"Smart collections": Read and Currently Reading

I'm part way to rolling out two "Smart collections." If you use iPhoto (among other products) you'll recognize the concept. Basically, smart collections are collections that books enter or leave based on other criteria than just moving things in or out.

For example:

"Currently Reading" would be any book that:

• Is put into the collection manually, or
• Has an open read date

"Read" could be any book that satisfies one of these

• You put into the collection manually
• Is in the "Read but unowned" collection
• Has an "end" reading date
• Is rated
• Is reviewed

I can also add smart collection on your catalog for categories like "Rated," "Not rated," "Reviewed," "Not Reviewed." These would not be appropriate everywhere--they make no sense on your profile, for example.

I imagine members will want a lot of complicated, user-chosen rules around this. I'm not inclined to do that. But I'm open to talking about them. Some members will also want out of any such thing; we can do that.

What do you think?

Will we be able to remove a book with an open reading date from "Currently Reading"?

I have a "Started" collection where I put multi-work works (anthologies and omnibuses mainly) which I am working on but not actively reading. I want to keep the starting dates on these but I do not want them to clutter my "Currently Reading" (as these can be a very large number depending on what I am working on at the moment - i.e. if I am chasing an author's complete stories, I may be as many as 20 anthologies like that).

PS: If I can opt out completely from the "smart" collections, that also works...

Capital idea!

Is there an expiration date on the open read date criterion for "Currently Reading"? Books I abandon or DNF have a date started but not a date read.

I'm all for smart Currently Reading collection. I pretty much gave up on it as I forget to switch collections when starting and finishing (some are lingering there for years).

Beyond that, I'm wary of more new default collections. I'm unsure if I'd use even the Read collection, which is definitely useful, but to be meaningful it means trawling trough my catalogue to mark those read before LT.

I want out. I do not want books moving in or out of collections unless I move them.

>5 MarthaJeanne:

I don't want it either, though perhaps for different reasons.

I will give a scenario that applies to me a lot, where the idea of a smart "Read" collection doesn't work: Reference books. Example: I have referred to the Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Roses so may times that I am sure that I have read at least 80% of the contents. I even sometimes read entries for fun when I have a few minutes to kill. But I never have, and surely never will, read it from cover to cover.

Have I rated it? Sure I have; I have used it, extensively, as it is meant to be used: as a reference. Enough to rate it. Could I review it? Sure I could. (I haven't, but I could competently review it.)

But I haven't read it. Does it belong in a "read" collection? Hardly.

If this sort of smart thing is to work, it at least needs some sort of distinction between "reading" books and books that are not for reading (references, critical editions, some sorts of textbooks, etc.)

I would like to add another vote for the ability to turn any smart collections off.

>7 gilroy:

This will definitely be possible—all of them, or selectively.

>8 yak_blankman: 'twas I

I’d like this, especially if I could opt out of certain collections.

I have squiggly feelings about the Read collection, but I'm not sure why.

I don't want books moving out of Currently Reading on their own. But I suspect my use of the collection for books I'm thinking about + want to review is a bit idiosyncratic. A combination of current and recent reads.

Moving books into it based on Started but not Finished dates is an old and frequent RSI, isn't it? And I suppose logically a "Read" collection would follow... so I do think this all sounds like a good idea. (Even if automatically going to "Read" is uncomfortable somehow to me.)

Oh, how I wish that "Read but unowned" was just the "Unowned" collection. I had to make my own "Read" and "Unowned" collection to complement the "Read but unowned" collection. IMO that's a historical mistake that can't be corrected now. Well it could if an official Unowned collection was added as well and books were migrated to Read + Unowned ;-)

>6 waltzmn: I agree; an encyclopedia I once borrowed could hardly go into "Read but unowned".

But a Read smart collection sound good! Currently Reading too, but I agree that controls on how long an open started date constitutes as reading, are needed.

I could see that, when you put in a date that's open-ended, it ASKS you if you want to move it to currently reading. This would then have an option to say never ask me again, always do this, etc.

