How to indicate location of a book

I would like to indicate where my books are located in the house, as I can never find the one I'm looking for. Has anyone figured out a way to do this?

I'd recommend tagging them with specific locations (shelves, rooms, etc).

Spare room? What's that? Spare corner? What's that? And how could there be room for all of an LT-er's books in a corner? Books are in every room (and most corners) of my apartment.

But, organizing the books is a good point -- do it in a way that makes sense for you.

Fortunately I'm not at the point where I have to tag my books by location within my apartment. I still have some 600+ books boxed up at my parents' house, so those I have tagged. Whenever I get around to cataloging what my wife still has boxed up at her mom's house, I will tag those appropriately (assuming, that is, that we don't bring them all over at once).

I don't have so many books that I can't find them yet, but my comics collection are getting tags to be able to locate them more quickly.

I am not a big fan of using tags for location. Tags are useful when everyone can use them and you can find similarly tagged books.

No one will use "3rd Kitchen Cabinet, Top Shelf."

I would recommend using the comment field. Granted you cannot find by location through the comment field, but folks usually look for a book then location.

Tags are useful when everyone can use them

My tags are useful when I can use them and I use my location tag frequently. Granted, I have only the one location tag, but having it saves me trips up and down the stairs between the "library" and my son's shelves.

There is another related thread on this where I posted in July.

I agree with you, fleela. I want the tags for same reasons as you. Why would anyone else care how I set myself up anyway? They work just fine for me. :)

I know that as soon as I start tagging the locations, I will end up moving again, and dump all the books on the shelves willy-nilly at the new place. I should have added location tags when I first entered all the data but I didn't think about it at the time. I sure could have used those tags though when I was looking for a certain book a month or two ago... it took me weeks to find it. Thank God for LibraryThing so that at least I knew it existed somewhere!

"My tags are useful when I can use them..."

Certainly true. But, your tags are more useful when everyone can use them. The social aspects of LibraryThing are very powerful.

While not as easy as clicking on a tag, you can search you library with "comment:location_string".

11>While not as easy as clicking on a tag, you can search you library with "comment:location_string".

Yes, but clicking on tags is easier.

Just because tags allow collective use doesn't mean they require collective use.

Like (nearly) all of us have unique books.

11 > Why should I have to bother with that? My location tags will fall out in the rubbish with many of the others when used as a group. The whole point of my tags is making them useful to ME. If enough of us use tags then they also become useful to OTHERS. It's all a matter of numbers. The junk really doesn't affect the tags and in strange cases it does then it really isn't junk then.

Some people have gotten interesting info out of what books are tagged kitchen, bathroom, or bedroom. Of course my br-bookcase-row1 tag isn't likely to be duplicated.

With tags there really is no MY in LibraryThing.

Take a look at To The Stars. It has a tag "back shelf 2-2" in the book's tag cloud. Why? Because nocturnish has 21 books on his back shelf 2-2.

I don't really care where HIS book is. I do not want to see it in the tag cloud everyone shares. The tag is meaningless to the other 248,067 members.

Now if LibraryThing can extend 1 click functionality to to comments or create private tags...

But, your tags are more useful when everyone can use them.

If I worried about my tags being useful to others they may not be useful to me. The social aspect of LT is secondary to me. If my choice of a tag for a certain book overlaps with others', that's great, but it's not the reason I tag.

jjwilson61, yes those are more interesting. Cookbooks in the kitchen.

With tags there really is no MY in LibramyThing

I think Tim would disagree with you on this one.

Yes, with what I said he probably would. :) Let us talk for about 20 minutes and he might partially agree with me.

Well, let me couch that a bit. Tim knows tagging. He might change my mind. :))

#16 What fleela said.

I tag my books with where they are located in my house. It makes it so much easier for me to find them. I think in many tag clouds or listings you are going to encounter one or two tags that are irrelevant to you, but you can just ignore them. Tags are, in my opinion, just as much for the individual as they are for the group.

Almost all my books have multiple tags - some are quite universal and some are very specific only to me. I don't see the problem with that.

With tags there really is no MY in LibraryThing.

Funny thing about that, tcgardner. I paid LT *MY* $25 in order to use tags however *I* see fit.

