ALL collection. I just don't want those numbers to muddy my actual physical library tracking and I don't want my numbers inflated.

I have to read from #25 on, but I wanted to note that it would be great if "Mooched" were automatic—as I think it can be.

59: Mooched would be great, as long as we decide whether that's mooched in or send out. :)

>60 infiniteletters:
Yeah, because my Mooched collection will be books I've sent out, not books I've received.

>54 lorax:
Personally, I'm not going to delete any tags just because they may happen to be superseded by a collection of the same name.

Out would be easier. I'm not sure I want to give BookMooch a key to add books to the LT database. But moving them from one collection to another would be easier and less "risky."

Any reason why we couldn't have both?

> # 54, 56, 57 --- that's a great point about tags and "subject access." I wonder how many will stop using a tag if they create a collection? It would make sense that many would, but *some* will probably keep the tag as well. I haven't made a habit of topical tagging for fiction & literature, only for non-fiction, but I agree that tags are usually very useful.

(I wrote this before seeing fleela's comment in # 61 -- glad to hear it, fleela.)

My current LT catalog is only books I own, which I'll still consider "Your Library." I'll also create a Wish List collection, and probably some kind of Unowned / Read but Unowned collection. Down the road, maybe I'll create a collection of the kids' books, but it's not a pressing need. I don't think I'll use "To Read" or "To Be Read," as the tbr tag works well for me.

It didn't occur to me until I started reading suggestions here, but I think I'd like to create a collection of only my fiction & literature. That would help me to tweak my classification without the non-fiction books I've entered getting mixed up in there.

>54 lorax: I absolutely agree. Collections are turning out to be vastly different from what I'd hoped for.

>59 timspalding:-63

Mooched would be great, as long as we decide whether that's mooched in or send out. (#60)

and

Any reason why we couldn't have both? (#63)

Exactly. This is yet another reason we should be able to disambiguate our collections. With the proposed default "Your Library" collection, we could explain what we're calling our library, and with "Mooched", we could specify on which end we're listing them.

> #64

I've been thinking something similar. Tags work really well for me for most of my subject related info, but I have a few really large collections of types of books (speculative fiction, comics/manga/cartoons/graphic novels) that I would want to make collections and then refine my tag structure within each collection. For me, those big collections have a connection to each other in my mind that isn't easily articulated in tags, so I'd like to be able to use collections to indicate that "these things are kinda the same" and then use tags to delineate how "some of these things are not like the others" (Wow! Sesame Street songs sure stick in the mind, don't they?)

This is, of course, in addition to wanting to use collections in the way that is being discussed in the default threads, etc.

I think being able to utilize collections this way will make tags more functional.

>54 lorax: et. al. Well, maybe collections will eliminate some tags. However, here's a different take. I plan to add tags once I can use collections for genre. I will be able to get rid of my genre tags (which are not subject tags - genre does not equal subject) and then use tags for more interesting things. The flatness of tags has always been problematic for me, so I've used them as hierarchically as I could and as a way to organize my library. When collections are here, I can now use collections to organize the library and finally use tags the way they were meant to be used - for subject, theme, place, etc. Anyway, FWIW - maybe not all hope is lost. ;)

>ETA: Here, here, Helcura! You've said what I was trying to say, just in a different way.

>>35 lquilter:: I love this idea!

>> 54 & 56:

I don't know, this is pretty much what I've had on my list for collections since I first heard hints of them in 2005. Yes, I currently have most of those sets tagged by colleciton, but for some of them I've deliberately used tags name that aren't to be useful in site-wide stuff anyway. And when I've ended up using "collection" tags that are standard names, often things end up under that tag which shouldn't, if the tags were really content-based.

For example: ATM, my "YA" is all ya-sized-paperbacks, which is not all my YA books and includes some adult trade-sized books; my "young adult" tag is what I use for books that were actually intended for young adults, which is not nearly the same set. "Poetry" is books on the poetry shelf, "poems" is books with lots of poetry in them, again not the same set. "Cookbooks" is books on the kitchen shelf, "recipes" is books that tell you how to cook, not all of which are in the kitchen. "Folio" is for books that are too big to fit on the shelf they should be on, but since all my shelves are different heights, that tells you nothing about actual size of the book. And so on.