I would be happy to have Currently Reading automated in the fashion described.

"Read" is a bad name for a collection. And if it is supposed to mean "Books read in the past" or "Completed books," I don't want any such collection, and I'd want to opt out.

I wouldn't mind an automated collection for "Reviewed" books I have actually written reviews for on LT, and I imagine that it would be on the dumb end of smart collections as far as its development difficulty goes.

I think this is a good idea (but like others, I don't put an end date to DNF books). Doesn't matter much to me, though; I like to be in control so I would opt out.

To be honest, it's something I'd disable. Usually I can start a book in the morning and finish it by bedtime, so tracking reading is not necessary. Plus I read ebooks and my currently reading is on my Kobo, so my reading collections are inactive.

I can see why this would be good for some people, but I don't want books in collections that I haven't purposely chosen to put them in myself. I definitely want to disable this feature for myself.
I do use the current "Currently reading" collection so please don't transform that one into a new "smart" Currently reading (make an additional one instead).

It sounds like something that might be occasionally useful, and wouldn’t bother me when I wasn’t using it, so why not?

The only obvious irritation I can see is that it could make it seem as though any book that doesn’t have a “finished” date should be considered unread. In my case I only started recording dates in late 2007, several decades after I started acquiring books, so about 2/3 of my library would suddenly be “unread”. Perhaps that could be fixed with some kind of notation in the “finished” field for books read at an unknown time before date X?

I'm weird, so I rate and enter the first lines of my review and put starting and finished date as the day I start. I.e. it'll look as if I've read all my books in one day :-)

So are you saying smart collections would work on a rule system we design for each of them? Lightroom has had this kind of functionality for a decade or more and I use it like this -

Rating is equal to or greater than ____ (can also have does not contain etc.)
Keyword contains ___

Flag pick is ___ (yes, no or not set)
Label color is ___ (choice of five or not set)

Edit date ___ ___ ___ - this one has 3 modifiers I can set like - Edit date is in the range of 3 weeks.

You can also have each rule follow all, any or none of the rules you apply.

There's more based on parameters and other data I can attach to each photo in the catalog. So if I wanted to set up a smart collection of Indian Pipe flowers photographed in New Hampshire in black and white that I haven't edited, but that are picks I can do that like this -

Follow all -
Location is equal to NH keyword is equal to Indian Pipe keyword is equal to B&W edit status is have not edited

There are a TON of permutations based on what data is part of the catalog whether I've set it manually like with keywords or comments, or if it's part of the EXIF data like file type and date. I think this kind of smart collection would be REALLY powerful here on LT.

>20 Bookmarque: Hmm, that gave me an idea.

Currently searches are rather limited in length, i.e. not much longer than this

310111701 OR 310111766 OR 310491518 OR 310494160 OR 310977100 OR 310977128 OR 310977148 OR 310977184 OR 310977451 OR 311097560

It would be really to have ad hoc collections like that, i.e. defined by the book ids.

In TinyCat you can create one ad hoc list by marking the individual books which is also useful, but rather limited.

And of course you can use tags or similar stuff to get you almost the same effect. But some of this means you have to edit each book.

ETA:
I typically enter a ??? in my unfinished reviews, but that's not a good thing to search for in the LT UI, so I tend to use stuff like that using a database view on the TSV export files. Like this:

cat /tmp/lt.rdb | perl /tmp/row Review mat '/???/' and any mat '/Harry Potter/'

which should give me all my books which mention Harry Potter in Title, Subject, Comment or whatever and have an unfinished Review.

I'd love this! I created a "Read" collections years ago and use it in conjunction with "Currently Reading" much the way this feature is proposed to do, but all too often, I forget to move the books from one to the other after entering the "finished" reading date. Automating that process would be marvelous.

One question, though: would already having a collection named "Read" result in a duplicate or other problems? I could rename my existing collection, of course, but it suits my needs, and I'd rather not have to use something else for "two weeks" while this feature is being created.

