Accurate book count

Is there a way to enter book information to get an accurate count of total number of book? I have two problems getting an accurate count.

First, I own multiple sets of books. They are counted in the overall total as one book, whether the set has 3, 5, 10 or more volumes. The count just keeps track of the individual entries, not actual books.

The other problem is multiple copies of the same book. I collect multiple copies of the same book sometimes but, although on the edit page I enter the number of copies held, the count remains at one for that entry. I can enter them individually as duplicates, but I'm wondering if there's a way to count multiple copies in the book total without having to have a seperate entry for each one.

Thanks.

Pages dimensions and weights on your statistics page gives a number of volumes. This will cope with multi-volume books (e.g. encyclopaedia) if you have filled in the relevant field. I am not sure if this considers number of copies.

Tim purposely made the copies field not count towards the total number so no one would be tempted to make it a huge number in order to claim the top spot on the zeitgeist page.

So yes, if you want an accurate count of the number of volumes you'll have to enter them separately, not using the copies field. I have a few duplicates like that, but I've entered them separately - partly because I want to track them separately (I loaned one copy of this book to Mom, but the other copy is still on my shelf...that kind of thing). The same applies to multi-volume works - you _can_ enter the individual volumes (probably, anyway). I looked at your library and I think you could enter at least some of your works as individual volumes - in fact, there are a couple that are confusing at best.

Lincoln: Speeches and Writings, for instance - you list Volume 2 in the title field, but you've entered it as having two volumes. Are there two books in Volume 2?

And for that one and some of the others, you will have problems; LT stops looking at titles when it hits a colon (or gets to a certain length - 25 characters? Not sure). So Lincoln: Speeches and Writings: Volume 2 is combined (look at the Editions page) with Volume 1 and editions that are both volumes together. If you entered it as Lincoln - Speeches and Writings, Volume 2 (or something like that - no colons before the volume indicator is the important part) it would get split off from the combined mess it's in now. I'm not fiddling with said mess yet - it can be fixed, but it will be a lot of work. You can pull yours out relatively easily, though.

ETA - whoops. I don't think what I entered would work - I'm not sure what LT's limit on title length is, but Lincoln - Speeches and Writings is 31 by itself, then , Volume 2 adds another 9 before you get to the differentiator. 40 characters is a long way for LT to look before it finds a difference. Maybe Lincoln Vol 2 - Speeches and Writings? Awkward. Does anyone know what LT's limit is now? I know it got stretched relatively recently (in the last year or two) but can't remember what it got extended to.

Are you sure that once a book has been auto-combined into a work that just changing the title will separate it? I suspect that manual separation from the editions page will be needed.

Not sure - but it's a good first step, at least. You're probably right, though.