If we get user-defined collections, I can pull off the collection tags and leave just the actual content tags, and my tags' site-wide usefulness will overall go up.

Could I do this just with tags, by naming them "collection:YA" instead of just "YA" or something? Sure, but that adds even more useless data to the sitewide tags, and it looks messy on my tags pages. Will there be people who do use collections for content and other things not specific to their library? Probably, but most of what I've seen here isn't that, and most people whose data is good will likely tag too, because that's useful in different ways.

(Hopefully, as we see what features collections get, there will be other reasons for using collection instead of tags; one for me personally: it's been mentioned that we can set a different default viewing option for each collection, which will be very helpful, especially if I want to link other people to a certain collection: my "collectible YA" collection uses a completely different set of columns than my "nonfiction", and as it is, if I want to link non-LT users to a list of one of them and have them see the right columns, I have to switch the default view for my whole library and remember to keep it that way as long as people might be clicking the link. And there are plenty of other things like that which really aren't appropriate for tags, but would be so helpful to have.)

54 I absolutely agree. Collections are turning out to be vastly different from what I'd hoped for.

From the many discussions we've had, your problem is that you want the ability to absolutely prevent books in separate collections from being searched or seen together, at least in your library. You want them to be completely unlike tags--which allow that.

The thrust of this would seem to be quite the opposite of 54's point--who bemoans the way people will be chopping up their collections and not using tags, reducing the value of the tag system. I too want to design the system to prevent that result, by making collections more like "buckets" than "subject assignments" in the interface.

Either way, your repeated references to collectons being so completely and unsuitable wrong now--because there will be the ability to search across collectons... Well, everyone has their things, but whether or not we give you some sort of preference to prevent cross-collection work, I regard your criticism as overheated, and I would really prefer it if it did not hijack every thread about collections. Your point is very well understood.

No, it's not the opposite. My problem stems precisely from the fact that collections seem to be replacing tags. This leads to "tag-like" uses of collections, like a vast proliferation of the number of collections for things like subjects. It leads to these tag-like uses being seen as primary--of course you need to search across them, when collections just represent a new way of marking somewhat different groups within Your Library--and to anyone who wants to use collections differently being seen as misguided.

You expressed my point yourself: You want them to be completely unlike tags. How is this not in agreement with I have to say I'm a little discouraged by some of the lists I've seen here and elsewhere. It looks like collections will, for many people, replace tags....?

Your point is very well understood.

I haven't seen any evidence of that. Comments like "What EVER would make anyone do that?!" or "I find this baffling" have given the impression that you don't even want to understand.

I regard your criticism as overheated, and I would really prefer it if it did not hijack every thread about collections.

So why do you keep focusing on the negative parts of what I say? There are plenty of constructive things that could be said instead. Look at the amount of positive support that's shown here for lquilter's proposal in #35. It seems like it would satisfy everyone, me included. Why do you keep shooting down opposing viewpoints instead of just considering the proposal that might make everyone happy?

Zoe and Tim, your discussions are useful, I hope you won't get really angry with each other.

To the OP: mine would be like #23--actual library, wishlist, and books read but unowned (right now I list only the first set).

I also wish the separation between tags and collections were more clear (now, and in the future); while I'm sure people can justify using collections as subject categories etc., I'm afraid many may create collections-as-subject categories schemes because these may be more intuitive than tags for such use.

Subject categories I knew before LT, tags were new. If we had collections then, I can see myself grouping books by collection instead of by tagging.

This reminds me of rsterling's right-on posts about (long and longingly) expected attributes of collections (e.g. privacy options). If these were available when the feature debuts, it would help to make the tag/collection difference more noticeable, something to think about.

This leads to "tag-like" uses of collections, like a vast proliferation of the number of collections for things like subjects. (#71)

So, what you hope collections will be is precisely what would not be illustrated by -- to give examples from my own library -- lumping together various knitting, crocheting, and spinning books into a "Yarncrafts" collection? Or a number of books on different artists, styles, and even architecture into an "Art" collection? Or books on witchcraft, magic and tarot ino a collection together?

