Some questions about series improvement

I'm currently in the process of moving series out of Common Knowledge into a more robust and easier-to-handle data structure.

One question I'm having now is how to deal with the absolute mess of titles in a series like this:
https://www.librarything.com/series/The+Lord+of+the+Rings

In one sense, this shows every LOTR-y work on LT, in the right order. That's valuable. In another sense, it's an absolute mess that fails to provide users unfamiliar with LOTR with the basic facts—that LOTR is composed of three books, with some prequels, various omnibus and partial editions, and some miscellaneous hanging-on stuff.

As it stands, we ask that omnibus editions be sorted to the end. I'm thinking we make a larger distinction between "core" and "other" works in a series. By default, core would be shown first, other works second. Or you could elect to see all the works mixed together. There would be one true sort order, but by default core would be shown separate from other.

What do you think?

Here, by the way, are some other changes I'm making/considering:

1. Ordering will be simplified, with a drag-and-drop interface. The current system uses a single string, with various complex parsing rules. Hence a typical Star Wars Book will be "Star Wars (0.0227272727|44 BBY-10 ABY)" with the "0.0227272727" its position in the series!

2. By default, series will be sorted by their default sort order—alphabetical, by book number or by year number.

3. Rather than having different series for different languages (e.g., The Lord of the Rings, Der Herr der Ringe, Le seigneur des anneaux, O Senhor dos Anéis as separate series), there will be—or can be, after a combination process—one series, with different names in different languages. (Series translation exists already, but there's no good process for combining.)

4. Allowing users to use an explicit system of "relationships," like work relationships, between series. For example, series vs. subseries.

5. An option to provide ISBNs (or editions) for publisher series. The two series types would be combined, but the type of series would be basic to how they operate.

Opinions wanted.

I have to say that within the confines of the current system Librarythingers have done a great job of labelling the Lord of the Rings books, but yes, still very opaque to someone who doesn't know them.

Drag and drop ordering sounds great for big series.

I think series needs to be more fully DEFINED by what the created structure is. Does the series only constitute the books? Does it constitute anything and everything world related? (See https://www.librarything.com/series/The+Dresden+Files as an example)

Personally, and I only speak as myself:
- Establish two structures: One for just Books, that make the core, without the omnibi or side stories included. Then a second that has all the world related material.
- Create a distinction between fiction and non fiction material within the series. (The LotR series has study companions included in the series, which I think is incorrect. But again, that's me.)
- If there's a book that has split volumes (https://www.librarything.com/series/Honor+Harrington shows some of this) maybe only make finding the volumes through the full book or make them collapsible beneath the main volume? (Oh, wait, that might mess up LotR, since it technically one book split into three volumes) But this wouldn't be the same as an omnibus, or maybe omnibi could function in reverse, only findable through the main books?

I'm just spitballing ideas...

>2 timspalding: 2. By default, series will be sorted by their default sort order—alphabetical, by book number or by year number.

Where is the default coming from? LT or user preference? I can see LT default might mess up one's own data preference:
https://www.librarything.com/series/Saint-Germain+Cycle%3A+Publication+Order
or
https://www.librarything.com/series/Saint-Germain+Cycle%3A+Chronological+Order

Currently 2 separate series, but it would be nice to combine them into a single series and choose display preference. However, would your display preference be global or by series?

So, where would year number come from? Original publication date (and that's a mess)? And how would translations work?

How about nested series? Then you can have the main books from the series in one series and the rest of the material (omnibuses and what's not) as a subseries or three (or both of those being subseries of a master series).

That won't be needed for all series but for the big ones, that will help with organization...

I like to sort by internal chronology for a lot of series and would want that sort available.

>1 timspalding:
- I think the LOTR series page isn't that confusing. Only the main 3 books have whole numbers on the right, which to me makes it clear what the main books are.

- Could some of the LOTR-type issues be solved if the series feature talked to the "work-to-work relationships" feature? If A and B are contained in C, and D and E are contained in F, and then C and F are contained in X, that seems like something both features would want to talk to each other about.

- Maybe different books in a series could be put into categories? "Main series", "prequel/sequel", "omnibus/box set", "excerpt/sub-part", "ancillary/extra-textual"
Then the series pages could be filtered or collapsed by the different categories.

>2 timspalding:
- It might be nice (but not strictly necessary) to have different sort orders for the same series?
For example:
Redwall Chronological Order: https://www.librarything.com/series/Redwall%3A+Chronological+Order
Redwall Publication Order: https://www.librarything.com/series/Redwall%3A+Publication+Order

- Currently, series sorting doesn't work at three digits beyond the decimal (see: https://www.librarything.com/topic/297630), I assume that would be moot after this remodel?

- I would very much like to be able to see the sort numbers on the series page (even if I have to click a button or navigate to a subpage) instead of having to go to each individual work page.

Also I'd like to be able to sort my catalog by series, even if imperfectly.

>9 norabelle414: Ooh, I'm still thinking on this topic in general, but, yes, yes, yes to this. That, now or in the future would be awesome. Or even just sort one collection by series. (I may have a problem and read too many serieses to be honest).

Ah, the area of librarything that I am most eager to see improvement in. Personally, the thing I most look to get from series pages is what the units of "complete" story are, so that I can plan my purchases or library holds.

For example, the series page for the Old Kingdom series does not make it clear that book 1 is essentially a stand-alone, books 2 and 3 are highly connected sequel volumes, and book 5 is a continuation of books 2 and 3 but more loosely connected. The ideal framework would be flexible enough that this information is somewhere on the series page.

Another example: I see by clicking on the fourth book of the Black Jewels series that the fourth book starts a prequel series ... but that information is nowhere on the main series page. The only indication that the first three books are more closely tied together than they are to the fourth book is by what volumes are included in the omnibus edition.

I second >5 Maddz: that there are some series with several different well-respected series order. The Patternist series springs to mind.

One other thing: please make series touchstone-able! In particular, any discussion in talk of proper reading order (which does sometimes occur -- searching for "reading order" gives over 600 hits in Talk) could then become easily reachable from the series page.

I also think that one area that deserves special attention is spin-off series. As an example, it's not clear by looking at this series page that the first six books are one series, culminating with a satisfying conclusion, and the next six are a separate series, following some of the same characters but with a different focus. I'm not sure how this would fit into your model of "main" and "sub" series... are the second six books a subseries?

If you really want to give yourself a headache, dive into the weird ordering of many romance series which loosely follow people in one family but jump around wildly. (Think of Jude Deveraux's Montgomery and Taggert books, for one example.) I'm not even sure what a "good" solution would be like in that example. I do think once again that including more information on the series page would actually help. If the series spans centuries, a good proxy for whether or not you would enjoy reading a particular entry is around what year the story takes place in or how many characters are shared between volumes. (Or, even, using reader data, which books in the series people are most likely to own if they own some.) If the system is flexible to allow someone to include extra information, this could really help clarify such pages.

Can I add a caveat about "alphabetical"?

I read a lot of mysteries and I am constantly falling into the trap of alphabetical order rather than publication order, which tends to be the default listing when more than one series book is published in a given year. It is infuriating to start a mystery and find the characters having spoilery conversations about what happened in the previous book, which you haven't read yet.

I try to remember to research OPD, and I edit series orders whenever I come across an incorrect alphabetical listing, but it is easy to forget and take the existing series listings as gospel.

In any such series, OPD *must* be the most significant factor.

If you're going to be making changes to series, could you change things so series names can end in a question mark? It's been bothering me for a while that the series So I'm a Spider, So What? has to be listed without the question mark. This is because the link CN generates doesn't translate an ending question mark to %3F making finding the series page annoying.

Thanks for doing this Tim - it's sorely needed. Based on my own needs, the series I read, have read and plan to read, and the way I use series on LT, your suggestions sound good.

And I wholeheartedly agree with >9 norabelle414: that I want to be able to sort catalogue by series.

I think the LOTR series page isn't that confusing.

As someone who is familiar with books, I DO find that page confusing.

I would not expect to find the main three books buried amidst a slew of "prequels"*, and "Volume I, Book 1, Part 1", and "Japanese Edition", etc.

If someone familiar with the books thinks it's a mess, someone who isn't would probably throw up her hands in dismay.

*and may I just add here that I hate that word

I'm not a big fan of the Drag and Drop, I think it would be too easy to inadvertently snag something and rearrange the order by mistake or plonk something in the wrong spot, particularly for tablets/touch screens. I would like to see the Order field editable from the Series page rather than having to go to an individual Work page, edit the Series data and then return to the Series page to see the effect or tackle the next work. Rather be able to effect the edits on the Series page and have the data flow on and update the CK on the Work page.

Thank you for considering how to improve series. My favorite change under consideration in >2 timspalding: is #4:

Allowing users to use an explicit system of "relationships," like work relationships, between series. For example, series vs. subseries.4>

I don't have the mental bandwidth at the moment to sort through my hopes and concerns for the other items but can see that we should expect more options, however those are designed.

Also, I'm throwing my voice in with >9 norabelle414:, >10 DanieXJ:, and >14 PawsforThought: to say that a catalogue sort by series would be helpful!

This is sorta off-topic and sorta not...

Any thoughts of being able to toggle between (real) Series and Publisher Series?
For instance here's an enormous Publisher's Series set up as a Real: http://www.librarything.com/series/Little+Blue+Books
Shouldn't be so much work to change it...

+1 to being able to sort my catalog by series! (especially if I can choose which series/sort to use).

Series is hard problem! as there isn't one right answer.

I can see little use for alpha sort in series.

Publication date of books is probably the easiest 'true' series definition. Very few authors manage to write books that are published later than the books that should be read afterwards. Nearly all prequels require having read the 'main' series first.

Sub-series is a must. Especially for long series broken into manageable trilogies etc. An ability to specifiy degree of correlation would be nice but maybe Pony hard.

LoTR as above is not bad. It would more understandable if all the sub-books were sorted to the end, but is correct as given. And is far from complete as it doesn't feature all of CT's compendium works.

Are people who want to sort their catalogues by series aware that they have their own series page(s)? Any catalogue sort by series is going to end up even less useful than that page. If books are only in the sort once, some will be missing in other series. If books are listed in each series they are listed in, there will be many, many extra entries.

If we could say 'don't show' for series we aren't really interested in, this would be much more useful.

Profile>Stat/Memes>Series

>1 timspalding:
3. Rather than having different series for different languages (e.g., The Lord of the Rings, Der Herr der Ringe, Le seigneur des anneaux, O Senhor dos Anéis as separate series), there will be—or can be, after a combination process—one series, with different names in different languages.

I hope this unification of series between languages is optional. There are some series where the contents are not identical across languages. I would think only the English language works would be in the English series, and the German (for example) works would be in the German series.

Also +1 to those who are talking about nested series.

As a similar thing to the LotR series Tim mentioned is the His Dark Materials series.

The issue that needs thinking about are those series which have spawned versions in different media. For example comics / graphic novel versions of stories in the same universe, or radio/audio productions, or ancillary products (diaries, mapps, companions - Discworld). Connected series are also an issue. The Book of Dust (Pullman's current series) is obviously connected to His Dark Materials and features Lyra and Pan. However in the HDM series the first book in The Book of Dust is a prequel to HDM, and the second is a sequel - I think because that is where they sit in the chronology of his story.

I think comics particularly have an issue where they are commonly a number of single issues which are collected as a trade paperback. Sometimes there are deluxe trades which have different contents. See https://www.librarything.com/series/The+Wicked+%2526+The+Divine

Nested series could help in these cases but I am not sure how intuitive/easy a UI to handle such would be. It would also require db changes, as series would move into the db proper.

On the reorganisation of series - then I am broadly in favour - however the extra information that is often included like the 44 BBY-10 ABY in the Star Wars example is very desirable and I wouldn't want to see that go. For example in the Little Blue Book (really a publisher series but set up as a real series) the number shown in the order is of importance (there really is a number 24 - it just doesn't appear on LT).