Now, if you'd like to cut me a check for $25, I'll certainly reconsider my position :)

23> And I definitely won't reconsider my use of personal tags, even if people give me $25.

Now if it was serious money, I might think about it. (And then would probably give half to Tim to overrule it and build up the site.)

9days. No, you pay LT to use tags as they see fit. :) And, Tim is very liberal with their use. All in all that is probably a good thing. I just suggest another place the location data for a book could be stored. I personally think it is a better. Others do not.

skoobdo - ah, the 'spare room'. I had one in my old apartment, although even there it had a purpose (two, in fact), just not a 'main room' sort of purpose. I have now moved to an apartment half that size, and believe me, I decluttered with a vengence (and plan to do still more). I still don't think I'll have any room to spare. It's a nice concept, though.

It was my understanding when joining LT that tags were available to tag one's library according to what is meaningful to THEM. Surely there are many things in tags, other than location codes, that mean something only to the individual so, as some have suggested, just ignore the ones you don't find useful to you. I use my tags all the time, as do so many others.

I think book shelves are like harddisks: no matter how much space you have, it always fills up quickly, so "spare" doesn't really exist.

If anyone actually has space on their bookshelves, let me know. I'll take care of it for you. :)

30: If I only had bookshelves! lol

We have a "spare room" that was supposed to be my room when we moved in, but I ended up taking the office as my bedroom. Now, the spare room is indeed a book room.... it is currently home to twelve of my twenty-odd boxes full of books.

Heather

#26 Cluttering is the problem for most households as we bought more things(as years passed) ,we need to discard things and books no longer require or useful to us.

Some of us love our "clutter" -- and don't consider our books "clutter."

And many people don't have the luxury of spare rooms; you are fortunate to have one. In my apartment, most rooms are multitaskers. My "extra" room is my office/the guest room/the TV room/the exercise room. My living room is also my boyfriend's office/the music room. My dining alcove is also the paper and equipment storage area. Etc.

"Multitasking rooms" - it's a funny phrase (to me) but it's so true. Most of my books will probably be in my bedroom (along with general storage), but the "dining room" is going to be my jewelry studio and probably the living room (slash tv room, slash entry, slash...) will also include storage. One of them will also have the rest of the books. The two are practically the same room, anyway (connected by a large arch that extends across nearly the whole wall). I'm not sure where the actual dining area will be. I'll have to think about that...

31> If you obtain bookshelves (or shelves in general), it's amazing how much space will "appear" and you may even be able to see the thing some call "the floor". ;)

On the location topic: I organized my books by Library of Congress call number which puts them roughly in order of topic. I love it. I can pretty much walk right up to a book's location (among 1400+/-). Currently being read books are all over - near the bed, by the computer, near the comfy chair, etc.

On tags: I never knew there were so many ways to think/discuss/argue over tags....I love Library Thing for its help to me in keeping my library under some control and for its social aspects. I learn something every day I read the posts and find new books to read, too.

34> you may even be able to see the thing some call "the floor". ;)

the... floor? the sudden vertigo would be terrifying. although the idea of no more late-night stack avalanches holds a certain charm.

36>The early morning ones can be far worse... *evil grin*

Yes, I am seeing glimpses of the floor and the dogs are enjoying more room to run around....

I also found in an IKEA catalog some bookends which include on the base a hang down label holder so you and I can actually label our bookshelves wherever they may be found: to be read, to be returned to someone, to give away, science, math, etc. You get the idea. www.IKEA-USA.com

They are INREDA book-ends.

I still double-catalog all my books -- here on LT, and in a spreadsheet; so I don't track a book's location on LT. But if I ~DID~... I'd use something close to the nomenclature that I have in the spreadsheet.

As my name suggests, I've got books in EVERY room in my house. Coincidentally, almost every room is a different color, so GR would indicate the green room, MoR is a mocha-colored room, MaR is maple-colored... ad nausium. Some are easier -- LR is living room, DR is dieing room. Sorry, couldn't resist -- Dining Room. If there's more than one bookshelf in the room -- the LR has 3, the GR has 5 (full size) bookshelves; K has just 1 (shelf) -- they get numbered from left-to-right as one enters the room. Shelves are numbered from bottom to top, with the actual top (exterior of the bookcase) designated as 'top'.