If what I just gave examples of is what you hope won't happen, I have to disagree. I just gave examples of three different subject collections, each of which is listed with three component subjects which can easily be (and often are) non-synonymous. Though one could use tags for the three potential collections, the role these collections would not be done well by tags until we get hierarchical tags. And while I wouldn't jump to disagree with you if what you meant was that you hoped people would not do collections for the nine, more taggish, subjects, I wouldn't want to agree with you either: to each his/her/its/their own.

Edited for typo.

73>

That's exactly what I'm hoping won't happen.

In my ideal world, you'd tag your knitting books with "knitting" and "yarncraft", your tarot books with "tarot" plus whatever your term for the overarching tarot+witchcraft+magic collection would be, etc.

Certainly I'm not going to tell you You're Doing It Wrong, or even tell someone who creates a separate collection for every series that they're Doing It Wrong, but I can't help but be a little saddened at the loss of social functionality entailed by moving from social tags to personal collections.

(If you use both tags AND collections, of course, then none of this applies.)

Thanks for the positive words, Lola.

AnnaClaire, it's not that I don't think you should be able to use collections the way you want to, it's that I don't think your use of collections should overwhelm the entire concept to the extent that other people's uses are considered invalid and the entire system has to be reworked (it's not so much an issue with three subject collections, but in general the UI sample shown just wasn't designed for the number of collections that some people will need).

Also, I'm concerned that collections are going to lose their focus by becoming substitutes for things that might be better done by other features--hierarchical tags, for instance. Another prime use of collections will be to remove certain groups of books from the Your Library recommendations and from MWYB--but is it really necessary to create separate groupings for these books, or would it be better to have tag attributes?

to each his/her/its/their own

I certainly agree with this in principle, but I'm not really seeing it in practice right now.

One idea I came up with that I might actually use (my brain keeps giving me ideas about things that someone else might find useful, like a 'series in progress' collection) is collections for books with different sizes. I use an 'ideal' shelf order in LT by period, author, date etc. that I don't want to mess with, but I don't have the kind of spatial luxury that would allow me to put a cd-sized item next to a large illustrated omnibus. So:

size 1 / extra small / cd sized
size 2 / small / pocket sized
size 3 / medium / er, average book sized?
size 4 / large / those big harcovers
size 5 / extra large / A4 ring binder sized
size x / extra extra large / too big for their own good
size h / books that stick out horizontally

Everything included in these would also be in whichever collection represented my owned books. I'd be able to either see all my owned books by 'ideal' shelf order, or see all books of a particular size in exactly the same order as on the shelves.

Yes I do like to look at shelves. :)

ETA: How utterly daft I am. I can do this already, for part of my library at least. Search on the comment for size, then sort by location.

*gives up*

I'll stick with owned vs. not owned. There, I decided on something.

72: That is absolutely right-on, I think.

Right now, all we know about what collections will do when they debut is that they will let you put books in groups, and some of them will give you site-wide statistics. Those are the exact same things tags do, so it's know wonder they're sounding kind of similar when people talk about how to use them.

I think as/if we get a better idea of just what the functional differences will be, it will become clearer that they'll be used in different ways. Until then, the only thing everybody's concept of collections has in common are tag-like things, so when you look at a lot of ideas in aggregate, they look a lot like tags. I do hope at least a couple of the extra features are there, and we have a basic outline of what else is coming, before the feature goes live. Or else at least early on, there probably will be a lot of people using collections in ways that don't really work for collections, because they won't know what collections are going to be.

54,74: I don't want to use collections for subjects. I want to organize my library. Tags are inadequate, so I will try collections, and whatever other features support the cause. So far, there is no indication that bundled or hierarchical tags will appear ever. If I could expect something of this sort in the relatively near future, I'd make limited use of collections (most of the default uses don't matter to me), and wait.

67,68: Yes, my plan is similar. I have clusters of books that don't overlap, and I want to make both the divisions between categories and the features within categories clear in a way that is currently not possible on the tag page.

79>

I'm not really worried about anyone posting to this thread suddenly getting rid of all their tags and replacing them with collections; I'm more thinking of people who join LT after the collection infrastructure is in place, who might make collections for each genre or subject area rather than using tags for the same purpose.

