The Courage to say "Hello"

I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself. A friend of mine forwarded me to this site, instead of goodreads. He said the community was much better. I must admit, I was a bit overwhelmed at first. I've been a member for a few weeks now and only just worked up the courage to even say "hello". Part of that is fear. Not sure of what entirely. Part of it is paralysis induced by the sheer enormity of the prospect.
That said, I hope to have a great time, and learn a lot. Always learn.

Have you have made a digital tour of the LibraryThing's site?

LibraryThing do have great things to offer for everyone.

I see you have a Wordpress domain site.Interesting.

Being a Sci-Fic ardent reader and indeed you wrote very good articles in your site.There are many

groups in the LT you can participate in posting threads and enjoyed the forum of many

interesting topics.

Welcome,sypherhawq, try to make a tour of LT by clicking to your area of interests.

Click: ( Sampled Tour)

http://www.librarything.com/groups/tags (A complete list of Groups)

Click: Science Fiction ( One of the Groups)

http://www.librarything.com/groups/groupreadsscifi

http://www.librarything.com/groups/hobnobwithauthors

Welcome to LT. I am glad that you found the courage to say hello. Posting to Talk is a good place to start to engage with the site. You could also enter more of the books that you own or that you have read. That information gives other members lots of triggers for further conversations. I find it rewarding to see who else has libraries similar to mine.

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

Besides we don't usually bite. Well except for spammers.

Most of us are Mostly Harmless - most of the rest of us try our best. Welcome sypherhawq.

>4 MrAndrew: A prescription for a route to loneliness?

Paul Atreides might agree.

>2 razzamajazz:. Thank you for all the information. I'm definitely looking forward to looking into those resources.
>3 TheoClarke:. I'll be adding the books I've read slowly. I have my own little chart on my computer. Definitely trying to learn how to use the system here effectively, since it doesn't inherently organize a way that I'm accustomed to.

How do you usually organize? One of LT's strengths is that it's amazingly customizable - give us some pattern, and we can probably help you organize LT closer to what you're accustomed to.

Thank you. However, after spending last night and today adding books, it's become much easier.
I think a main issue how books are labeled. For instance, different book series were copyrighted in different years. When I grew up reading Narnia, Collier Books and MacMillan Publishing Company owned the publishing rights, so The Magician's Nephew was still book 6 and not book 1 (an order I still believe makes more literary sense). So, when I search for a series, it's not labeled "properly."
Additionally, when I search for something like, say, the Wheel of Time series, the search doesn't return the books in order. Instead, the results page is clogged with other books about the Wheel of Time. I'm not entirely sure why that occurs but it makes it frustrating to look for book series.

Mostly, when searching for books to add, the bar showing options on the left side of my screen automatically sets the book to "My Library" instead of showing me the options for "To Read" and "Wishlist" automatically. It's a small nuisance but nagging.

Use the icon. arrows pointing upward/downward to sort up the titles in the series by year of publication (one of the features).

Type as (examples}:

City of Bones Book 1 -( ...........)
City of Bones Book 2 -(........... }
City of Bones Book 3 -

Icon - (Set Collections), Click the option against the title in your main catalog

Click (Your Library at the top end,left side of "Your Books" frame

Click the option ,you have labelled against the titles.

If you choose " Wish List " , it will shown all the titles you have labelled as " Wish List "

Try this.

>11 sypherhawq:: Re Narnia: That's the reason we have two series for that one - publication order and chronological order.*

Re add books: on that page you'll see "show all" just below that default collection. Go there and you can select the appropriate collection during the adding process.

* Similarly for (Mists of) Avalon, Dune, Judge Dee, etc.

Add Books defaults to whichever collection you have at the top of the list - if you're trying to add it to two or three collections, the easiest way is to set the collections (and the tags) and then add a bunch of books by typing in ISBN (if you have it) or title and author. Add the books without going elsewhere (so don't do it by searching for the book on LT and then clicking Add to Your Books, which is what it sounds like you're doing) - the tags and collections you set will remain until you refresh the page. So add a set of books all in a row, and only then go to Your Books and make any necessary edit. Set the tags and collections before you search, not after you search and before you click on a title to add it - it only notices what was set before the search button was pressed.

The Series pages show the books in sequence, as the Search page doesn't - you can get to it either, as Collectorator said, by clicking Series on the left on the Search page (and then choosing the appropriate series) or by finding one book in the series, opening the page for that book, and clicking the series title that appears at the top of the page just under Other Authors, above the Members... bar.

>1 sypherhawq: ve been a member for a few weeks now and only just worked up the courage to even say "hello".

I was on Lt for something like four years before I started speaking up!

Thank you everyone, for helping me clarify a how to search and catalog books. Your help is very much appreciated.

>16 southernbooklady: I shared an account with my boyfriend for awhile and I recently finally got my own!

I've been a member for years but only just started browsing the groups and talk section, which I'm loving -- though like you, took a while to get the courage up to start. Great to hear others' feedback about entering the books... I was having a bit of the same issue with not finding the right book, but instead books about the books I was searching for. Thanks!