>21 MarthaJeanne: I had forgotten about the series page(s). I would rather forget it again. That list is painful to look at* and does not allow for easy edits of my books. A catalogue sort would still help. We could edit titles and make notes without opening a new tab or window for each work.

* (showing that the series my books fall within are messier than I'd realized)

>21 MarthaJeanne:
One problem with the catalogue series page is that it's just a raw title list -- it doesn't show you how they're organized and it doesn't show which series entries are missing from your catalogue.

Sorting by series in the catalogue wouldn't solve either problem.

>24 Crypto-Willobie: >21 MarthaJeanne: The list at Profile --> Stat/Memes --> Series is itself not searchable or sortable. My list is only three pages but contains multiple languages. I have to guess where books will be, which results in more opening of work pages to check the series lists in Common Knowledge, then even more pages to compare similar titles in similar series that are currently separate.

A search or a sort by book title could make digging up holes and links in series data more fun. I think I have a higher tolerance than cross-referencing than the average member, yet... omg, I feel tired looking at my series list.

>26 aspirit: um... honestly, my mind was fogging up. There is a sort by work option already in my series list. I'm going to play with it today.

>28 aspirit: ... and now there's 18 pages and no sort option for that list. Wtf?

I would like to sort series in my catalogue, please.

>21 MarthaJeanne: Yes, I'm aware of that page - but since it's not the catalogue it doesn't really help much. I want to be able to look in my catalogue and see all the books sorted in a way that makes sense to me, and having series there makes sense.

>28 aspirit:

Just where do you expect Batman: Knightfall, Part Three: KnightsEnd to appear?

It is in 9 series. Namely,
1) Batman
2) Batman TPBs (509|509-510)
3) Detective Comics TPBs (676|676-677)
4) Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (62-63)
5) Batman: Shadow of the Bat (29-30)
6) Catwoman (2.12|v2 12-13)
7) Robin (8-9)
8) Showcase '94 (10)
9) Batman: Knightfall (3.1|Volume 3 part one)

Although this is at its worst there, there are books which are in multiple series too (Dragonsdawn is in 4 series).

You could do it by adding an extra (common to everyone) field to say this is what it sorts under - but then you have instances when people disagree.

>29 PawsforThought: "see all the books sorted in a way that makes sense to me" That is the point. How do they end up in a way that makes sense to you?

>31 MarthaJeanne: The books that are in a series are ordered together in the catalogue, instead of scattered around with other books by the same author (but which are not in a series).

>30 andyl: You're making my head hurt! Wow.

I didn't remember that I have the Nightfall books until you linked to it. Now I'm looking at the credits and feeling a strengthening in my belief that anthologies and multi-series collections belong only in work-to-work relationships, not inside related series.

ETA: That belief weakened again with more digging. The Batman series are well thought out for how knotted the interwoven storylines are among the floppies, graphic novels, and collector editions. Series are complicated, is all.

>31 MarthaJeanne: Does the request for a series field that can be sorted in our catalogues scare you? What's the risk that those of us asking for it might not have considered?

A few thoughts:

i) I've often wished for a toggle to hide/show everything but the core series. Obviously, what's "core" may be debatable in individual cases, but there's a lot I think everyone can agree is peripheral, such as omnibuses.

ii) Drag-and-drop is good for simple lists, but I'd fear it'd become more confusion than helpful if we're going to have subseries, series where translations have different numbers of volumes from the original and from one another, etc.

iii) Being able to sort a series by OPD, internal chronology, and whatnot directly from the series page would be nice. Perhaps the list should be open-ended, so if a particular series needs sorting by number of salmon that occurs in the books a user can add it? You might need to have a feature that auto-bans anyone who tries to create a "recommended reading order" sort, though.

I am very close to: >5 Maddz:, >21 MarthaJeanne:, >35 AndreasJ:

I agree completly with >35 AndreasJ: in iii.
To avoid edit wars I would like to have a "personal sort order". It should be handeled/stored in the user-book page and not in the work section.
I would also like a hierarchical mode (at least for the core serie) as it is possible in Calibre (https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/sub_groups.html).

What I missed so far is the total amount of series titles of the (core)-serie. Where it is possible. For example: Youve got x out of y books from serie xyz.

As LT user of the german site I would just like to see series in my language.

>1 timspalding: That's valuable. In another sense, it's an absolute mess that fails to provide users unfamiliar with LOTR with the basic facts—that LOTR is composed of three books, with some prequels, various omnibus and partial editions, and some miscellaneous hanging-on stuff.

And to show how complicated it can be, LOTR is actually six books, typically (but not always) published in three volumes.

I think a truly satisfying way of fixing Series will involve much more robust use of the Contains relationships. A series should know e.g. if it contains a set of books, an omnibus that contains them (or one of them?) should also be somehow noted on the Series page. This includes not just "book A contains book X", but "Book Y is actually the first half of A and Book Z is actually the second half." Because often, books that are originally published as one book will (sometimes inexplicably) get split into two in other markets.

>37 brightcopy:
"And to show how complicated it can be, LOTR is actually six books, typically (but not always) published in three volumes."

... seven, including the Appendices, as your example shows...

As a future tweak, I’d love to see a ‘next’ book list with all series I’ve read (yes, replicating fictfact, but that’s gone for good) or even bar charts of how far through a series one is.

Trying to follow this discussion where initials and acronyms are used for example: OPD, LOTR is great for you erudite people but for simple folk like me who want to get the most out of Library thing ... I am still trying to understand what concept Tim was trying to convey in #1 with LOTR!

OPD = Original Publication Date
LOTR = The Lord of the Rings

>41 AndreasJ: Thanks!

Here is this "newbie's" view:

Keep the CK series list as is in CK. It can hold as much or as little as it does now. My understanding is that CK is to gather knowledge from all users and shouldn't be edited because it affects everyone. Add as many series, relationships and so on as will increase the knowledge.

I like checking CK and learning about some of the books on LT and it can be a great reference.

But ADD a new field for "my" series that I can add to the style of how I want my catalog to appear and which I can sort for how I.

>1 timspalding: Moving the series to "a more robust structure" sounds to me like keeping the same problems just with a lot more key strokes.

>12 lyzard: Read more Sue Grafton! :)

>15 lilithcat: I don't disagree - and I probably made most of the mess just trying to make some sense of it. I think The Lord of the Rings Series was actually where I figured that just because the constituent Work pages are related doesn't mean they'll show up as being in our library (or read, or whatever) as parts of "main" volumes that we do have. We have one omnibus LOTR and six copies of The Two Towers cataloged (I'm neither bragging nor complaining - yet), but my view of the LOTR Series page looks like I've maybe never seen The Treason of Isengard or The Ring Goes East.

And if you have ANY more apt word than "prequel," I'd be quite happy to use it!

>18 Crypto-Willobie: Woo-Hoo! What @Crypto-Willobie said: "... toggle between (real) Series and Publisher Series?" and "Shouldn't be so much work to change it ..."

>35 AndreasJ: "Perhaps the list should be open-ended, ...." I'm pretty sure it's not what you mean, but Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Series taught me, and Steig Larrson's Millennium Series confirmed, there may never really be any firm, fixed end to a Series, particularly if it's popular.

>44 jasbro: And if you have ANY more apt word than "prequel," I'd be quite happy to use it!

My copy of The Hobbit calls it a "prelude" to LOTR.

>39 djryan: I agree. It would be great to see FictFact features here, especially now that they’re defunct.

I like the ideas Tim presents in >1 timspalding: especially the marking of "core" works in a series.

I like even more the idea of working "contains" and "contained in" into a new series structure. If we could have an LOTR page where you get

> The Fellowship of the Ring
> The Two Towers
> The Return of the King

each of which can be easily opened out without leaving the page to show all of their "Contained in" and "Contains" works, I think a lot of the messiness in Series pages could be removed.

Similarly, a Dresden Files series page where you had the core numbered volumes showing, and then an option to show comics/side stories/etc. would be very cool.

Sortable series would be really cool too - I would assume for starters, you'd want a publication date, an in-series chronology date, and an official series numbering option (some series have all of these different). But also title, author, sub-series, alternate/original numbering, core vs. not-core...

Anyway, I hope Tim knows that whatever he goes with, we will fight like the very devil about it: as evidenced by the disagreement in this thread about whether the "core" division of LOTR is one work, three works, six works or seven works, and that's one of the simpler ones with no chronology issues...

I'd love if you could figure out a way to deal with anthologies that are not in a series being placed in a series because a story is in the series.

A good example (though someone has since removed all the extra ones) was the Legends anthology.

http://www.librarything.com/commonknowledge/changelog.php?item=4002366&type=...

>47 melannen:

The problem, as I see it, is that there are important and trivial "contains."

For example, if we went with a nesting structure, the series should really be one book—an omnibus edition!

I'm going with a concept of "core" and "not core." It's going to cause waves, I'm sure. But waves are inevitable, as you say.

>45 amanda4242: Done!

>47 melannen: “ … we will fight like the very devil about it …” That’s why I’m standing by, happy to watch and looking forward to what @timspalding, et al. come up with. LT was a pretty amazing place when I first stumbled upon it (11 years ago?), and I’m eager to see what more they/y’all/we come up with to further improve it.

While "core" sounds like a nice start, I rather think that it should be expanded to a more general classification, and that there should also be some system of levels, either through "contained in" or some other method.

LoTR is a good example. I think the following are all reasonable things that could be included in a series:
1. LoTR, the main story
2. The Hobbit
3. Silmarillion and other similar books (judging by current series, this should possibly be split even further)
4. Adaptations

Default showing should be 1, but the other combinations should be available. I should especially be able to see 1 and 2, or 1, 2 and 3, without needing to look at adaptations also, or 1 and only its adaptations.

As for the "levels", consider series that have had original books routinely split in two upon publication. If I want to view e.g. The Wheel of Time in English, it should be a series of 14 books. If I view it in German, it should be a series of 28 books.

But, frankly, as long as I can somehow see that I have catalogued works in a series through another, higher-level, work, I would be pleased.

hailelib (#7):

I like to sort by internal chronology for a lot of series and would want that sort available.

The way this is handled now is by having two series with the same books in a different order. Obviously both sort options need to remain available, or there will be endless edit wars, but there could certainly be a better way of handling the issue.

>39 djryan: yes yes. I'd love a next feature!

>43 Bettesbooks: Actually, CK is most definitely edited by all sorts of users. Especially the series CK (Common Knowledge, which is different from the stuff that comes up as green in your library, that stuff is not edited but pulled from places).

If I'm the first one to put a new Margaret Maron book on my shelves (which will never happen now because she's all done writing Deborah Knott books, *sniff*), then I go in and edit that book's CK entry to be Long Upon the Land and make it #20 in the series (I think it was 20). Definitely editable by users, and, it only works because users (who hopefully know what they're doing) are actually editing these parts of the Common Knowledge.

I'd like to capture whether or not a series needs to be read in order or not. What is the best way to do this?

Obviously, it's not a binary. The complications are:

1. Core and periphery. Series will often contain books that must (or should be) read in order, and other books that don't need to be.
2. There are series that need to be read it order, ones that absolutely don't need to be, and a whole spectrum in between.
3. People will disagree.

I think this is a very important piece of data--it's something want to know about a series. It's hard to capture, but I think we should try.

So, how do I do this?

>54 timspalding: Hmm, I'm wondering with series orders whether there should be some kind of grid:

Series order Publication order Reading order
Title 1 2 . 1 . 3
Title 2 1 . 2 . 4
etc

Although probably series and reading orders are the same? This will get messy with omnibuses though - there's a few I've come across which don't match series/reading order (e.g. 1, 2 & 4 and 3, 6 & 7).

As I said before, I think we should avoid reading order - it's were people will disagree (standard example: Narnia), and edit wars will happen.

Series order, publication order, internal chronology. Is there anything else likely to be needed?

Some series might need multiple publication orders, e.g. the Biggles books, where the Swedish translations, IIRC, were published in a different order from the English originals.