Books I pretend to have read, to impress people.

Books I think I read a while back, but I'm not really sure. The covers seem familiar.

Books I wish I had written.

Books that I could have written much better than the author did.

Books I stole when I worked in that bookstore, the one with the crotchety owner, the one with the rampant moles and the bad attitude toward my hair length.

Books I hid under my mattress, where Mom never looked.

Books I have no recollection of buying or reading, yet here they sit.

Books with photos of hot lady authors.

Books I'll never even crack open, but which go so well with my color scheme.

Books I started, then got so pissed that I threw them across the room, startling the dog.

Books I laid down face open for days on end, instead of using a bookmark. I'm sorry.

jjlong, you win the internet

> 54

I SO, SO disagree. Like CountryLife, I want LOCATION based collections. If a book is in my Hawaii collection that does NOT mean that has anything to do with the state or culture of Hawaii. It means it is sitting in HAWAII. And you may see SCIENCE FICTION as a tag, but since I have totally different locations and bookshelves for SCIENCE FICTION than I do for COOKBOOKS, these are actually location based collections. I will never stop using tags (my average is 6.4 tags per book), so those who wish to find things sitewide should still be able to do so.

I will simply never add any old books to Library Thing until I can easily see WHAT I AM READING NOW as opposed to what I own now. I have separate databases for these collections and I want separate collections for this data if I move it to LibraryThing.

Bear with me. I'm writing this out here to document it for myself as well, so I remember how I wanted to do things :)

My collection usage will probably be of two different sorts. One sort to split things up mostly by ownership. I probably won't really use collections to mark "have read"-ness, but hopefully the dates on the books will be used to indicate that, once I get around to filling that in. Each book I have in library thing has to be in exactly one of these collections

A1) Your Library (books I actually own. Not really a place thing, but kinda)

A2) Borrowed (books I don't own, but had in my possession at one time. After I give the book back, it stays here. That keeps my thoughts about it around, without having to move it to another collection. Maybe a better name would be in order, to better reflect the Discarded case, which also would fit really well here, IMHO. Also, online books that I read or download would fall in here. I don't have a book copy in my hands, so it doesn't go in Your Library. I think? maybe if I actually have the book on my harddrive it would... hard to say right now.

A3) Wishlist (books I don't own, but would like to. I may own a copy already, but want a different edition, translation, etc. Wishlist will be transient. When I buy the book, it will probably no longer be on my wishlist.

Then there is the other sort of collection, much more location based.. All of these will be disjoint sub-collections of Your Library. That is, each book in one of these collections must also be in Your Library, but cannot be in another collection of the location type. All books in Your Library must be in exactly one of these location type collections. They are intended to reflect where the book currently belongs. If I pick it up and put it on my kitchen counter, I don't have to change the collection of the book. But if I decide it now belongs in the basement next to the TV, it would change the collection.

B1) On the Queue (books I plan to read sometime Real Soon Now, or am currently reading, if its not likely to be finished in a few days. There is a special bookshelf in my bedroom for this purpose. Essentially, at any given moment, I may pick one of these up and read it. Or already have and I have a bookmark in it on page 45, where its been for 6 years... This collection will also be transient. When I finally get around to reading/finishing a book, it will get deleted from this collection. It should already be in another collection of this type as well, since I either own it, or borrowed it. Otherwise how did I read it?

B2) General shelves (books in my current abode, in biggest collection of books)

B3) Kitchen shelves (books at home, in the kitchen. Mostly cookbooks and the like)

B4) Computer desk (books at home, by my computer for handy reference)

B5) At work (books sitting in my cube at work.)

B6) At the workshop (books sitting in my woodshop shelf. Usually woodworking books.)

B7) At my parent's house (books I never brought with me when I moved away. Maybe I will someday, so things will shift from here to a different collection at that point)

B8) Loaned out (books I own but other people are borrowing from me. Some rumors around the site may indicate that there is going to be another way to deal with these, but I may still have this stick around, so its easy to see where the books are... I may end up not using this one, since the book doesn't "belong" at my friend's house, but in my shelves, so it doesn't quite fit in this collection category. Kinda.?