Here's a couple of examples:
LR, Floor -- (from the the pre-new-bookshelves days)
LR, Left, 5th -- (in this case, the bookshelves are on either side of the fireplace)
MB, HB, Right -- (Master bedroom, headboard, right side)
GR, 4, 6 -- (Green room, 4th bookcase, 6th shelf from the bottom)

Granted, the commas won't work for me in LT, so I'd probably use hyphens or virgules instead.
Like this:
@LR-f
@LR-L-5
@MB-Hb-R
@GR-4-6 or @GR/4/6

Probably more detail than you wanted, but look at it this way -- you survived the brain dump.

40 skoobdo
I don't think it is everyone's wish to live in a spacious home. My current apartment would be the perfect size for me, if I didn't need room for my jewelry stuff. And it might still work, if I can figure out how to set it up right. The problem with having lots of space is that it gives me permission to get more stuff to fill it up with.

I don't think you offended anyone, I just think you're assuming that everyone thinks (and lives) like you do, which isn't the case.

I do consider some books "clutter", but there is a reason for it. I have roughly ten huge boxes of books that I do not like and want to get rid of, and to me they are "cluttering" up the space where I could be spreading out the books that I do like. Until I get rid of those books, they will continue to be considered clutter in my mind.

And I'm another person who doesn't want to live in a spacious house... my dream home is/has/will always be a small cozy cabin (with a big room for my books and writing stuff, of course).

Heather

This is so interesting as it parallels a conversation I have with myself almost every day. I am now debating whether to buy a couple more book cases. I have all the books with LC call numbers on shelves except for about one foot wide selection of oversized books and a couple of small book cases of no LC # book, and a couple of small boxes of "can't find space on the shelves". I have one small bedroom I am using as a craft room and I think a couple of bookcases could fit in there. My big problem is the clutter of 12-15 boxes of stuff left over from school teaching and not being good at throwing things out. But ! I absolutely have decided having a bigger house is not the solution - it is as was stated earlier an excuse to get more stuff: books, crafts, pretty furniture, toys, etc. etc. I too want a nice cabin on the beach or in the woods with just enought room for books and dogs and me. Right now I have about 1600 square feet which is just about perfect, only it could be near the beach or a forest....but that just gives me something to aspire for...

dream on

The *only* tags I am using at the moment relate to location as I am boxing up books in the study. The tags are mundane "box01", "box02" etc, with a sneaky "box00" for the ones I'm leaving out. The tags suit me, and I can search on a tag and see the contents of a box, or search on a book and see which box it's in in case I need to access something. I note that other users make use of boxN tags too.

When I unbox, at some unspecified time in the future, I will be more imaginative. I intend to arrange bookcases around the room, with a bust of a roman emperor on top of each. I will refer to each book's location by the name of the emperor, followed by the shelf, which will be idenified by letter ("A" will be the top shelf) and finally, a number indicating how many books along the shelf each volume is located. Anything acquired after that will simply be referred to as "Additional" ;-)

I use location tags and find them very handy.

Each location tag starts with the word "location" (which makes it easy for others to disregard) and has an abbreviation for the room. If that room has more than one cabinet (don't they all?), I number or name the cabinets. I don't get any more specific than that as to shelves, etc..

tcgardner, I see what you're saying. If I was offered the option of private tags, I would put location tags there, but until we get them, public tags will have to do. (I'm using "comments" for illustrator, anthology authors, signing information, etc., so it would get rather crowded. Furthermore, I want the location information sortable. Can't do that with comments.)

It is interesting to see the different ways we use LibraryThing, isn't it? I think that adaptability is both one of it's strengths and problems. It makes deciding the format a balancing act for Tim and crew as they try to make everyone happy. It's a wonder they don't run screaming for the hills, pulling their hair out in frustration.

Pleasant reading, everyone. :^)

Hi, Celeste

I do my location info the same way you do, and I use that info all the time. There is another thread in this same talk group called "Location Tags" where I posted on this subject on 07/09/2007. I do not go down to shelf and exact location as I do not want to have to do constant updates in my ever-growing catalog.

I have thought so many times about making location tags, and it would sure be helpful to do box tags since most of my books are in boxes. Of course, I have no clue which books are in which boxes, and I don't really care to sort through them all again to find out (I already did that when entering them). Also, the boxes change location so often (garage, spare bedroom, living room, my room) that it'd be a bit of a waste of time for me I think.