Shouldn't this be up to the author?
In the sense that if they wrote/published book A then book B, then the order should be A-B, regardless of what some readers might think.

>57 ScarletBea: But the action of Book B may well be before that of Book A, so it may make more sense to read B before A. Take a look at the Narnia series:

Publication order: https://www.librarything.com/series/Chronicles+of+Narnia%3A+Chronological+by+pub...

1 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
2 Prince Caspian
3 The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
4 The Silver Chair
5 The Horse and His Boy
6 The Magician's Nephew
7 The Last Battle

Internal chronology: https://www.librarything.com/series/Chronicles+of+Narnia%3A+Chronological+by+sto...

1 The Magician's Nephew
2 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
3 The Horse and His Boy
4 Prince Caspian
5 The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
6 The Silver Chair
7 The Last Battle

It doesn't make a lot of sense to read The Magician's Nephew just before The Last Battle (it's pure back-story), and The Horse and His Boy is set after the main action of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but while the children are still in Narnia.

>58 Maddz: It makes all sense in the world, if you ask me. It's where the work comes in the writing arc and the development of what the author thought of his creation.

However, in many cases even the authors themselves recommend internal chronology over publication order, while some readers, like myself, never would read a series in any other order than publication order, so your point definitely stands.

For me an important consideration is an over-arching storyline that can be lost or spoiled if you read books out of order.

For example the Freida Klein books by Nicci French. Sure you could read them out of order, but it would be harder and less suspenseful.

The Dublin Murder Squad books by Tana French on the other hand, don't necessarily need to be read as they were published.

>59 anglemark: Books aren't always published in the order they're written. An author might write Book A then Book B. A publisher could buy and release Book B, then request Books C and D. The author might write C, struggle with D, and convince the publisher to accept Book A during the wait for D. So the publication order would be B, C, A, D. And the main story timeline could be A, B, A, C, B, D. In this case, the author and some readers would suggest reading in A, B, C order, how the books were written, while you would recommend B, C, A order.

>57 ScarletBea: in the example above, reading in B, C, A order isn't wrong. The publisher would likely prefer it when fans of B and C enjoy A more than new readers do.

>56 AndreasJ: I'm with you. Reading order is too open to debate, thus an edit war, which I doubt Tim (or any of us) wants.

My example above could be further complicated. The author might've written the parts of Book E while working on B and C, and the story timeline for E could span from B through C, while containing spoilers for D. Also, dedicated fans of the series might prefer a storyline in it that has a different timeline than what the author intended as the main storyline; then the reading order would be based on how the other storyline develops, which might include short stories compiled for E.

In my opinion, preferred reading order is best left in reviews and Talk threads, not in CK.

Listing works by dates-- specifically, original publication and dominant timelines-- makes sense to me. So does listing books by whatever numbers the most recent publisher gives for the works. Writing order is difficult to confirm and less useful.

I think you could avoid edit wars if it was a voting option - one vote per user.

Best read in order as written by author - yes/no
Can be read out of order as written by author - yes/no

Opinions are registered and a new reader could take the majority opinion into consideration.

Again we need a toggle.

Click the button for publication order. Click it again for internal order. And back again, and forth again.

Bear in mind there are series, mostly nonfiction, that have an official order that's different from both internal chronology - internal chronology isn't necessarily even meaningful outside fiction and history - and publication order.

Well, we've got two questions. Order can be debated. And then there's the question of whether the books stand on their own or not. One does not, for example, need to read the Hercule Poirot novels in order.

As I said before, I think we should avoid reading order - it's were people will disagree (standard example: Narnia), and edit wars will happen.

Just because something is hard doesn't mean it should be attempted. Reading order is at the top of the list of things people want to know about a series.

standard example: Narnia

I've rejected the idea of having completely separate bespoke orders for a series. So I'm happy with two series here, with a relationship between them of "same series, different order."

Some series might need multiple publication orders, e.g. the Biggles books, where the Swedish translations, IIRC, were published in a different order from the English originals.

Ugh. But nobody actually thinks the right way to read them is publication order, do they?

Shouldn't this be up to the author?

The author's opinion should be taken into consideration. But it's not necessarily definitive or clear. Narnia is a good example.

>65 timspalding: Ugh. But nobody actually thinks the right way to read them is publication order, do they?

I don't think there's much reason to read them in any particular order, they're like Poirot in that regard.

(Which suggest to me that if there has to be a single order, OPD is the way to go. I'm not sure you could even determine from internal evidence what the internal chronology order would be in all cases.)

Narnia is a good example.

Just out of curiosity, what was Lewis' preferred order?

I want both publication order and internal chronology (reading) order. If I like a series, I'll read it in publication order as it comes out, but re-reads (or first-time reads of older series) will be in reading order.

Example: Lois McMaster Bujold

Vorkosigan series. Lois puts the chronological order in the back of her books for the benefit of readers who want that option, but not every author is so considerate :)
Chronological order: https://www.librarything.com/series/Vorkosigan%3A+Chronological+Order
Publication order: https://www.librarything.com/series/Vorkosigan%3A+Publication+Order

World of the 5 Gods series:

Publication order: Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls, The Hallowed Hunt, the Penric books (can't be bothered listing them but publication order is the same as series chronology) (https://www.librarything.com/series/World+of+the+Five+Gods)

Chronological order: Hallowed Hunt, the Penric books, Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls. (https://www.librarything.com/series/World+of+the+Five+Gods+-+Chronological+Order)

Or Marshall Ryan Maresca's Maradaine series, which has 4 subseries that individually work fine in publication order but overlap and interweave within the overall world chronology. I spent a lot of time editing those, and I think I've got part of it wrong, but I need to get the books out of the library again to check.

>65 timspalding: "Just because something is hard doesn't mean it should be attempted."
I think that when we're talking about "edit wars", we aren't talking about an extra level of complication but a detrimental debate in which the most aggressive members (bullies) are the most likely to win. See: Wikipedia.

"But nobody actually thinks the right way to read them is publication order, do they?"
I'm a little concerned by this question, which implies you're hyper-focused on "right" reading order. That's not the only reason people look up a series. In the case of Biggles, I'd be curious to see how the World Wars and other large events impacted the publication of the series. Publication order isn't my favorite way to organize a series, but there are many, common reasons publication order is helpful.

As other people must be saying, reading in the chronological order of the story isn't necessarily the best option.

Tim's earlier example of The Lord of the Rings is a case in point. It doesn't make any sense to read The Simarillion before the trilogy. There wouldn't be a context for why you would be interested. At least that was the case for me. Of course this probably varies by series, but I imagine prequels are often best appreciated after the main series is written.

Therefore I suggest putting them in the order in which they were written. Perhaps there can be comment boxes where people could say why they prefer to read them out of order. Also, my personal feeling is that abbreviated works, adaptations and reading guides should be kept out of the series.

It seems to me that publication order is always an acceptable reading order. (It's the first order that people read the series in, after all.) Sometimes an internal chronology makes more sense to me, but that isn't THE reading order either. If there is an internal chronology separate from publication order, I want to have access to both.

Some series make the most sense if you read them first in publication order, but rereads feel better in chronological order. Narnia is a case in point. The other books all make more sense if you have read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe first. But if I want to reread the whole series, I would probably start with The Magician's Nephew.

>66 AndreasJ:

I don't think there's much reason to read them in any particular order, they're like Poirot in that regard.

The later Poirot books are full of spoilers for the earlier ones: this is actually a case where they should be read in order. :)

>71 lyzard:

Then I blame Tim for bad example :p I don't think the Biggles books meaningfully spoil one another.

Tentative list of relationships:

* Is contained within/is a sub-series of
* Is a sequel to
* Is a companion to
* Is an adaptation of
* Was inspired by
* Is a parody of

We're going to need to make them series-to-work, not just series-to-series, I think.

I have come late to this discussion and have just read >62 Bookmarque:

I think you could avoid edit wars if it was a voting option - one vote per user.

A one word comment on this is 'Brexit' Majority votes may be fine for the winners but leave (potentially) large numbers of unhappy losers desperate to Take Back Control. Why shouldn't we have as many variations as there are users enthusiastic, or just bothered, enough to create them?

There are no winners or losers in this. Just a majority and minority opinion on whether books should be read in the order they were written. Hyperbole much?

abbotthomas (#74):

The result of this wouldn't be a black-and-white "This series MUST be read in order" or "There is no benefit to reading this series in order", though, it would be a percentage. So you could see whether it's "90% of people think this series should be read in order" or "51% of people think this series should be read in order".

>75 Bookmarque: I was reacting to the talk of 'edit wars'. Completely unimportant in the greater scheme of things but arousing here on LT.

And, where Brexit is concerned, many in the UK still regard hyperbole as an understatement!

>76 lorax: Sorry, I should have read more of the thread before sounding off. I got the impression that folk were discussing a one-or-the-other decision as to how series would show.

>73 timspalding: I can think of examples of all of these relationships, which all look like useful options for series.

Most of those seem like work-to-work relationships, not series-to-series or work-to-series. I can see that a series might be a sequel to another series, although that seems to conflict with representing a sequence of series by having a super-series.

But are you suggestion that a whole series could be an adaption or a parody of a whole other series? Do you have examples of those?

>79 jjwilson61: Fifty Shades of Grey parody series.

>80 aspirit:

Right. There are a few such parodies.

For adaptations, yes, I think graphic novel series adaptations are a good example.

>81 timspalding: Ah, but then you get the Rivers of London graphic novels which are new storylines not adaptations of the books... So you need to have something which indicates a graphic novel which isn't an adaptation.

>82 Maddz:
I think the Rivers of London graphic novels might qualify as a companion series.

>82 Maddz:, >83 ablachly:

The Moomin comics and the Moomin novels are completely different, completely canon and of equal standing, featuring mainly the same cast of characters.

>84 anglemark: was one inspired by the other?

>83 ablachly: No, the comics (and collections) fall in between the books. The books reference the comics (and vice versa).

>86 Maddz: It sounds like they're all part of the same series then. There's nothing that says that every work in a series has to be in the same media.

Something like http://www.librarything.com/work/614389 really doesn't belong in the series, and is not inspired by any specific book, but a work to series inspired by would fit very well.

>88 MarthaJeanne: IMO, it should be included as an 'associated work'. I recall Steven Brust was GoH at a convention many years ago and I turned up to the signing with a load of books including this one: https://www.librarything.com/work/62007

He acknowledged and signed it as apparently he had significant input and wrote the (long) background section.

You know, 'associated work' sounds like a good name for non-core series material.

>85 aspirit: The worlds they are set in mostly overlap. They were started for different reasons. Two distinct branches off the same tree is the best description.

Here's what I'm thinking. There is a "master series" containing all of the relevant works, in OPD order (because that is a definitive order... give or take). There is then a facility to make any number of sub-series by reference to the works in the master list, containing some or all of the works in any order, so e.g. all the works by internal chronology; just novels; just graphic novels; sub-series etc. Use of (sub-)series descriptions should be strongly encouraged.

Problems might be unknown/unclear OPDs, or unwieldy uber-series (I guess e.g. a Marvel comic universe master series would be rather large...) but I feel that this might catch most of the use cases.

>54 timspalding: I'd like to capture whether or not a series needs to be read in order or not. What is the best way to do this?

Lots of examples above as to why linking the "read order" information to individual works would be difficult. If you label each work with a number, in the hope that all works will sort, a problem emerges when an individual work is edited so it doesn't fit (e.g. there are two works labeled "1"). It also assumes that any re-edit efforts would at least review all works in the series to ensure the new edits make sense as a whole.

I wonder if instead of linking reading order to works, it's better to create a Suggested Reading Order comment (similar to the current Series Description comment) briefly outlining the suggested reading order. This could be part of the Series page, be commonly edited, but not unduly tied to specific works. This does leave open the possibility that certain works aren't addressed specifically in the comment, relying upon LTers to identify shortcomings and fix them.