B9) On harddrive (books I have electronic copies of. I've come around. If I keep the book around, it goes in this collection, and does belong in Your Library.)

So, in all, about 12 collections. Not too many, I hope. With the possible exception of tagging books "wishlist" or "wanted", I don't think any of these collections would really be appropriate to tag instead. Though maybe its interesting that some books are usually kept in the kitchen? I do have tags for these sorts of things now, but not in a format that is likely to collide with other people's tags (X-jlk-loc-*)... mostly on purpose. I don't like tags that have little semantic value about the work itself to pollute tag space.

Well, I don't tag now, so Collections won't diminish my activity there. I don't understand the affect(ta)ion of tagging. I just don't see the point of all the effort put into them.

OTOH, I can't wait to get collections so I can organize my books into groupings that make sense for me.

In general I want to keep books grouped by subject because, as others have noted subject, is the location for large numbers of my books.

But I also want to keep many of the same books sliced into origen categories for the many thousands of my inherited books. This will help me redirect them back the correct branch of my family should I suddenly checkout to that great library in the sky.

I also want a place to metaphorically "park" books that come to my notice and for which I may want to find out more info, or recommend to someone else (not recommend in the LT usage), This is just a notepad configured for easy capture of book title/author type of info. This isn't the same as a list of books which I'm hoping to buy although some books may jump from my parking group directly to my library.

As for the books status in terms of read/not read/reading now: this info is nothing I am interested in either personally, or from the group. I am usually reading 10 or 15 books at a time as I go through my day since I have books tucked around everywhere to pick up when I have a moment. And I often stop reading a book for weeks before resuming it. I have lots of books I haven't read, but no worry about that fact.

As for what other people may be reading, this is the most uninteresting thing in the world in my view. It would be like suddenly having the opportunity to tune into what someone else was thinking all the time. It's a ghastly thought!

This is just how I would use collections. I am happy that other people may wish to use it (or tagging or other features ) in other ways. However, I am nonplussed when people seem to not only want it their way, but they want everyone else to use LT in ways that support their particular set of views and interests.

If collections reduces the amount of tags, so what? Yes, there may be less "data" to parse. But should one user be able to demand that another user produce data for the first user's pleasure or convenience? I certainly wouldn't want to pay that price for LT.

I have often been struck at how rule-minded people seem to be here on LT. Odd for a site which is so superbly designed for going your own way if you want to.

Reading, and thinking about what I'm reading is very personal to me and not something to be shared or combined with other people's reading lives. For that reason I still plan to keep my library private, so I take no stand on the privacy-of-collections issues, except that the new feature should not be less private than current standard.

cobb

> 86 bcobb - Excellent, excellent post. Good for you for doing things how you like. Couple comments:

I don't understand the affect(ta)ion of tagging. I just don't see the point of all the effort put into them.

I'd never tagged things before joining LT, but once I started, I found it's just a good way to see the "like" items together - to "filter" my books to those with at least one similar attribute: which have won the Pulitzer Prize? how many books of poetry do I have, or how many novels? how many books do I have about depression? But I don't consider it a big "effort" - as you can see, my tag list is NOT extensive:
http://www.librarything.com/tags/HeathMochaFrost

If collections reduces the amount of tags, so what? Yes, there may be less "data" to parse. But should one user be able to demand that another user produce data for the first user's pleasure or convenience? I certainly wouldn't want to pay that price for LT.

I'm glad you said this. I have a public catalog, and at this point am not intending to make any collections private. But in these discussions, there's been a bit of pushiness at times, where it sounds like a user is saying, "I want to see everyone else's catalog the way *I* want to see it!" and it really does come to sound like "I want everything my way!" The more important thing is to see and use ONE'S OWN CATALOG as one wishes to, in my opinion.

I have often been struck at how rule-minded people seem to be here on LT. Odd for a site which is so superbly designed for going your own way if you want to.

Yes. But it's very interesting to see it in action!