I'd also like to second what some others have mentioned: it would be helpful to be able to manually remove books from "Currently Reading" without entering an end reading date (and with a "bounce back" into the collection at some future date). I do occasionally abandon a book without wanting to wholly delete it, and there are also some omnibuses I've started and partially read but not completed. Still, in the vast majority of instances, the "smart collections" would be perfect as described.

I'm not sure. I have books that have been in "currently reading" for a year and others that are in a collection for books I didn't finish, so a book with no finish date could mean several things. I don't mind managing my books myself. If I received a lot of notifications at once for books with no "finished reading" date, it might be a bit frustrating.

>23 krazy4katz: Could you not use the date you decided not to continue as the finished date?

>1 timspalding: I would really like this

I would like better current reading/read tracking on LT! I currently use Goodreads for only that just because it's so much clunkier on LT.

I'm not entirely clear on exactly what this version would entail though - I really don't like the idea of a couple of special "smart" collections tacked on to all my other collections; collections as they exist are really powerful and I feel like it would be confusing for existing users who already have their collections set for specific purposes. And for new users, it would just add another complexity to the already fairly complex "collections" layer two have two distinct kinds of collections.

If this was done in a way that kept it pretty distinct from collections as is though - if I could have my automated "read" list somewhere that would not interfere in anyway with an existing "read" collection, I would be okay with it. Or, as suggested above, if you added some kind of smart capability to all collections, adding books with certain tags, dates, etc, that would be really cool! Definitely not reducing complexity or making read tracking simpler, but really cool :P

I don't think it would make me move away from Goodreads though - the main reasons I don't do it on LT is a) the fact that the catalog is really set up around specific copies of books, so it's hard to just say "I read this title" and not "I read this specific copy with this ISBN" and b) that editing read dates is really annoying on touchscreen.

>26 melannen: the catalog is really set up around specific copies of books, so it's hard to just say "I read this title" and not "I read this specific copy with this ISBN"

So is GR, you just have no control over the data for the edition. You get what you get, which is sometimes good and sometimes shoddy, but it is tied to edition/ISBN. So perhaps you prefer the fact that you don't have to import it from sources, but simply choose one with appropriate cover and be done with it. But it is tied to specific edition as well. (And if you ever need to import from GR to LT, you'll want their good records, not the ones with barely any data.)

>24 Maddz: I guess I have never thought about it that way. I have always thought that "finish" means "finish the book" not "finish reading only part of it". Of course I do have 2 collections that take care of this "on hiatus" meaning I will finish it someday and "officially unfinished" which of course I will never finish. I suppose if I put finish dates in the "officially unfinished" category, that would work, but not the "on hiatus" collection.
I know I am rambling….

>28 krazy4katz: Or it could mean "I am finished reading this book."

People use LT differently, and use features in ways that suit them. I usually only use Date finished, and mean that I read the book to the end. If I don't finish it, but want a record of when I tried, that's when I enter a Date started. I usually only put a book into Currently reading when I have finished it, and keep books in there for 6-8 weeks so I can look at my recent reading. It works for me. But a book with a date started does NOT belong in my Currently reading collection, because I have decided NOT to read it. I might add a review, but it also does not belong in Read collection. Not really an issue, as I do not feel any need for Read collection, and would disable it if it were created.

The whole problem with rhese 'smart' collections is that they are NOT smart, but rather stupid in that they only allow for one particular way of using the reatures.

BTW, yes, my iPadinsists on sticking photos into groups that I don't want,that are not accurate, and that I just totally ignore.

>30 MarthaJeanne: Theoretically, it could just be a set of rules and users could pick and choose which to use, which I think is what >20 Bookmarque: was referring to.

>30 MarthaJeanne: People use LT differently, and use features in ways that suit them.

People also change their use of LT based on changes to the system. I used to not bother with reading dates at all, because I consider a book "finished" when I write a review of it. But the year-end summaries motivated me not only to start logging reading dates, but to go back and fill in a decade's worth of finish dates based on my review dates. (Old dog learns new tricks!)