For what it's worth...

The Lord of the Rings is not a series. It is a single novel that was written as six component 'books' with an appendix. When it came time to publish it, Tolkien's publisher claimed that it was too long to publish as a single volume (though it has been published as such many times since); they insisted on breaking it down into three volumes, each containing two of the original 'books'. They urged him to create new titles for the two-book volumes, which he did (Fellowship; Two Towers) but they vetoed his volume three title (War of the Ring, if I recall correctly) and imposed the more positive Return of the King.

Also, The Hobbit is not a 'prequel' to Lord of the Rings. The word certainly can be (and is) used loosely, but strictly, a prequel is a work written to precede or provide backstory for an already existing work (look it up). The Lord of the Rings is a sequel to The Hobbit. Tolkien's publisher badgered him to write "another book about hobbits". That sequel outstripped its predecessor in scope and fame -- but it was still a sequel.

==========================

Series: Books About Hobbits

The Hobbit (1)
The Lord of the Rings (2)
The Fellowship of the Ring (2.1)
The Two Towers (2.2)
The Return of the King (2.3)

I know i'm dreaming here, but...

>93 Crypto-Willobie: You are dreaming, but, for what it's worth, I wholeheartedly agree with you.

>93 Crypto-Willobie:

Also agree with you, though I'd quibble about the Series name: The Legendarium sits better with me. Not all the books after 2.3 are about Hobbits ....

>93 Crypto-Willobie: I agree with you about The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is fine like that.

My question is what to do with works like The Simarillion, which I believe was written later, but takes place earlier. If people read that first, because it is chronological story-wise, they will have no context (in my opinion). I would prefer listing it later and calling it a prequel.

Lots of examples above as to why linking the "read order" information to individual works would be difficult.

This is one of the things people care about most. If our solution fails 1% of the time, well, it's succeeded the rest of it.

I wonder if instead of linking reading order to works

The order of the core series should be the reading order.

The Moomin comics and the Moomin novels are completely different, completely canon and of equal standing, featuring mainly the same cast of characters.

A series and two subseries. Or two series and that's that.

Take a look at https://www.librarything.com/series/The+Lord+of+the+Rings

I think this should be done like this:

Series: The Lord of the Rings

Also known as: Der Herr der Ringe, In de ban van de ring, Le seigneur des anneaux, Il signore degli anelli, Taru sormusten herrasta, Sagan om Ringen, O Senhor dos Anéis, Ringenes herre

Core

* The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien (Prelude)
* The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien (1)
* The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien (2)
* The Return of The King by J. R. R. Tolkien (3)
* The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien (prequel collection)

All other works should be under "Other Works," in their current order. (I have one or two tweaks I'd make to it, but it's fine.) But with this book removed:

* The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion by Wayne G. Hammond (Companion)

We could allow people to set non-core section heads, for example for omnibus editions, readings by the author, those weird Japanese editions. But I fear it would be too controversial.

I'm warming to the idea of a way for members to contribute their thoughts on reading order, etc.

>94 Foretopman:
Thanks.

>95 elenchus:
Series name - I was more or less kidding. Lengendarium won't do though for just those two novels -- you'd have to bring in not only the Silmarillion but also the 12-volume History of Middle-earth and the three Great Tales, not to mention the Annotated Hobbit, and The History of the Hobbit and The Road Goes Ever On and Adventures o Tom Bombadil, and his relevant illustrations, etc etc...

>96 krazy4katz:
The Silmarillion was written both before and after The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, though not published until after. In a sense the History of Middle-earth is a maximal alternative Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales and The Great Tales are also alternative Silmarillionic texts.

>97 timspalding: The order of the core series should be the reading order.

I don't disagree. Once you decide what that reading order is, the information must be saved somewhere. If the reading order is saved in a data element at the work level, the issues I'm discussing remain. I'm suggesting you create the data element at another level: that of the series page. The reading order of the core series is saved there.

Maybe I misunderstand how the Series Description fits into LT's database architecture. I understand it to be a data element that "lives" separate from the works that make up the series: not at work-level, but above that (to the side?) at series-level.

I resist the notion that all fictions sharing a common imaginary setting must be considered a single "series." To continue with the productively difficult Tolkien example, The Hobbit is written with a completely different narrative voice than The Lord of the Rings. It is not even the prior book (however numbered) in an integral series. To then dump The Silmarillion in there also--with its own very different framing--seems preposterous to me.

We already have the notion of "author series" as distinct from "publisher series." Some authors have very consciously and explicitly placed multiple series in a shared imaginary continuum. (E.g. Gene Wolfe's New, Long, and Short Suns.) Could we maybe have a higher-order taxonomic category, like "family," to embrace related works that (regardless of their positions in the time-continuum of the narrative) were not treated by their authors as serial volumes? This category could also unite multiple series without eliminating the distinctions among them. It would help to keep all Marvel comics from being collapsed into a mega-series, for example.

As long as I've been baited from my cave on the topic of series, I'll just vent my view that "internal chronology" is the most negligible of criteria for organizing series reading order when it conflicts with expressed authorial intent or even publication order.

>101 paradoxosalpha: I would agree with you that not all fiction sharing a common setting should be a series. However Tolkien, perhaps after the fact, intended the world he invented and the characters to be consistent in time and space in these works. It’s true that the Hobbit is psychologically much lighter, but as history, it greatly enriches one’s appreciation for the LOR series. I think >98 timspalding: order makes sense. Although I would still recommend reading the Silmarillion last. Maybe because I find it boring. :-)

>98 timspalding: A question: will people understand the difference between a prelude and a prequel in terms of when they should read it?

Thank you >99 Crypto-Willobie:. I’m not a great fan of the Silmarillion, so I always forget that Tolkien wrote pieces of it at different times.

>97 timspalding: The order of the core series should be the reading order.

I don't like this. Many of not most series have an official order, which unlike reading order will rarely be debatable. I think that should be the default where available.

(If I'm allowed a movie example, I'd recommend someone new to Star Wars to watch the movies in the order they were made and released. I'm sure plenty of people will disagree with this, but there should be no disagreement about what the official order is, as they helpfully numbered the movies.)

>102 krazy4katz: I'll admit to not having read very many series with either a prequel or a prelude, but at least in the case of The Lord of the Rings, it absolutely doesn't matter if you read The Hobbit before or after the trilogy books. It's freestanding enough that the reading order is irrelevant for that. I genuinely don't know anyone who read The Hobbit before the trilogy (IRL, that is).

>104 PawsforThought: I did, and I reread the Hobbit first if I reread LotR. This may be a generational thing. I knew and loved the books long before anyone thought about making a movie. I still haven't seen the movies - the stills that I have seen don't fit with my mental images, and I like mine a lot better.

Making series order some sort of artificial 'reading order' is asking for editing wars. Publication order, fine. Internal chronological order, fine. But 'reading order' is subjective.

If I recall, I read the Hobbit first, then the Silmarillion, then LotR.

>104 PawsforThought: I didn't say no one's ever read The Hobbit first, I said no one I know in real life read it before the trilogy (the first time, what they've done on subsequent re-reads I have no idea). And for the understanding of the events in the trilogy you do not need to read The Hobbit first. It is standalone even though events are connected.

PawsforThought (#107):

I didn't say no one's ever read The Hobbit first, I said no one I know in real life read it before the trilogy

Really? My experience is almost entirely the opposite - the only people I know who read the trilogy first are those who discovered it as adults when the movies were released. The vast majority of people I know read the Hobbit first, as kids, and then the series either immediately afterward or a few years later. (Or made an attempt right away, bounced off, and tried again later).

>108 lorax: Yes, really. And plenty of them didn't know The Hobbit even existed before reading the trilogy.

>97 timspalding: The order of the core series should be the reading order.

As long as there is an easy way to toggle it to "publishing order". Otherwise we are screwing up one of the best resources for series order for a lot of series...

PawsforThought (#109):

Sorry, that was a "Wow, that's interesting!" really, not a "I don't believe you!" really. My apologies.

>111 lorax: That's okay. It's very difficult to tell tone of voice in text, and I'm more used to the "I don't believe that" meaning of "Really?" so I tend to assume.

I think the usual order today is Hobbit, then LOTR. The Hobbit is a kids book, and serves as the introduction for many. The Silmarillion is much less read. (FWIW, I've never read it.)

This thread has talked a lot about reading order, but one thing I've seen recently in series and work-to-work relationships has me pausing:

should there be a way to add works to the series/List that don't exist in LT yet as their own works? we've been asked not to create works simply to fill in the work-to-work relationships (which is reasonable, db space isn't infinite), but some of the problems with Omnibussen, translations with different volume breaks, or even short stories/novellas that exist in multiple places but might not have been catalogued on their own - these might be easier to manage with a non-work placeholder or header, perhaps? that might also work for divisions of books like LOTR as listed above, or the Old Kingdom/Abhorsen series with the short stories that appear in different places.

but i'm also thinking a bit about the series website that folded, and how (I presume) it included comprehensive series lists. so a book i recently bought while on vacation in Strasbourg, Ma maison is part of a series of children's picture books about Archibald - written and illustrated by the same duo, though each have written and illustrated other books, separately from each other. i'd love to list all of the Archibald books together in the series, so that anyone else as delighted by them as I am can easily find the rest. some have been translated to other languages, but not all of the originals are in LT. i don't want to catalogue the missing books just to put them here, especially since that goes against the philosophy of LT, but some kind of placeholder would be nice as an fyi.

the placeholder would also be handy for ongoing series where the author has expressly indicated that another book is forthcoming, and folks want to track that book, instead of cataloguing it before it has even been published. i mean, has jasper fforde ever finished that series beginning with Shades of Grey? yet there are 4 works at that link - only one of which actually exists, as far as I'm aware.

of course, with placeholders, we would need some kind of explanatory box to help with future combining/assignments, or otherwise explain what's going on.

In fairness, reading order is and always will be a personal, reader-specific choice. In the case of Narnia, I read only four of the seven the summer after third grade, probably in haphazard order (although I did start with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), because that's all our local library branch had on the shelves. It was another ten or twelve years before I even knew there were more books in the Series; by then, it was much more important (to me at least) to read them "in order," but that was just the order they appeared in a boxed set, and I still didn't get that some readers view TLTW&TW as anything other than first. I gather C.P. Snow's Strangers and Brothers is yet another example, if any were needed; for the longest time, I thought Strangers and Brothers was first, but Time of Hope evidently holds that honor.

All-in-all, I'd welcome more, and more useful, Series information including writing order, publication order, internal chronology order, and other relevant ordering as applicable - because information will help me make choices, but I'm gonna read in the order I read, regardless of whether I "should."

And >98 timspalding:, I'm all for improving the Series view of LOTR once LT settles on an optimal structure. You suggest, "All other works should be under 'Other Works,' in their current order." Does that include each constituent part (e.g., The Ring Goes East)? Is it enough to show constituent parts only in Work-to-Work relationships, like individual stories of an anthology?

I'm looking forward to the good work y'all're doing here, and to helping as I can.

>104 PawsforThought: I know we are only discussing 1 series, which may be different from other series. I read The Hobbit first. Perhaps that is why it is my preference, but how can you understand Gandalf, the Ring, Elrond, and why Bilbo is important and unless you read the Hobbit first? Perhaps if I had read it the opposite way I would feel differently. The Hobbit is like a gentle introduction to Middle Earth.

This discussion makes me want to read them all over again — maybe for the 10th time! :-)

The correct reading order is to read The Hobbit, and then stop.

>116 krazy4katz: You're told about those things in the trilogy. Maybe not every single minute detail but plenty enough. Like I said earlier, everyone I know read the triogy first and then The Hobbit - and that includes me. I had no issues whatsoever understanding the background. In fact, I'd argue that there's less of it in The Hobbit than in the trilogy (because it's so short there isn't time for details).

I support >91 mart1n: very much.

