Manually sort your books

I'm very tardy to the party and just found LT, so please excuse my ignorance. I've figured out how to add books to my library and wish list. I have them sorted by author and sub sorted by date. I've noticed that the dates aren't always in the correct order. I'm also curious if there is a way to sort them by book series, i.e., the Anita Blake series by Laurel K Hamilton. Two books were released in 2023, but I have yet to figure out how to put them in correct series order. Is this doable?
TIA

>1 Gidget201: Not sure what date you mean? Publication date? Entry date? Something else? Publication date is normally just year (4 digits) and should sort correctly unless there are some empty ones. Entry date is automatic and cannot be edited. Its when your record was added to LT. Should always be present and sort correctly.

As for sorting by series, it is not possible by using that column, so people who want it devised ways, mainly by putting the tag with series and series number as the first tag and than sorting by tag.

>2 SandraArdnas: Also publishing year might not give you the correct order. (i.e. I just added a bunch of Jo Nesbø books and they were a mix of 1., 2., ... 9. edition, so some old books (series-wise) were newer than the new books.)

>1 Gidget201: Another thing to ponder is whether you want to sort them when looking at them in LT or if you intend to export the data and sort it elsewhere.
I use a specially formatted line in my comments field and sort on that and this also allows me to get output like
Harry Hole, volumes 2-3, 5-9
so I know to look out for volume 1 and 4, when going to the local second hand bookstore.

So unless you are into programming, I think you should just use tags.

If you do not use the custom classification for something else, you can also create your own sorting via it - use something like seriesname_01 and so on works like a charm if you use that as a second sorting parameter after an author. You can also use another column you are not using (comments, private comments and so on as well). The tags work but you need to be careful about order. :)

You can also put series name/number in the title, for example, Hunger Games 1, Hunger Games 2: Catching Fire, Hunger Games 3: Mockingjay. This is a bit of an inelegant solution, however.

If you ARE using the custom classification, you can still use this to assist in ordering series correctly. For example, if the custom classification is FIC HAM, you can append the number in the series so that they become FIC HAM 1, FIC HAM 2, FIC HAM 3, etc., or if they are 823.914 you can add another decimal (to differentiate it from the DDC of 823.9141) to have 823.914.1, 823.914.2, 823.914.3, etc.

Please keep in mind that in most cases, fields are sorted alphabetically, and if you have double digits, you should start with 01 instead of 1. Otherwise, as an example of the numbers 1-20, an alphabetical sort will sort them this way:
1, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 2, 20, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
but 01-20 will be in the "correct" order.

I will put series name and number within the series (starting with 01 as GraceCollection mentions) as the first two tags for books in series. This has the advantage of not cluttering up another field while being perfectly sortable. Sort your catalog by author and subsort by tags to use this method. Feel free to look at my catalog (use Member Style or a style of your choice that includes tags) to see it in action (you'll obviously need to sort as I describe for it to work).

I'm looking for directions on how to order my books by date entered in "Your Books." Thank you

>7 SESChurchlibrary: Make sure that "Entry date" is showing as a column in your books. If not, you can add or modify your display style (in the bar near the top where it says Style A B C D E). Click the different styles to see how it displays.

Once you see that column, click on the column name to sort by it.

>7 SESChurchlibrary: If that is one of the columns you use, you can just click it. If not, 'edit sort order' button (up and down arrow) and then choose entry date

>7 SESChurchlibrary: The Book Ids are ascending so sorting by them should do the same :-) That's what I do to take a critical look at the newest books in my library, since they have the greatest chance of missing some part of the registration.

Thank you very much. I've got it! One more question: my library is marked public, but I can't find it unless I'm logged in. Suggestions?

>11 SESChurchlibrary: I have no trouble accessing your profile in a private window, so logged out https://www.librarything.com/profile/SESChurchlibrary

>11 SESChurchlibrary: How/Where do you search for it?

>8 reconditereader: Thank you!

>12 SandraArdnas: Good to hear and I've been getting more familiar, and I can find it now, too. Thank you