Series List

Is there an alphabetical series list that I'm just missing? And how does one get to it?

Thank you

Of all series on the site? Or the ones you have books in?

>1 TrinityFellowshipChu: There are too many series on the site to list them all.

You can see your own series (series where you have a book in your catalog) on your "Charts & Graphs" page, under Common Knowledge > Series.

You can also search all of the series for particular words using the site search

How do I add an item to a series? I don't see the option on "edit your book"

You can do it from the series page, or from the main work page. No, you can't do it from "edit your book", because it is work information not book information.

>4 TWGLibrary: On the work page, look for the section that says "series and relationships"

Or, on the series page, click "edit series" and then "add to/organize series" and then "add a work" (this is the best method if you want to add more than one work to the same series)

I don't know where the series page is. Is there a description of the process somewhere?

I've uploaded some 100 issues of a magazine and I see others have it as part of series. How can I get my copies to match up with the series?

>7 TWGLibrary: Search the series name, once the full search page opens, filter to series.

Edit: unless it's a new book, it's likely your book just needs combining with the larger group and it will end up in series it belongs to as well, so I would check that before adding. You can see on series page whether there is the same work there already or just use site search to see whether there is one to be combined with

>7 TWGLibrary: You can get to a series page by clicking on it from the work page of a work in that series, or by searching for the series in the search bar in the upper right corner of every page, and then clicking "series" on the left side of the search page.

For example, if you go to this book from your library: https://www.librarything.com/work/626800/summary/222122209
at the top of the page it says "Series: Gallery of American Quilts (1849-1988)" and if you click that it will take you to this series page: https://www.librarything.com/nseries/35335/Gallery-of-American-Quilts

or you could search for "gallery of american quilts" in the search bar and then click "series" on the left side to get here: https://www.librarything.com/search.php?search=gallery+of+american+quilts&se... and then click on the link

I think I have this figured out. Thank you for your help!

>10 TWGLibrary: What is needed here is to combine your copies of the magazine with the other copies which are already in the series. Adding your books to the series without combining would just show duplicates. This must be done after you add the items to your catalog so don't hesitate to keep cataloging them.

I've done a few already (the 2003 issues) so those should show up correctly for you now here: https://www.librarything.com/nseries/25091/Spin-Off . Hopefully others will help as well.

If you'd like to combine them yourself, you can do so by:
1) On the work page of the item in your catalog, click "add work to workbench" at the bottom of the right side of the page
2) On the work page of the item in the series, click "add work to workbench"
3) Click the yellow "combine works" button
4) Select both items you want to combine, then click "combine selected works"

___________

Secondarily, the reason you're getting an error when you try to search for the works to add them to the series is because you've just added them today and it takes a couple days for works to show up in the site search.

Thank you! I just did one successfully.

I've uploaded perhaps 500 issues of magazines, and some were automatically assigned to a series (correctly). This will be a labor of love - if I attempt to do all the magazines.

Do you know if there is a way to sort our library's magazines by Series? I can see Series on a a display list, but I can't sort by it. If I name the magazine "Spin Off Winter 2021" for instance, sorting by title will give all the "Fall" then all the "Spring" issues etc

Thanks again.

You would have to do the titles as Spin Off 2021/1.

I've done that on some magazines. It would have been nice to be able to retain a natural title order and sort by series.

It appears LibraryThing, over a period of days, has been adding my copies of Spin Off to the "series". I've only done two manually, but now 48 of them have been assigned to the Spin Off series. Some of the addition I made to the title (to help with sorting) apparently slowed things down. After I modified the titles, LibraryThing's background operations must have recognized them.

All my Handwoven magazines have also added to a series - tho not initially.

This forum has been helpful. thanks to all for your help.

>15 TWGLibrary: None of that is happening automatically, that's the other users here helping out

Wow! Thanks.

>15 TWGLibrary: Unless the combination happens during the adding of the book, the book stays on its own until someone manually combines it (or adds a series to it if it is the first copy). So don’t rely on a background process kicking in after you edit something - if it is not where it is supposed to be and not in a series, you can either do it yourself or wait for someone to notice (which may never happen in some cases - or not for a long time).

I've spotted an error with our series listing for Spin Off – the magazine used to go Spring-Summer-Fall-Winter each year, up until 2011, then they changed the Winter issue to now have the following year's number (so what would have been Winter 2012 instead got named as Winter 2013) and since then each year has gone Winter-Spring-Summer-Fall. Eg. Winter 2024 issue is already released at the end of 2023. I'll correct our series page and add a note explaining about this in the descriptions (edit: now done).

I entered my entries using the correct series - and noted that it changed. Perhaps that's why my uploaded entries didn't automatically get assigned to a series work - I'd entered: "Spin-Off Issue 1986.4: Winter 1986."

I'll plug away at adding to series as I have time.

>20 TWGLibrary: Things get assigned to a series on adding only if they combine with an entry which is already assigned to the series. All series assignments are manual - it looks automatic when we already have it in the db because your book gets combined into the work but that’s about it.

Thanks. It's hard to get the magazines to combine automatically. For the most part they don't show up on the search, you have to enter them manually.

>22 TWGLibrary: The combining does not depend on if you add them manually or not. They can combine either way - or not. LT looks at matches (title, author and isbn - or whichever of them are present). So if you match an existing record, it may combine. I usually just add my magazines the way I want them and then go and combine them (or add series if I am the first adding).

Yes, but I'd hoped that an add via Add Books > Add to your books - with the Search box might have had a series connected with it. I was surprised it only searched Amazon.com and not LibraryThing and didn't find most of the magazines I was adding.

I'll chip away at combining them. I glad for the help here so I learned how to link them.

>24 TWGLibrary: You can select different sources, not just Amazon although for magazines, libraries are rarely useful because of how they add their magazines (aka one entry per series). However LT cannot be used as a source. It is a design decision - made a very long time ago - and often being criticized and questioned (especially around magazines, comics, luxury books and similar non-isbn and non-standard items).

In my experience, just adding manually works the best for magazines. :)

Thanks, all the old magazines are added. Just have to work on the "series" portion and work on new ones as they come in.