He describes my post (>36 birder4106:) better and more understandably than I succeeded.

ETA:
>114 keristars:

Very good point.
This could also help find unread books.

Some of them may not have been translated yet and could therefore be read in a foreign but available language.

On another tack, something I've often wished would be on series pages is the number of copies of each book. Dunno if it would be actually useful, but I'd definitely find it interesting.

>120 AndreasJ: I think it would be useful in some cases. It could be used to determine which are the major works in a series.

I really don't have much to contribute here, other than that I hope that series information doesn't become more intrusive. Right now, it's a link at the top of the page, and on those rare occasions where I care, I may go look at it. I may or may not read something in the order that the author intended. There aren't a lot of things written as series that I've found interesting. So it goes.

If we expand beyond "core" and "non-core" or whatever, what categories should we have?

Reminder: There will be one series order that's the "real" one, but the default view will distinguish between core and something else.

First, we need a term for omnibus editions and other things like that. These include things called "sets," omnibus editions, "bind-ups" (http://www.stroppyauthor.com/2011/03/how-to-speak-publisher-b-is-for-bind-up.html), collected editions, etc. Anyone got a good suggestion that ordinary people will understand?

Second, what other categories should we have? Do we need to have arbitrary ones too?

The whole LT staff is going to be discussing the issue tomorrow.

>123 timspalding: First, we need a term for omnibus editions and other things like that. These include things called "sets," omnibus editions, "bind-ups" (http://www.stroppyauthor.com/2011/03/how-to-speak-publisher-b-is-for-bind-up.htm...), collected editions, etc. Anyone got a good suggestion that ordinary people will understand?

Isn't "collections" fairly all-encompassing in this case?

>124 PawsforThought:

Yeah, and I think it's far enough away from the other LT use of "collections" that it could be used.

>123 timspalding: First, we need a term for omnibus editions and other things like that.

Maybe I've long-since been breaching LT protocol, but nobody's called me on it yet. Somewhere I saw a Series without many descriptors like "omnibus," etc., and I've adopted/perpetuated the practice where it seems called for. See, e.g., Martha Grimes' Richard Jury Series - full of omnibuses ("omnibii"?), bind-ups, whathaveyou, with no labels and (it seems to me) little confusion. If that in fact doesn't work, or at least isn't helpful or what we want, let's change it. Just tell us what works best ...

>123 timspalding: There should also be "exerpt/sub-part/division". Sometimes one "core" work will also be published in multiple parts.

>123 timspalding: Associated works (I suggested this up thread) for non-core titles.

>128 Maddz: But that doesn't work if the collection/omnibus contains one or several core titles.

>126 jasbro:

For your possible interest, in Latin "omnibii" is wrong for at least three different reasons, most importantly that "omnibus" is already a plural. In English I guess the form does have some currency, but "omnibuses" has the twin advantages of being regular and not making it look like you're trying to be classically correct and failing badly.

What about the opposite of an omnibus - when a book gets broken into smaller portions for subsequent publication, or publication in another territory or language? Not sure what I would call that.

I have seen several chick lit books recently that have also been published in three or four ebooks. I have used work to work on these, as the full book is still only 300-400 pages long. This seems more like the serial publication that magazines used to do.

Example: http://www.librarything.com/work/18129687

Paperback publication 2016-08-25, the kindle pieces seem to have also been published in 2016.

>132 MarthaJeanne: This happened to the Liavek series (https://www.librarything.com/series/Liavek) - published in 5 paperbacks way back when, plus John M Ford's Casting Fortune which reprinted the anthologised stories plus some extras, republished in ebook as 8 volumes minus Patricia C Wrede's and Pamela Dean's stories which were published in Points of Departure and missing one story completely (a rights issue I suspect as the author had subsequently died).

>132 MarthaJeanne: & >134 Maddz: I think it's a fairly common phenomena with mystery novels.

I use the series information a lot. I think the current version of the series page is not bad (though the constant changes and edit wars are irritating).

Listing books in OPD as default (I agree that alphabetical is hardly ever a useful piece of information) seems like a good default, with alternate reading order, or story order as a second option if others want it.
For people asking about sorting their catalogs...I use comments to order the books in my catalog. I use a series name and then a number, and then sort my catalog by author, then by comments.

Categories I would like to see are main books, omnibuses or sets, books broken into pieces for publication, (see The Wheel of Time for instance), novellas or short stories, graphic novels, books in dead languages like latin, movies...
In general I would not like to see movies and books in the same series, but I know series like Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, and other use both. I guess maybe this is a "sub-series" issue.

As for a vote on whether the series should be read in order or not, that might be useful.

Also remember there are series like magazines, the observer's handbook (which is republished every year with current data), and Little Golden Guides (I guess these could be considered publisher's series, but are not now).

As to foreign languages...I personally don't use data about books in other languages, as I can't read any, but I have seen that in some languages what is published as one book in English is published as 2 or more in other languages (and vice-versa). Not sure what should be done in those cases. I have also seen Latin editions (like winnie the pooh in latin, or harry potter in latin, or the cat in the hat in latin) and in that case I think they should maybe be listed as a separate category.

I don't want to enforce my ideas on anyone, I just wanted to add my two cents. I will be interested to see what you guys come up with.

>123 timspalding: First, we need a term for omnibus editions and other things like that. ... Anyone got a good suggestion that ordinary people will understand?
>124 PawsforThought:
>125 timspalding:

I suggest "compilation" for works which combine, and "selection" for works which break out parts of the original title.

"Collections and Selections" is striking my fancy.

1. Any "Reading Order" has to work for Discworld or it fails.

(The vast majority of series may not have any controversy about reading order - but those series are a) the ones the fewest people care about, and b) the ones for which reading order is most likely to be the same as publication order/publisher's order anyway.)

I like the idea from upthread of making it possible to add infinite user-generated reading orders that include a description area and are easy to get to from the series page but aren't integral to it. For the easy series, there will be 1. For Narnia, there will be something less than 12,000. Add an upvoting option (like you did for book descriptions) to bring the most popular to the top, and I think you've solved the "person wants answer" option without closing off possibilities. This should more or less work for Discworld, even, since people can enter all the paths.)

(The correct reading order for Narnia, btw, is LWW, MN, VDT, THHB, that's it. No I am not taking constructive criticism.)

2. For connections within series:
I have been trying to think this through but honestly I still think it's too complicated to come up with "categories" for types of linked works/series?

We need - "core works"; "ancillary works"; the option to view a series with just the core, or with everything.
The "works" can be either individual works, or other series, so we can have series of series.

If the "Connections within series" option doesn't allow for Star Wars (and that LT listing is current one of the most useful on the internet!) it fails. And I can't think of any system of categories that'll make that work without becoming ridiculously overwrought - other than something like the current system of "related series", but with a way of freeform explaining what the relationship is.

3. Honestly, a huge amount of the "messiness" in the current series system seems like it could be fixed with just:

a) getting rid of the duplicates for every language
b) making it work better for contained in/contains : i.e. if owning a copy of the LotR omnibus meant you got orange checkmarks on the series page for owning the three books in it, people would care a lot less about having the omnibus itself on the series page. In fact, if you fixed this, and added an easy way to see contained in/contains relationships from the series page, you could probably just leave all omnibi etc. off the series lists themselves.
c) Making it so order can be edited from the series page, not from the works page

>139 melannen:

Well then, here's some non-constructive criticism: your reading order for Narnia is wrong.

:p

But a constructive thought on another front occurs to me: Discworld is not a series where I consider reading order particularly important, but it's clearly important enough to the people who made that graphic. Should we have a vote for each series about how important we consider reading them in order to be? Presumably Harry Potter would score very high, Biggles quite low, and Discworld probably somewhere in between.

>140 AndreasJ:

While the whole Discworld may be read in almost any order, some of the sequences inside (the witches or the City Watch ones for example, especially the early novels in both, do have a reading order which provide context and continuous development :) Just saying.

>141 AnnieMod:

I read the early watch novels out of sequence. I wouldn't recommend anyone else to do so, but I figure the loss was far less than if one had, say, read the Belgariad out of order (which I also did).

>139 melannen:

Aside from the original comments, I think the Star Wars example is instructive because of the cross-platform / multimedia aspects of it. I don't mean by this adaptations, though that's certainly a consideration. I mean primarily that original content originating on different media, any of which could become part of the "core" (and similarly, any of which could be ancillary).

That's only going to get more prevalent in the coming years, though I consider it an open question whether this approach "sticks" or turns out to be a thing of just a decade or two. Still, that's sufficient time to make it a serious data question for cataloguing series.

>140 AndreasJ: I think for most of Discworld reading order isn't important - but "don't start with the beginning" is actually really important, because so many people who think reading order is important try that and then decide they don't like the series because the first two in publishers' order are so crap- wait, I mean 'stylistically different from everything else.'

I read everything out of order because I was raised on library books and comics found in relatives' basements and learned to deal, but even I would probably have quit Discworld if I'd stumbled on "The Colour of Magic" before I read Mort.

Also, there are a surprising number of people who are simply unable to take "reading order doesn't matter" as truth and will insist on finding a correct reading order and following it no matter what.

>144 melannen: Lots of people like order. And working down a list is the easiest way to be sure of getting all the books, whether or not the order matters.

>144 melannen: I'd agree with you on that. In fact, I used to own the early Rincewind books but got rid of them because I found them so annoying. (Any remaining in my catalogue aren't mine - they're Paul's). I really only began warming to the series with Guards! Guards! and to a lesser extent, the Ridcully books.

>144 melannen:

The first Discworld I book I read was The Light Fantastic, which is probably the single worst place to begin.

(Despite what it may seem like, I don't actually read fantasy series in weird orders on purpose. The haphazard collections of local libraries when I was a kid are largely to blame.)

But I think we essentially agree; there are better and worse places to start, and some books make more sense if read after others, but overall reading order isn't hugely important for Discworld.

(Now, let's fight about Narnia!)

>143 elenchus: Yeah, I used that as my example because Star Wars is one where there are a LOT of novels, but the "core" isn't going to be novels, and also it contains literally every possible complication of series, and subseries, and unauthorized series, and sequels to subseries that are set during the canon of a different subseries, and authorized series, and series that everybody used to pretend didn't exist but then got reprinted, and entire universes that at one point were canon but weren't anymore but then were again but now aren't anymore, and entire universes that were always AU except when they weren't.

And every kind of companion/extra/ancillary/etc. book you could think of, including multiple unrelated series just of trivia books. And the same core story retold in fifteen different graphic novel adaptations and at least three novelizations and half a dozen video games and an audio drama and a script book of the audio drama and the original script and the graphic novel of the original script and the original filmed version and Super-8 abridged version and the recut version and the fan-recut recut version and--

>145 MarthaJeanne: Oh, I know, it's valid! I read in order when I can, and checklist is always useful.

The people who are completely inflexible about it no matter what are just so foreign to the way a lot of people think, though, that some people don't even consider them.

I work at a library, I once helped a little girl hunt down every single Nancy Drew book in numbered order, even the ones from the 1980s that had only been printed once in paperback and she had to wait months to get on interstate library loan because the only place that would loan them was in Alaska. It didn't matter how often we told her that they were intended to be read out of order, she was going to wait for #85 to come in before she read #86. I think when we finally got to one we just couldn't get she quit entirely. It was really hard to explain to our book buyers and ILL people why this was important.

Basically, even for series where really honestly truly reading order doesn't matter at all, there will still be people who won't read them unless they have an 'official' numbered list to go down in order. And those people are valid, so we can't just write off certain series as 'order doesn't matter'.

>147 AndreasJ: I'm not going to fight about Narnia, because my order is correct. :P

>136 al.vick: I agree that alphabetical is hardly ever a useful piece of information

Unless your talking about a series like the "...for Dummies" series.

>148 melannen:

Star Wars is also interesting because it only includes one (West End Games) of the various RPGs in the series. There have been other Star Wars RPGs which could be included to make it even more complex in the current situation.