Heather

If the location is in an apparent constant state of flux, why don't you label them as either @here or @there?

That way, if you can't find it here, look there! or vice versa....

Sorry, WAY too much coffee this morning.

44> That would be an interesting approach, but I just don't cotton to it.

--Foretopman

LOL @ 48!

###49
44> That would be an interesting approach, but I just don't cotton to it.
###

It is rather idiosyncratic--I don't think every library in Britain would use it :-)

I wonder if I ought to make plans about what to do in case of fire ... ?

#51 I wonder if I ought to make plans about what to do in case of fire ... ?

I think you'd better plan on putting the fire out!

Hi, I'm brand new here. I am experiencing some of the same thoughts that others have had about tags. As I batch mass-input books (in genre and location batches) I am able to attach 2 tags using features during the "add books" process. One tag is genre - which should be of external interest, and a second tag that matches the label on the box that it is in.

Until the add books mass tagging allows for specifying the private/public attribute in the tag name I don't see why I would give up my scheme....
But if I could add tags during a mass update like : then I could eliminate personal tags by exporting the library and re-importing with tagged tags :-)

thanks

why would anyone here think it is up to them to decide how we use our tags?

I am with Fleela and others. my tags are mine. If you don't like them, TDB.

I mean, seriously.

If you want specific location information, comments probably works best, because if that info is first you can sort on it. On the other hand it makes it harder to use comments for other information.

If the location is general (bedroom, storage) tags is probably easier because you can call up a list easily. (The social aspects are rather beside the point. Your library is yours. Do what works for you.) If you have a bookcase full of Cookbooks, as I do, the tag 'Cookbook' or 'Cooking' is both location and subject.

Or, if most of your books are American, you can use either the Dewey or LoC systems if they work for you and use the information that is here to create a location on your shelves.

For the purist, the tags are the same as the subject headings in libraries. These terms allow a person to browse for books within the subjects. Locations are not strictly subject terms so I am not putting them into the tags. I am using the comment field for locations (Location: XXX). I hope that helps. I recommend deciding on broad subject terms and using the same words consistently to make browsing more useful.

It is interesting to see others' perspective on this issue. What a great service this is.

For the purist, the tags are the same as the subject headings in libraries.

What?

Look, I don't tag for location. I don't tag much in fact. The point is,
I will use my tags as I see fit. I simply would not tag to suit someone else.

I know the general location of all of my books. Different rooms have different genres for the most part. But even the ones that end up temporarily "lost" would not convince me to use LT to locate them.

I am just saying that I just don't see what my tags have to do with anyone else. If you don't like them, don't use them.

Please, I think it is incredible important to clearly tag the location of your books. In addition it would be helpful if you added information about what you paid for the book. I and other find this information very useful.

I agree with fleela, et al.

Location is definitely suited to tags. Tags are (and should be) one of the most idiosyncratic things on LT. If you want to tag all the books you own with red covers, as "red", go wild.

Some elements of LT, like Common Knowledge, need to conform to the benefit of the group, but tags are definitely not one of those elements. Indeed, the variety of tags is actually a benefit, as it can shed new light on what characteristics of a book are meaningful to people. If there are a lot of tags like "2nd shelf Jane's bedroom" then that means that location is a key quality of books for people.

Hmmm, possible doctoral dissertation - "Metaphysical implications of location in human literary psychology as demonstrated by tagging distribution on LibraryThing" :-)

>59 bookthief101:
Wouldn't you rather have the current market value?

I agree with fleela and everybody else who agrees with fleela.

After I originally entered about 100 out of what has turned out to be over 2500 books, I realized that I wouldn't know where anything was unless I tagged it with a location. I went back, tagged those books with locations, and every book has been tagged with locations since then (with the exception of the small number that are 'misshelved' because of my initial feeding frenzy of entering books). My locations are all 3 characters. First is room (L=library, S=sunroom, R=daughter's room, G=greatroom, K=kitchen, P=parlor, H=husband's home office, M=husband's media room). Next is shelf, then row. L42 is Library, 2nd shelf, 4th row down from the top.

It works for me. It's unique to me. I'm extremely happy with what I've done.