Oh - and I like your "parking" metaphor. :-)

But in these discussions, there's been a bit of pushiness at times, where it sounds like a user is saying, "I want to see everyone else's catalog the way *I* want to see it!" and it really does come to sound like "I want everything my way!" The more important thing is to see and use ONE'S OWN CATALOG as one wishes to, in my opinion.

Thanks for saying this. I--obviously--really believe that the user should have the ultimate control over their own catalogue. It's something that I had sort of taken for granted, and it was a bit of a shock to see how many people completely disagreed.

LibraryThing allows a pretty unique degree of customization, but there are real limits to how far we should go. For example, we don't allow users to rename their fields—"Title" into "Spine width," etc. The structure and integrity of the fields takes away little from individual members and allows aggregation that wouldn't otherwise be possible.

On the subject of renaming fields, have you considered adding some more fields for uses that aren't covered by the existing ones? I've seen several people suggest using the BCID field for something else, for example, which seems less than ideal.

I'd really like not shoving page numbers into the BCID field, but sorting by number of pages is too handy to give up .

#90 - 91

I'll third that. I've been trying to create a personal classification system for organizing my books. If I could use that instead of clogging up collections that would be awesome.

ETA: When I say personal classification system, I mean something along the lines of Dewey or LLC but one that is made just for what I want in my library.

>93 countrylife:

Agreed. It would also be nice to be able to sort on series order, and the CK field isn't sortable.

I just thought of another one I might use: online books, or electronic books. For me, this would only be for certain old and rare books (not in print) that are available online through academic archives. I wouldn't want to include these in my library, because I don't and can't own them, but for the ones I use and read extensively, and thus feel a more than passing connection to, I'd like to catalog them in a separate collection. (It would be even better if we had a URL field, but that's another matter.)

> 95

Good one.

Which brings up the category of 'books' that have only been published online. Nobody could possibly own a copy of those, unless stacks of printouts count. But I can think of a few that matter, or have mattered, as much to me as some of my physical books.

And public domain audiobooks, too. As well as some audiobooks that are not.

I think I'll have to consider a 'virtual' collection, which would include these kinds of internet-based works, and the separate works contained in omnibus editions.

1. My Library / Books I Own (physically or not)
2. Read But Unowned
3. Children's Books I Own (I would include these in #1 if I could keep it from messing up People With Similar Libraries, which is my favorite feature and has led me to dozens of excellent new acquisitions)
4. Watchlist (I wouldn't weep and gnash my teeth if this weren't included, but it would be useful for quickly noting interesting recs from discussions)

As some others have indicated, my preference would be to use collections to indicate where my books are physically shelved. It would probably be something like:

1) General fiction (cases lining the hallway outside my bedroom)
2) Nonfiction (case across from my bed)
3) Comics (closeted-in cases)
4) Religion/Reference/Greek classics (all on the same case for some reason, downstairs in the office)
5) Poetry (next to my bed)
6) Tie-ins (Star Wars novels, etc. -- stole some shelf space in another room in the house)

Theoretically, then, if I ever started a separate bookcase for a specific topic, I'd then add a new collection.

I will use some collections to indicate ownership status (and try to include all the books I read from now on.) and some to indicate location. In each of the future location collections there are books that sort of belong by subject matter, but that don't quite:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=MarthaJeanne&deepsearch=Bryson
you will see that the first tag for each of them is 'fiction'. Well, I know as well as you do that these books are not fiction, but they are with the fiction because we want them shelved together, and the easiest way to do that is to have them with the other books shelved by author - which is the general fiction bookcase.

There are books labelled 'Textile' that have nothing to do with textiles, except that I use them as design inspiration, and what I design is embroidery patterns. Even for books that really are textile related, I am not convinced that for most of them 'textile' is a useful tag. Once I have a 'Textiles' collection, at most 10% of the books with that tag will keep it. Then it will mean more than just somehow related to my needlework interests.

MarthaJeanne,

I do a similar tagging thing with art books; many of them I bought because they include many portraits, and are therefore a significant resource for historical costume. They are therefore tagged COSTUME.

Hmm. This one is pretty easy. I already have my collections marked with collection tags in preparation for an actual Collections function to be released for LT.