In an ideal world - it would be nice to just have a line for Star Wars RPG (WEG) | Associated Material | RPG which was a link to that series. Then a link for Star Wars (FFG) | Associated Material | RPG which would link off to that and so forth. Of course the Star Wars (FFG) might well be 3 sub-series - Edge of Empire, Age of Rebellion, Force and Destiny

>152 jjwilson61:

Unless your talking about a series like the "...for Dummies" series.

Right. Non-fiction series are the example here.

What about things like
http://www.librarything.com/series/Boxcar+Children+Mysteries

http://www.librarything.com/series/Boxcar+Children

Two series pretty much the same books in the same order.

>139 melannen: b) making it work better for contained in/contains : i.e. if owning a copy of the LotR omnibus meant you got orange checkmarks on the series page for owning the three books in it, people would care a lot less about having the omnibus itself on the series page. In fact, if you fixed this, and added an easy way to see contained in/contains relationships from the series page, you could probably just leave all omnibi etc. off the series lists themselves.

I think in most cases, this would be okay? but i think it only works if you have the book in question - if you're looking up various compilations of public domain series, which may be packaged in different ways, it might not be clear what's what. (I recently downloaded the packaged "Jeeves Stories" from Standard Ebooks, but I'm sure where the overlap might be with other compilations that include non-PD stories. But then, I suppose series that incorporate short stories and which are in the public domain can be pretty complicated anyway.)

>156 keristars: I'm not sure I get what you're wondering about?

LT's work relationships system is mostly user-generated, like everything else. So if you download "Jeeves stories", hopefully someone has already filled in which stories are in Jeeves Stories, and if you go to the series page, or at least the version of the series page that lists the individual stories as core works, you would show as having those.

If we move to a "core works" model we'd almost have to have an acceptance of short stories that are core works in and of themselves, or else there are a lot of series that stop working at all. But fixing how shorts are handled as works is also inherent in making contains/contained in work better, I think. Any other model is going to have any series with public domain short stories be an absolute mess anyway.

If you're asking about how that would work in terms of trying to figure out if you need to buy "Jeeves Stories" or if you have all the stories already - that's going to be a tough question no matter how it's done (I am sitting here today using this thread as a distraction from going through piano books trying to figure out which ones have too many song duplicates...) But if you could click on a story in the list, and see a list of anthologies it was in and which ones you already had, that would help. Or you could go to the "Jeeves Stories" page and hopefully also be able to get checkmarks for "contained" works you already own...

>152 jjwilson61: For Dummies is kind of a pulisher's series though isn't it?

>158 al.vick: Not the way the Tim has defined it. Since none of the Dummies books are published outside the series that makes it a regular series.

One of my favorite "series" pages in LT is this one: https://www.librarything.com/series/Conan%27s+Journeys

But it's completely synthetic and generative, not the least bit "objective," and to use it as a prescription for reading order would tend to frustrate any but the most efficiently acquisitive reader. The way I use it is to see where a given story most convincingly fits into the established biographical framework of a single character who has been treated by dozens of authors.

>157 melannen:
I think I focused too much on the wrong part of what was off about the suggestion, forgetting that y'all can follow my leaps of logic if I don't write everything out :)

When I was considering downloading the collection, I was looking at a few different combinations of short stories - public domain sites, new published copies, old paperbacks at the used bookstore. It was confusing because I know this is a popular series that has the biggest editions catalogued, but there are different titles in different countries for the same combinations, and then there are different compilations.

So the post I was replying to suggested not including the compilations at all, because the checkmarks would show whether you have the series work in your catalogue via compilation. But if I don't have any yet - I want to know if this is worth my time, or if I should pick another one - not including the compilations at all adds to the confusion and clicking around. I would much rather have an option to expand the series with the contains/contained feature to track which ones are where.

I use Series a lot for old and/or long series before ever adding the books to my catalogue. It's my top place for researching them, followed by author or publisher sites.

>139 melannen: I'd been trying to avoid mentioning Discworld for any lack of ideas how to actually make that work on LT so thanks for tackling it. I don't think Reading Order would be a failure if it can't figure it out but I do think it would be a triump if it could.

>140 AndreasJ:, >141 AnnieMod:, >144 melannen:, >146 Maddz:, >147 AndreasJ:, >149 melannen:

I very much value input on reading order for Discworld. There were 44 books, 6 illustrated novels, and 5 short stories before I ever started reading Discworld and that map @melannen posted is what has been getting me through.

Am I the only person who started with The Colour of Magic and actually liked it? It was Mort that I had trouble getting into and I ended up setting it aside for Equal Rites which was fantastic. The reading map was extemely helpful to see where I can jump to next if the subseries I'm currently reading isn't quite doing it for me.

Reading Order also gave me an idea about purchasing order when I started collecting the Collector's Library editions from Gollancz & Transworld. I basically started with 2 books in each subseries and then could expand from there. Being able to come to LT for that information rather than chasing down that map each time would be a godsend.

----

Another example that would support the voting idea is His Dark Materials. While I want to know the chronology of the stories, this is a case where reading them in publication order is important if you don't want certain important details spoiled for the core books. Right now, if someone were to check that series page and be inclined to read things in chronological order, they would have no warning about that.

>162 leahbird: Am I the only person who started with The Colour of Magic and actually liked it?

No, it's fantastic. The Light Fantastic is blah, but the Colour of Magic is excellent. The Witches books are probably the very best, though

>162 leahbird: I didn't actually hate it! And certainly there were plenty of people who like it, or there wouldn't be any more to the series. Colour of Magic/Light Fantastic did a lot more direct parody of very specific, and increasingly dated, fantasy tropes, though (whereas the later books are more likely to *use* fantasy tropes to parody other things - it keeps shifting more toward that over the first ten books or so.) If you're someone who can nod along with that direct parody they're fine! The distance between Colour of Magic and Snuff, in terms of even just what sort of book they are, is vast, though, so if I want to get a friend to discuss Snuff with me I don't want to make them start with something completely different.

But yeah, a "reading order" framework that will handle Discworld gracefully is probably a pipe dream. I think it would be doable, though! And it's far from the only series that has that kind of branching going on, just the one that's loudest about it - that's why "reading order" is its own thing. I hope we at least don't end up with something less flexible than the current system, which isn't the most intuitive but at least allows for as many custom subsystems and reorderings as people want, up until the edit wars start...

>161 keristars: Ah, so you want a way to compare different collections before you own any of them! Yeah, an ability to get a full list of "all works that contain works in this series" with lists of which ones they contain would be very useful.

Okay, we had an all-staff meeting and decided and/or discussed the following things.

The idea here in 1-6 is to take away none of the depth that characterizes LibraryThing's series data, but to present it better. By default, the first element on any series page will be a simple and appealing view of the core books in a series. This will be followed by the rest of the books in a series, grouped in a more sensible way.

1. There will continue to be a "main order." This will start out as the current order, which members have generally treated as the chronological order, with omnibus editions at the end.

2. As mentioned, users will be able to see books by their publication dates, both grouped (see below) and not.

3. We have rejected the idea that users will be able to create multiple, full alternate orders. If necessary, we can add this. But see below about "How should I read?"

4. Although there will be one order, members can put books into "groups." This was originally conceived as core and non-core, but we decided it would be better to leave it open ended. "Core" will be standard. The rest users can decide on.

5. The group list will have some standard, suggested ones, such as "Collections and Selections." Members will be able to add their own groups. "Adaptations," "Short stores," and so forth would make good grouping in many series.

6. By default, the system will sort by group, but members will be able to switch to the full order.

7. We are going to add a "How should I read this series?" feature. This will be a flat comment-contribution feature, rather like the current member recommendations. Members will contribute their thoughts on series order and the best way to read a series. Other members can vote these up and down anonymously (see member work recommendations), but there will be no commenting on each other's thoughts per se.

Our feeling is that member-orders would only make sense with comments--"This is my recommended reading order, except that blah blah blah." But the real nugget here is handy advice about the series, not asking people to order EVERYTHING in them.

8. If members want, they can create clones of a series. Our relationship list will include "Is a reordering of…" This will satisfy those lost souls who believe Narnia should be read in the wrong order.

Other notes:
* The new system will have a good action history, with good, more atomic reversability.
* I think we're going to add series reviews.
* I see and hear your desire to sort your catalogs by series. I'm not doing the catalog now, but I very much agree this is an important feature.
* We discussed having a marker for "fictional universe" series. More discussion needed.
* We are going to need to add a field for fictional pub dates. Because some of our publication-dates are wonky.
* I am going to precategorize books into "Collections and Selections." First, some of these are specifically marked "omnibuses," or whatever. Many others can be done algorithmically, as I've got it going. Basically, if a book either contains or is contained by a book that's got a lot more popular, it goes in Collections or Selections.
* We need series touchstoning.

>165 timspalding: - series touchstone! Yay!

Much of the rest sounds fine, and we'll have to wait and see how it copes with the trickier cases.

As above I think the two main requirements are: I've read this, what do I read next? and I own 'these' what else should I buy in this setting

Both of these should be ably managed.

I'm also happy with the result (including the "other notes").
Almost everything I read is in series, so this is very important for me (yay for series touchstones!)

We discussed having a marker for "fictional universe" series.

Yes please! The main series I am trying to fix up is BattleTech, which is very much a "fictional universe" omni-thing, and it would be good to know what is the aim for these types of series.

timspalding (#165):

This will start out as the current order, which members have generally treated as the chronological order, with omnibus editions at the end.


So you're going for internal-chronology over publication when they differ, by editorial fiat? That's not very LT-esque. It's also flat wrong.

Further to my #170:

There are series where the author has deliberately chosen to make it all-but-impossible to read in internal chronological order. The one I'm most familiar with is Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series - there's one book that takes place during another, one with interspersed chapters set in different time periods, one with three sections each of which takes place in a different time. I've always wondered what "chronology above all" partisans do with books containing flashbacks, or otherwise told out of order - do they flip around, chapter by chapter, to read the book in the order in which characters experience events rather than the order the author chose to present them?

Fictional universe

What are the best examples, either already an LT series or not yet one?

So you're going for internal-chronology over publication when they differ, by editorial fiat? That's not very LT-esque. It's also flat wrong.

I'm not going for anything. LT members have decided the order for years now. (That is the LT-esque answer!)

Most series have been ordered in internal chronological order. Some have been ordered in other ways.

The only change here is that there will be an option to sort them in way other than the current order--namely the publication order. That is, before you could only get them in the order LT members wanted. Now you can get them in the order you want instead.

You could equally as well say that most series have been ordered into publication order, because in most cases the two are the same, and in nearly all cases where they differ, both have been created. I agree that "two series with the same contents in a different order" is an ugly hack, but when there are different orders, it's important to treat them equally, not to shunt the one you personally don't prefer off into a hidden side-menu of re-ordering that will need to be repeated every time someone views any series page.

>171 lorax: Another one is Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Saint Germain series. The internal chronology jumps around (although she's fairly good about spoilers), there's one book where half is set in Ancient Egypt, the other half set in Napoleonic Egypt, and at least one book where events occurring in another have an effect on the current.

>165 timspalding: >170 lorax: >173 timspalding: >174 lorax:

3. We have rejected the idea that users will be able to create multiple, full alternate orders. If necessary, we can add this.

Why crack down on something that isn't a problem? Some series benefit from being seen through two different lenses, for instance
http://www.librarything.com/series/The+Biography+of+Manuel+in+order+of+publicati...
and
http://www.librarything.com/series/The+Biography+of+the+Life+of+Manuel

Agree with lorax that 'shunt{ing} the one you personally don't prefer off into a hidden side-menu of re-ordering that will need to be repeated every time someone views any series page' is not an acceptable substitute.

So, I think it's necessary. Please add it.

The other points seem ok.