Since then, I've been trying to use the various reading log fields in a way that I think makes obvious sense, but in particular the reading dates and collections for reading status (i.e. to read, currently reading, read but unowned) have a sort of redundancy that sometimes sees me change one and neglect the other, and I do have a very old habit of feeling like I've marked a book "finished" by posting a review. Getting some of these roped together with automated rules seems like a benefit to me.

As long as the "smart" collections have sufficiently transparent rules and are not "smart" in the sense of black-box chatbot style behavior, I think we users will be even smarter in our use of them, as individuals and a community.

I use ‘Currently Reading’ for the half dozen or so books which are in a pile beside the sofa. I would not want any other titles suddenly inserted into that collection.

I create a new Read collection every year, eg Read in 2025.

I’d definitely want to opt out.

This feature did not exist when I started using LT 20 years ago and so must be a bad idea; I demand a toggle to turn it off.

Why should I have a finish date for a book I never finished? Do we need such nuances?

>31 SandraArdnas: Several members have spoken about members editing the riles for their own collections, but >1 timspalding: specifically said he did not intend to do that.

>36 MarthaJeanne: I understood that as not being able to choose what rules there are, not necessarily how they are applied. Since it is not questionable that we would have choices, they could just as well be 'which of these rules do you want to apply and how'. But perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps it's far more complicated to code than and on/off switch for each one. In my mind, having a rule 'start date entered' and choosing to apply it and add the book to Currently Reading (or some other collection) isn't more complex than just having a switch for that rule, but gives more flexibility. We'll see I guess

A smart collection for "Recently Read" would be nice, if the user could choose for themselves what duration counted as "recent" via a setting on the collection, and choice of whether that applies to start date, end date, either date.

A smart "Recently Added", similar with user choosing what duration counted as "recent".

I'm wondering if it would be simpler to not cross over classic collections and smart collections. ie. make smart collections be wholly rules defined, and books can't be added to them manually. Effectively they'd be just filters on Your Books that present like a collection. Then classic collections continue to behave as we have it now, manually adding and removing books.

Choosing active/not per smart collection would be a good idea, better than a whole-account smart on/off: because then if a user likes how the smart "Currently Reading" works, they can have that one active; if they dislike how "Not Rated" smart collection works (because maybe they don't rate books at all), they can have that one deactivated, etc. Like how currently the default collections can be active or not.

I'd love to have a Read collection. However, I do not enter start and end reading dates. If it is in my Library, but not also in to Read, I have read it. I have also read books in Read but Unowned Collection. Then there are books I have read that are no longer in my library. I guess I should be moving them to Read but unowned. Or Read but Deaccessioned. Hm..

>39 MDGentleReader:

I use “Read but Unowned”, and have a separate “Deaccessioned” collection. The former includes books that I have read and deaccessioned, but also books that I have borrowed from the library.

Sounds great. I already do this, it would save me the chore of manually updating.

If there are concerns about automation, can we get round that by using specific collection names? Or just an account option?

>34 Stevil2001: This feature did not exist when I started using LT 20 years ago and so must be a bad idea; I demand a toggle to turn it off.

OMG. This made me laugh. So on the money.

>27 SandraArdnas: Yes, but because GR is so bad at it, I find it easier not to care. :P And this is an issue mostly because a fairly high proportion of the books I read in a year are books I don't own; i really don't like that if I put them in LT, the precise data about books I own gets mixed up with "I read this at a friend's house and don't even know the isbn" and "I read this as an ebook of questionable provenance that I'm not keeping" etc. I often buy a copy of books after i read them and LT seems to be especially messy when it comes to works in both the "read not owned" and "my library" collections, with no good way to merge things like dates and reviews, and inconsistency on when not-owned books are clearly marked that way.

It's gotten better but it's still not great and often means extra clicks to find out what exactly is in my actual library vs read-not-owned. (Goodreads is probably not better at this, but keeping my read in one place and owned in another makes just fewer problems.)