I use them as catch-alls for broad categories in subjects that particularly interest me (makes it easy to run down the list in a subject area to find things I have yet to read...) in addition to two that work as type categories so I know whether to go to my computer or to the bookshelves for any particular text.

These are what I have thus far, as tags. The asterisks are in the text to make the tags show at the top of the list when I sort them alphabetically on the Tags page.

*collection (American studies)
*collection (archaeology & anthropology)
*collection (biology studies)
*collection (Celtic studies)
*collection (computer science)
*collection (European studies)
*collection (Germanic studies)
*collection (information science)
*collection (language studies)
*collection (military studies)
*collection (political science)
*collection (prehistoric Europe)
*collection (prehistory)
*collection (Roman Empire)
*collection (Roman Republic)
*collection (arts & artificia)

*EL (e-books)
*PL (print books)

EDIT: once the ability to mark individual books as private is available, I would probably chuck all of those items into their own category too.

Omnibus - I'd list all the individual works that I own in omnibus editions, maybe all the short stories too.

Wishlist

Purged - those books no longer deemed worthy of shelf space.

Maybe I'd make a non-fiction collection too, though I don't have a particular problem having tagged them currently.

-My Library (=physically owned)
-Wish/watchlist (not owned, interesting)
-ILL/borrowed(not owned,read)
-Bibliography(books on certain topics,grouped by tags; overlaps with previous 3 collections)
-Discards/discarded
-Private

Hope it's ok to post to this, I'm a bit late to the party. I've been thinking about collections more lately and these are the ones that I think I would start off with. Others to be added as need arises.

- My Library (for everything I own)
- Wishlist (this might actually be broken into several collections one for nonfiction, fiction, etc)
- Childhood Loves (all the books that I cherished as a child)
- Read (this would be anything I've read but don't own. Things lent from people and libraries, tagged as to origin)
- Good Life (this one would hold books that cover many separate topics that are associated in my mind. Permaculture, architecture, animal husbandry, and so on. The connection is tenuous enough in some cases that tags won't mean much to anyone else and this might contain books I want along with what I've got, depending.)

And lastly I think I'd like to use some collections to track things like books that were nominated for a particular award and similar things. Those would contain books I own and those that I don't. It would make it easier to look at what I've got in relation to the list and what I still want.

Can't wait for the chance to actually play around with this feature when it gets here.

104: Have you seen the award pages?

http://www.librarything.com/bookaward/Newbery+Medal
http://www.librarything.com/bookaward/Newbery+Honor

You can add the award nominees in Common Knowledge too, and then have a handy list. :)

Let's see... Based on what I read in the previous posts, I see my concept of Collections is nothing like others...

My Library - All books except Wish List
Wish List

Den
Living room
Dining Room
Bedroom
Computer room

Boxed - Not on a shelf in a specific room (tag for what box)
Sold/Purged - Books I got rid of, but wanted to keep for review purposes. Not part of recommendations

Still debating:
Audiobooks
Ebooks

Almost the same as #106, I think, but maybe subdividing some of the stuff that live in special corners of the Living Room etc.
I.e. Crimis in Living Room, Math books in Computer Room.

I think I'll do

My library - everything I own
Read but not owned
Theology
Food and cooking
Textile
Owned but not in three catagories above
storage

Possibly one for lent books, as I have started encouraging more people to borrow from me now that they can check a catalog on-line.

On book status:

Books owned
Books formerly owned, but now withdrawn
Public library books read through
Books in other locations than home
Miscellaneous unowned books
Reference books (these are books that I refer to frequently and need to be real easy to get to.

Subject areas:

Travel books
Worship/prayer books/hymnals
Arthurian/C S Lewis/ Tolkien etc
Nicely bound classics
Maps/atlases
Language books
cook books

My list of "to be read" books is pretty small, but my list of books to be looked at is huge and only on paper at this point.

Areas that I am not ready to divvy up yet are:
theology
psychological types
classics with 'nice bindings'
classic and semi-classic novels with normal covers
cats
almanacs
public transport
statistical volumes beyond almanacs

Two collections:
What I physically possess.
What I have read but do not physically possess.

If wishlist is a default collection, I might end up using it, but I don't yearn for it.