I don't look at anybody else's tags - I don't care how they tag their books. I don't anticipate that anybody should care how or why I tag mine. Tagging them the way I do helps me avoid having to put authors together or genres together or colors together or Dewey decimal system books together or L of C books together. I find available shelf space, tag them, then find them when I need them. That's enough time to spend.

And for putting them in comments, I put other things in comments.

But to each her or his own.

I agree with fleela and everybody else who agrees with fleela.

My evil plan for global domination is coming to fruition...muahahaha

wrijud - wow, look what you started! Fun.

skoobdo - I wish you wouldn't delete your messages. The responses look interesting, I'd love to be able to read what you said. (Not commanding or requiring anything, just expressing my personal wish).

I don't tag (or comment) with location, because all my books are either grouped by subject/genre (in which case I know where they are by what they are) or totally disorganized (the ones I got out of boxes and onto shelves fast just to make some room). Eventually I'll get the other shelves properly built and then _everything_ will be sorted by genre...

But in terms of the social aspect of tags: the point - the fun - of tags is that everyone enters what they feel like and the combination of that random data gives more information on the book and what people think about it (including where they keep it!). If tags were strictly controlled (genre/subject...what else could be universal?), they wouldn't be nearly as interesting or useful. People express location, opinion, series, subject, condition, price, reading date...everything is interesting.

>62 karenmarie: I don't look at anybody else's tags - I don't care how they tag their books. I don't anticipate that anybody should care how or why I tag mine.

Ah but other people are effect by your tags. Consider a book like Record - Mrs. A. L. Pomeroy
Since no one else has the book, the tags kph, l25, record, reference, and scan don't really effect any users. But it is a different story all together when you look at a book like The Illiad I can't even get the full tag list to load because there are so many pejorative tags.

Don't get me wrong I plan to enter a location codes for my books. I just think I will be kind to other LT users and put them in private comments or wait for private tags.

Just because you can do a thing doesn't make it the right thing to do.

P.S. I think entering "Record - Mrs. A. L. Pomeroy" is an excellent thing to do.

>65 misericordia:
It makes no difference if other people are affected by a users' tags. The purpose of tagging is to make some meaningful, personal comment about the book. Tags are a very effective way of storing and searching metadata about an item whereas comments are rather rigid in their application; go to an item, read the commment, go to next item etc.. At least with tags karenmarie or anyone else can search for all the works in the library on the 2nd set of shelves or wherever.

I don't think you can prescribe to people how they apply their tags, the social/common aspect of tags is secondary. It is up to you to make what you can of the tags.

Location tags are unkind? Hilarious.

#65 misericordia - pejorative tags? how about just tags that don't mean anything to you? I loaded the tags for The Iliad (while I perused old e-mails) and saw hundreds of tags, very few of which were locations. Many more were variations on the word classic, Greece, ancient. I personally don't want or need to identify books by whether they're classics, related to Greece, or ancient, but I don't care if other people do.

Just because you can do a thing doesn't make it the right thing to do.

Well, if the thing isn't illegal, unethical, or immoral and it's available as an option on a service I've purchased, then I'll use it.

I just think I will be kind to other LT users and put them in private comments or wait for private tags.

Private comments aren't handled by LT the same way Tags are, so they are meaningless for my purpose. Comments do not delimit tags for searching.

And if Tim & Co. were to create 'private tags' vs 'public tags' I can just see the chaos that would result - who determines what is private or public? Who would have the time to do that? Who would police it? What if one of YOUR tags was determined to be something you didn't want it to be? And, finally, how many LTers, who adore the openness of this website, would be disgusted or angry or frustrated at the new level of control placed on what's always been uncontrolled and free form? Tim & Co. are extremely un-controlling in how they've built this website. In many ways we, the LT users, control aspects of the structure of this website that few developers would be willing to give up control over.

As a sidebar, I mentioned to my husband how much I love the groups and threads and how you can just create a group or thread and just let 'er rip. He was amazed - all the forums he's a member of are rigidly controlled and mediated by someone who works for or volunteers for the website itself. We mediate our own groups, our own threads, our own messages. Only after something seems abusive does it get flagged and/or removed -- never before it's been published like on other forums. It's absolutely wonderful and I wouldn't want to start having levels of control on Lt that would change the dynamic.