>172 timspalding: I make no claims about the "best" but on the topic of fictional universes... the huge ones seem to be often franchises -- Star Trek, Marvel. I have a few series that aren't sequels per se that might fit here too -- Becky Chambers' Wayfarer universe (which people often expect to be a series, but shares no main characters between books: https://www.librarything.com/series/Wayfarers), Diane Duane's wizard universe (Young Wizards, cat wizards are each their own series, plus some other interludes: https://www.librarything.com/series/Wizardry+%5BDiane+Duane%5D), maybe Bujold's space universe (series has books scattered throughout a 50-ish year period with different main characters and different novel/short story/novella contributions, as well as some sequences that really should be read in order: https://www.librarything.com/series/Vorkosigan%3A+Chronological+Order).

Edit: I forgot another potentially interesting example -- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Not written by the original author, not authorized by the original author, not part of the timeline of the original author, not part of the universe or series canon, but set in the same universe as an existing series. (I do not think that the "fictional universe" feature should necessarily stretch to include this relationship, but I suspect that it could be used that way as currently laid out.)

>172 timspalding:
https://www.librarything.com/series/Parasol+Universe
https://www.librarything.com/series/Tortall+Universe+-+chronological+order
https://www.librarything.com/series/Shannara+Universe%3A+Chronological
https://www.librarything.com/series/Doctor+Who

>174 lorax:

Hear, hear.

The publication vs. internal chronology is the most common distinction between different series including the same books at this point. There are also exclusive vs. inclusive series, where one will be a subset of another (perhaps resolvable through a "fictional universe" mechanism, perhaps not).

Why crack down on something that isn't a problem? Some series benefit from being seen through two different lenses, for instance

We're not. I mean that alternate orders will not be a feature of a given series. If necessary, new series can be added.

See "8. If members want, they can create clones of a series. Our relationship list will include "Is a reordering of…" This will satisfy those lost souls who believe Narnia should be read in the wrong order."

>180 timspalding:

Uh, ok. Then point #3 isn't expressed very clearly...
"We have rejected the idea that users will be able to create multiple, full alternate orders"

timspalding (#180):

So, we're exactly at the status quo where we have two series with the same books in a different order ("Narnia" and "Narnia, The Wrong Order"), except that instead of treating them on an equal footing you're defaulting to chronological order and de-prioritizing other orders?

Some more examples of classic "world" series (these ones distinguished by having only one author, and not entirely having been published as a deliberate sequence) (It would honestly be really nice if series like Hainish, like the nonfiction ones mentioned above, could default to a sort order that isn't numbered, because the series isn't mean to be.)

Hainish Cycle
Foundation Universe
Lazarus Long (note that there does not currently appear to be an LT series that collects all the stories/universes that are linked up in the post-Cat Who Walks Through Walls multiverse, or even that links the Future History books to the Lazarus Long books even though they're the same timeline(s. ish.) even though it's pretty useful for anyone who wants to understand wtf is going on in CWWTW...)

The outline looks like a good compromise, mostly! I see our Narnia discussion has convinced you that one "reading order"is a pipe dream. It really is a shame that nobody else understands the correct Narnia order.

1. How will the "main order" be determined, going forward? If there really are only going to be two orderings, I join my voice to those that suggest publication/publisher's order + chronological (with a default to publication) rather than setting one as the base.

2. How will this work out in cases where publisher's order is different from publication order (obvious example here: will "Star Wars" publication order be 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 or 4-5-6-1-2-3-7-8-9? There are other examples of a publisher slapping numbers on later that don't match the original publication dates, though). And how will publication dates work where the publication data of the most popular version is not the original publication date - will Galactic Patrol sort in publication order as 1960 (first publication in the "core work" version) or 1938 (original serialization, which is what anyone looking for publication order would want)? Will we be able to edit publication order for series without changing publication date of the work?

4-6. I assume this means there will be an option to show everything in the series together on one page, core+groups? Will it be possible for the same work to be in core + groups, or in multiple groups? Will groups have their own sort orders, separate from the main sort order? How will this work when they are all shown together?

7. I really like this for reading order! It seems like the best way to do it. Will it just be free-text, or will there be some kind of built-in way to make listing the order simpler? Will it take touchstones?

8. Will there be guidelines between what is allowed to be its own series/clone and what should be a group attached to a core series? Will they be enforceable guidelines? Also you mention a "relationship list" here but only here - so I assume we will still be able to link series into various predefined relationships with each other? How will that work with groups?

I like all of your "others"! They are all great!

I am unsure what a "fictional pub date" is, though. Unless you mean pub dates for works in Lucien's library in the Dreaming. (Also for the record, in general I would really, really like some algorithmic way to link a pub date to a work other than just through CK.)

Collections and Selections - if these are done algorithmically, will they be fixable by users? I.E. when The Great Book of Amber has more users than any of the individual novels, will we be able to say no, that is wrong, the core works are still Nine Princes in Amber etc. anyway? (Will someone making a new series be able to designate the core works, or will the popularity algorithm do it for them?)

On the empirical front, my impression, like Tim's, is that most series are in internal chronology order - in particular, prequels are usually listed first - but is there any way to get actual data on this short of going through lots of series manually?

Also curious what a fictional publication date is in context.

Series touchstones would be great! Triple brackets? Please let us force them too.

>183 melannen:

The Hainish Cycle shows one of the human problems that code doesn't really help. It includes 5 anthologies in which The Shobies' Story (a short story set in the Hainish Cycle universe) is included (appropriately labelled). It doesn't include an actual entry for The Shobies' Story itself even though it exists as a work within LT (and as a work IRL according to worldcat). Obviously needs tidying up. Similarly for Le Guin's collections - The Wind's Twelve Quarters for example isn't just Hainish Cycle stories. In the case where it isn't exclusively stories from the one universe/series I would prefer the individual short stories to be included on their own merit - so we can click on The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas in the series list and find out which collections/anthologies include the short story from the Work-To-Work relationships on the short story.

I think you are slightly misreading what has been said. I don't think there is any restriction on having a book in multiple series (as at present). Indeed point 8) kinda indicates that it is still there with additional support (the clone function) in its initial creation.

As for seeing books by the publication date - then I guess that works by the OPD that people have entered. If they have entered the 1930s serialised date it will use that, if they have entered the book publication date it will use that. Now there is something tricksy here in that a work can have multiple OPDs at the moment so I guess it will just pick the earliest possible parseable date for each work. Again there are problems in that there are a lot of works without any OPD (what percentage I don't know - I assume Tim can get that) and that may mean no publication order sorting unless it is done manually by users.

@Tim

Some questions / points

1) Cloning series.
a) Say I clone series X and get X'. X' is marked Is a reordering of X. If I subsequently add (or delete) an entry to series X do I get a warning to add it to X' (and vice-versa)?
b) If I now clone X' and get X'' is there just a relationship of X'' is a reordering of X' or is there a relationship to the original X or both? Again are all clones mentioned in any possible warning about series modification?

2) Work-To-Work relationships (sorry I know this isn't really series related but it kind of intersects because of the anthology/collection short story point I made at the top of this post). At the moment these seem grouped but unordered. Would it be possible to add some kind of order to the "Is Contained In" at least. Maybe works by the same author at the top, then by publication date? Look at the relationships for The One Who Walk Away From Omelas. The data is there but is it being presented in the the best possible way?

>185 andyl:

For works without an OPD, the obvious fallback would be the to use the earliest publication date anyone's entered on their copy. Not perfect, of course, but when it fails that may hopefully prompt someone to enter the OPD on the work page.

>185 andyl:

Yeah, we really need a fix for the short stories problem to get really good series pages. Presumably the "groups" option is aimed at this - so you could have a group for "anthologies that contain stories in this series, mixed with other stories"? But if we got better handling for short stories in general, and could do what you're describing here, that would be ideal.

I don't think there will be a restriction on having a book in multiple series, but I'm wondering about how having mutiple "groups" attached to the same series will work in that respect (And what, functionally, the difference between making a new group attached to a series, and making a new series in a relationship with the series, will be, and how we will keep that distinction, or if we'll just end up with a bunch of series that duplicate groups.)

Picking the oldest parseable date would be what I would vote for (and also taking the oldest parseable date of publication for any edition that has been entered, for works with no CK original publication date). (The complete inability to get *any* publication date for a work unless it's in the CK is one of the things that annoys me the most about using LT as a general book database.)

I don't know the percentage of works with a CK date, but anecdotally in my own experience, it's not huge, and some fairly popular books you'd expect to have one don't. I don't think we've ever had any super-devoted CK date-enterers the way we have for some other CK fields.

Hm, yeah, LT doesn't really leverage the date data in any interesting way as far as I can remember, so there's less incentive to enter it. A Zeitgeist page that displayed your library by OPD or something could help!

>187 melannen: I don't think we've ever had any super-devoted CK date-enterers the way we have for some other CK fields.

I enter OPDs in CK religiously

Hopefully this new system will be able to support a "book to read next" feature, a la the dearly departed FictFact?

Idea: We need a "series creator" field for series that started with one author but eventually had others. The Bond-book series comes to mind. What do you think?

Hopefully this new system will be able to support a "book to read next" feature, a la the dearly departed FictFact?

Yes, That's the goal. First, following a series.

>185 andyl:

a) Say I clone series X and get X'. X' is marked Is a reordering of X. If I subsequently add (or delete) an entry to series X do I get a warning to add it to X' (and vice-versa)?

I'm not sure. The choice to have separate series, rather than allowing an arbitrary number of arbitrary orders, is the choice to make any such changes an issue. In theory, it could keep them in synch--if you add to X, it adds to Y; if you delete from Y it deletes from X. Or it could signal that they are different somehow. Or do nothing.

Again are all clones

So, two concepts here:

1. Clone a series is a good way to get all your data into a new series. From there, you can edit as you want. So, for example, an easy way to make a sub-series would be to clone the larger series and then delete. Deleting is going to be easier than finding stuff from scratch.

2. Creating a relationship between series that is the "is a reordering of" relationship is different. That's for the explicit purpose of keeping them in synch. See above.

Work-To-Work relationships

I'm confused. There is a pretty clear order to the groups. You mean within the groups? I think the best order would be reverse copies, no?

For works without an OPD, the obvious fallback would be the to use the earliest publication date anyone's entered on their copy. Not perfect, of course, but when it fails that may hopefully prompt someone to enter the OPD on the work page.

Rather than rely on LT's copies, we survey all data that we've ever seen. We have tens of millions of library records that users have not used, as well as similar numbers for Amazon, Bowker. User copies also count. From all of this we attempt to find the earliest non-crazy date. The OPD wiki field trumps it, of course.

I'm wondering about how having mutiple "groups" attached to the same series will work in that respect

By the by, the "groups" will be non-overlapping buckets. A work will have to be in one and only one group.

>191 timspalding: Yes! This could also apply to comics and TV series.

I am not happy with this series discussion. This is for two reasons: I am really looking forward to the redesign for LT 2.0 that has already started. I consider it very important. But I also fear that this discussion will deprive resources that could be used for renewal.

Series are in LibraryThing and also under readers, a very big topic. This shows the presence of groups and threads with many contributions in LT and other websites inside and outside the English-speaking world on the Internet.

Series would be a large field to make LT more popular to more readers, booklovers and bookcollectors.
I could imagine that series could happen outside (independently) of LT, but with a strong connection to the original. As LT similar does with TinyCat and Litsi.

I would be willing to pay for unlimited use.

The existing data from LT would form a very large and very good basis. The enormous knowledge of LT users should not be underestimated for planning and developing the enhancement/application.
The wish that has already been expressed to be able to treat future books of a series or those that have not yet been translated could also be treated.
This without violating the basic principle of LT that only books with at least one copy are included in LT.
In addition, it would be possible to meet the wish already expressed for increased integration of audio books, radio plays, television series, films, music, operas, musicals, etc.
Anchors (links) could make it possible to create connections to other works, authors, series or universes.

I have thought a lot about these topics in the past. If you are interested, I would be happy to share it with you.
I'm looking forward to your opinion. Maybe better in another thread?

ETA
please excuse. crossposting. I missed some of the previous posts as it took me some time to write and translate my post.

>192 timspalding:

Work-to-work relationships

Yep within the groups.

Look at The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas at the "Is Contained in" group.

There is no discernable order there. It isn't ordered on number of copies or anything at all that I can see. Maybe just in the order they were entered. (reverse order of copies, or more recent first are pretty good for me with or without bubbling the same author to the top). It would also be nice to have ownership ticks on the works I own.

Obviously this isn't anything directly to do with the series rework (so I don't expect it to be high up on your list of things to do), but when short stories are added to series it helps if we can get to the works that contain the short story and see if we own any of them.

>195 andyl:

I think we should do reverse copies. What do you think?

>187 melannen: >188 Stevil2001: >189 SandraArdnas: ... you could have a group for "anthologies that contain stories in this series, mixed with other stories"

Should that be a special Member-group sourced story indexing effort, similar to the Combiners!, or what we did (a looong time ago) integrating Venues? I've often appreciated learning an Author contributed to one or another anthology we have but haven't (yet) focused on or fully indexed, which I'm slowly seeing more and more of. Also knowing which stories are where is still icing on the cake.

We might also try a Member-group sourced research and posting campaign / challenge to add or fact-check publication dates in CK. It would be a huge undertaking, but I suspect many Members would rise to the occasion as they can. After all, after @timspalding, LT's professional staff, and its Members, the site's "wiki" nature rates pretty high among its many charms.

>191 timspalding: Eeps! You mentioned "James Bond," and I had to go look. It been ages since I was last there, but I could spend eons re-reorganizing that mess. And here I thought KAOS was Maxwell Smart's nemesis ...

>192 timspalding: I appreciate this insight on LT's technique for works without an OPD. Would those results translate to a "calculated" field? OPDs for stories would likely be a wholly different problem.

>194 birder4106: Organizing Member-sourced projects, like stories and OPDs mentioned above, may free up LT's programming specialists to get on with the important work of redesigning and improvements where not just anybody (e.g., ME) should be meddling.

>196 timspalding: I'm curious what you mean by "reverse copies." I gather it's not simply books in Hebrew ...

Edited for grammar.

>197 jasbro: I'm curious what you mean by "reverse copies." I gather it's not simply books in Hebrew ...

He means ordered by the number of copies with the largest number of copies first

Since >165 timspalding: I've been confused about the plan that's developing. Did core/non-core replace series-to-series and series-to-work relationships?

This week I finished a book that's a part of an interesting example of connected series. I would like to break this example down to see if I can understand what the changes might look like. The author says in the end pages that the reading order of The Charm of Magpie series is...

A Charm of Magpies
-- The Magpie Lord
-- Interlude with Tattoos (short story)
-- A Case of Possession
-- A Case of Spirits (short story)
-- Flight of Magpies
-- Feast of Stephen (short story)

"The Smuggle and the Warlord" is a short story that takes place before and about an event repeatedly mentioned in The Magpie Lord. The other short stories have been published within the books that precede them in the list.

KJ Charles listed the following standalone stories as part of the The Charm of Magpies World.
-- Jackdaw
-- A Queer Trade (Rag and Bone prequel)
-- Rag and Bone

A Queer Trade is set in the summer of A Case of Possession while Jackdaw and Rag of Bone are both set after Flight of Magpies.

The series order on LT is currently listed under "A Charm of Magpies":
The Smuggler and the Warlord (0.5)
The Magpie Lord (1)
Interlude with Tattoos (1.5)
A Case of Possession (2)
A Queer Trade (2.4)
A Case of Spirits (2.5)
Flight of Magpies (3)
Feast of Stephen (3.5)
Jackdaw (4)
Rag and Bone (crossover, 5)

What might this look like after the series redesign? My best guess if we are only doing core/non-core is...

Core Series: A Charm of Magpies
The Magpie Lord (1)
A Case of Possession (2)
Flight of Magpies (3)

Non-core series: The Charm of Magpies World
~ the current series order (above) ~

And we could click or toggle to see one list or the other, yeah?

Would each series (core and non-core) have a description box?

Another category besides short stories, omnibus, etc. is abridged versions.

>189 SandraArdnas: You are one of the hidden saints of LT! Thank you.

>188 Stevil2001: That's true, making it an integral part of series display would probably motivate a lot more people to work on it, so the issue might solve itself.

>192 timspalding:

So if, say, you had a group for "kids' tie-ins", and you had a group for "related comics", the kids' comics would either have to be in only one of the two groups, or you'd have to make a separate group just for the kids' comics? That seems a) awkward, b) an invite for edit wars, and/or c) an invite for incredibly nitpicky unwritten rules about which types of groups outrank other types of groups when deciding where to put something. Unless I'm going way out of scope for what groups can be used for, which might be true.

Good to hear you have a plan for green-texting OPDs! Please put them on work pages too. And make them sortable in catalogs. :D

>196 timspalding:

Yep that would work for me.

There seems to be a couple of use cases.
1) you want to see which is the most prevalent containing work
2) you want to see what is a work that you can buy which contains the short story.

These are pretty much separate use cases (although sometimes they will overlap) - you can't target both you have to choose one or the other. Reverse copies targets the first case.

>196 timspalding: I always prefer to list my "Contains" works in the order in which they are printed in the containing work. This is especially useful for comic book collections that include a number of different titles, as it allows for a reading order that wouldn't otherwise be shown anywhere else. (See: X-Men: Onslaught Aftermath, for example.)

I know a number of story/book collections might have multiple orders, but I would guess the majority only have a single order. (Though the big popular works are likely to be the ones with multiple orders, i.e. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe or something.)

I would like Series to be assigned to several 'types'. At minimum:
Publication date (sorted by Original Publication Date)
Internal chronology

I would like to see Publisher Series treated simply as a category of Series.

I like the differentiation of Core and non-Core.

I wish to be able to effect all series management directly on the Series page.

>204 TheoClarke:

You brought my point of view to the point.

>204 TheoClarke:

If we’re to encode the type of order, I think we need an “official” order, for cases, often nonfiction, where the parts of a series have an official order that doesn’t necessarily correspond to either publication order or any chronology.

My main interest is in series by publishers, which also fall under this topic. At the moment they can fall under either “Series” (if they’re exclusive to a publisher, eg Dummies’ Guides) or “Publisher Series” (if not, eg Penguin Poets).

At the moment there is a sorting issue/glitch if not all items are numbered. Un-numbered titles appear first alphabetically, followed by numbered titles in order; however those numbered “1” are sequenced as if unnumbered. (Eg https://www.librarything.com/publisherseries/Penguin+Poets).

Secondly, LT plucks a default cover for titles that have appeared in many different editions over the years, and this may not be the correct cover for a series (eg the Nelson Medieval and Renaissance Texts series at https://www.librarything.com/publisherseries/Nelson%27s+Medieval+and+Renaissance... - only 3 of the first 6 covers are correctly from this series). I’d like to be able to select the appropriate cover for a series, or at least the cover in my own collection for this view.

@207

I'll echo the request for better cover selection for series. While this is particularly important to publisher series, it also affects ordinary series, which would look much better if they had consistent covers. Perhaps one way to do this would be to allow editors to associate a cover to the series (first edition covers might work for some series, or a simply a common but consistent cover for other series).

This is a very good idea

I'm new to the thread, and I appreciate the efforts!
Perhaps my comment has already been covered somewhere, but I'd like to put forward the following proposition:
There ought to be several easily selectable sort orders:
* publication order
* alphabetical by title
* internal chronological order (to the extent that books cover the same characters/universe)
This is mostly independent of any formal or informal series designation;
of course a series could make best use of the 3rd sort order.

The suggested order to be read, though often helpful, belongs in an opinion section.

I haven't had a chance to read every thought in this string. But it dawned on me that I have been able to search by series because I add the series and number in () after the title in my own records. This allows me to see from the Your Books list what series the title is in, what position in the series, if I have read it or not (so I can order it at the library if not read). This also allows me to order the list by title, publication/copyright date and if I had read it or not. This keeps me from the time-consuming clicking into each record to see the series and it's number and scrolling down the bib record to see if I have read it or not. This also allows for multiple authors in one series to come up in my series title search. It would be nice if I didn't have to add the series name and number when I add a title to my collection but it has been worth the effort all these years.

Maybe if the template for the individual's bib (book) record would include a series field and number field that would not effect any other individual's bib record, that would allow everyone to name and number the series that makes the most sense to them, especially since the search capability is already programmed in to LT. Then the series field in Common Knowledge would still be linked to a series page that individuals could refer to if they want.

I am not a programmer but this is my humble suggestion.

Thanks for working on this so that everyone can enjoy the use of series in LT!

One thing I've recently thought of that would be nice for this is if it could have a better way of handling multiple series with the same name than what we have now. As it stands now, the standard seems to be to add the author's name in brackets to the series name if there's more than one with the same name, and that just seems kind of clunky to me.

>207 nicbarnard:

I completely agree with this.

It is ludicrous that when you currently display the covers of a Publisher Series, quite often few, if any, of the covers displayed are actually from that publisher series.

>2 timspalding:

I maintain a lot of publisher series for music scores. These often have no ISBN, so a user selection would be the only way to determine the correct cover.

For music scores, the publisher generally assigns their own numbering system, which should arguably be the default order for that publisher series.

Kind of off sidewise to the topic, but having spent a lot of time combining and tidying on Enid Blyton's page recently, I'd find it useful to be able to filter an author's output by whether the books have been assigned to a series or not - just as another way to identify newly arrived orphans needing work. Obviously this is only useful if most of the authors books are in series, but the extremely prolific often are series writers.

I've also realised what I really want is a simple series page in the app too, just for checking what order the titles are, and whether I own them. I suspect editing via the app would be too tricky.

Tim, I had hoped to reply to this topic a lot sooner, however, I just received an email reply back from KJ today, to an email that I sent Jan. 30th. I hunted for this topic after seeing it mentioned in the January newsletter, but was unsuccessful and gave up. But now that I have the link, I would like to put in a request. (I read though some of the discussion above, but not all of it and I don't think anyone touched on this issue with series.)

I do believe there is a post in the help section someplace when I was frustrated with this issue at the time I was adding a book to LT.

As of Oct 28, 2019 when I was adding my book George Patton, General in Spurs a Messner Biography, there was no listing of this title in the series list. I was told that you only list the title of the most recent publication (which in this case is a paperback reprint). I am not even certain if it is an unabridged reprint. The title in the series listing is - General George Patton: Old Blood & Guts by Alden Hatch, which when I went to the series listing and saw that marked, I wasn't even sure if it was the correct book or not. It did not match the publication or information on my book, and I was trying to figure out what was wrong. I spent well over an hour, dealing with it, sending a message to help, and in general feeling like I had wasted valuable time that was dedicated to adding books to LT.

My request, if omnibus, and all sorts of other books can be listed such as you were showing in your LOTR example, then I don't see why the original hardback publisher copy can not be listed as the primary for a series and then a paperback or republication with a new publication date can not be added as a subset or additional book. I was told that you only put the more common recent books in the series list, but that doesn't work for someone who is primarily adding OOP books to my collection. I was able to add the correct book cover to my book, either from other members or by adding an image myself, but it still doesn't mean that the series listing is accurate for the Messner Biographies. I even double checked on another website that is working at cataloging all of these books and showing all publishers reprints, to make sure I had my original information correct.

Since I primarily work with nonfiction series or historical fiction, I generally don't have any other issues with the series, unless books are not numbered as they are printed on the book by the publisher. So, I am fine with publisher chronology, author's names listed with the book if more than one author for a series, pretty much any other situation, this one just didn't even list my book. Thank you for looking into any possible "fix" for my above mentioned frustration.

I apologize for not placing the book titles in italics, I forget the proper format for doing so. I am too use to Google or Word having the option available at a touch of a button.

Thank you for always being proactive to make Library Thing be the best that it can be.