BTW - Record - Mrs. A.L. Pomeroy is a book, of my grandmother's, that she wrote things in. It stands proudly with other books and has huge sentimental value for me. Since it's a book, it gets cataloged.

68: Very very very much agree. I, personally, limit my tag use, simply because it becomes too confusing for me to remember which tags I have and want to use. But I would never limit anything in my catalogue because it's "unkind" to other users... One of the very BIG selling-points about LT, that Tim himself has stressed many times, is the user's ability to do what they want with their catalogue.

Location tags are of no use to me personally, because my books are constantly moving from box to box to pile to pile, but I actually like looking at other people's location tags... I think it says something about the book in question if, for example, a lot of people have "storage" as a tag.

As the tag compiler weights them according to use, personal tags don't usually end up prominent in the tag cloud. So it doesn't seem like a huge deal to me.

Put me in the "agree-with-fleela" camp...I will find your tags useful, useless, amusing or...whatever. If they are useful I will use them, useless I will ignore them, amusing I will chortle at them. I would NOT endorse any proscribed tagging nomenclature and feel that any "rules" would dilute the power of the tag to be all things to all people.

YOU may not know that my "Explore PA" tag doubles as a location tag - but I do. Having said that - I do use the comment (or is it "private comment"?) field to note exceptions to my shelving order. (i.e. "shelved out of order - next to Anthologies") and I have defined several of my tagging heirarchies on my profile for those who may be interested in what MY tag means.

I would also agree with #70 - personal (location, idiosyncratic numbering systems, etc) tags will "come out in the wash" when compared to the vast number of "meaningful" tags for works with more that a few copies.

P.S.
Besides, I think it's kind of cool that I can readily see what books many people keep in the bathroom long enough to "locate" them there - like a Peeping Tom without all that "climbing-up-a-tree-with-a-pair -of-binoculars-and-possibly-getting -arrested" part.

71: Oh! That reminds me, I have two bathroom-located books I haven't added to my catalogue! *rushes off to do so*

*chuckles* I used to have a friend with a shelf above the door in the toilet. On glancing up one day I noticed "The Joy of Pornography" and "More Joy of Pornography", I did a double take for a minute until I corrected for dislexia and re-read the title as "The Joy of Photography" etc... LOL

In the light of of another day perhaps my comments where a little strong, or poorly formed. I would agree with you on the point, you payed for the services and the services allows you to do it, you can do it with out reservation. I just wanted state my opinion that sometime user should think about how their action effect others. I wish the person who had tag the Iliad with the tag "if i had a dollar for everyone who ever read this i'd have sixteen bucks(1)", would have thought a little more about it. Was his action illegal, unethical or immoral, no. Was it correct and helpful to other members?
Was it unkind? No I would wouldn't go that far either.

I will stick to my opinion that my location information is best left out of tags.

Well I am not to proud to admit I am wrong and very wrong. From the define of tags for library thing:
What are tags?

The short answer: Tags are a simple way to categorize books according to how you think of them, not how some official librarian does. Thus one person will tag the The DaVinci Code "novels" while another tags it "trashy, religion, mary," and still another only "summer home."Tags are particularly useful for sorting and searching by those concepts—i.e., when you need a list of all your novels or all the books at the summer home.

Well to err is human so please be be divine with me...

you now have my respect for your courage and integrity

karen ( 68)

"BTW - Record - Mrs. A.L. Pomeroy is a book, of my grandmother's, that she wrote things in. It stands proudly with other books and has huge sentimental value for me. Since it's a book, it gets cataloged."

wow~ what a great idea. I have about a dozen of my great grandmothers journals. I may have to think about adding them.

#77 mckait - your great-grandmother's journals? you are so lucky! I'd give lots and lots to have anything in a great-grandparent's writing.

Add them! Unique ahoy!

karen, she wrote in and on anything and everything, Some are actual journal books, some are teeny little smaller than pocket size books or books meant for keeping records of other kinds. Hard to read, but I have done so three times. Not for a while though. Interesting to read about my very young child self, and my parents...weird to read about what great grandpa was getting up to. I also have bits of paper, photos and cookbooks that she wrote in. I think it was therapy for her. if something was bothering her, upsetting her etc she wrote it down somewhere.

What are some related tags?