add a whole series at once

dear everyone,

I'm not going to add the 30 titles of the Discworld series one by one, ditto my entire collection of Gaiman, Melville etc.

Is there a way to add an entire series or better, an entire author's works all at once?

please say yes.

cheers,
the picky (but always lovable) mermaid

no. Sorry.

If you have the list of ISBNs you should be able to import them...

Or if you have your library in some sort of database file, you could import that. But since LibraryThing allows real cataloging, which means you can get editions and such just right, there's also no shortcut to import all books by any author at one go (how would you get any edition right then).

>4 Nicole_VanK: I don't buy that argument. We're allowed to enter books manually with only a title. Entering whole series quickly is a technical problem to be solved by generic editions, not something that should be forbidden on principle (though I would argue for a series-adding page where we had to check off each book that we wanted to add, rather than adding them all in a single click).

Oh come on, you know I don't mean it that way and that I'm not against the possibility of adding generic titles. But you also know it's not here on LT as such yet.

Sure, but I don't want to suggest to new users that LT considers itself above quick and convenient cataloguing. This is one of the most-requested features, and I'm sure it will come eventually (my guess is three years).

someone pointed out in another thread that you actually can do this... well, sort of. put the authors name in the add books search field and click on all the books you want to enter. even though they gray out after the first one, you can still click on them if you are speedy.

of course, that's just going to give you the most popular edition for that book, so if you are really interested in cataloging what you have this isn't going to help.

#7 Three years, Zoe? Nah, two weeks!

>9 justjim: Isn't that the same thing? ;)

Sadly, yes.

> 7: Fair enough. And I certainly didn't mean to discourage anyone.

>12 Nicole_VanK: And I didn't mean to respond too harshly :)

>13 BTRIPP: It's still annoying, though. I got out a few boxes from storage today and catalogued 150 books from only three different series, and I can't say it was an enjoyable or even particularly effective process. I ended up leaving capitalized titles and wrong covers and uncombined singletons, because I had to spend so much time on the basics. I'd much rather get the first step out of the way quickly so that I could focus on correcting the details. And if people aren't concerned about the details, all the more reason to let them get the basics quickly.

I agree with Zoe in 5.

> 13

Whoa. Way to make a new member feel like LT is a welcoming and friendly place, there.

>17 Aerrin99:

Was that irony? Because the single biggest thing that would make LT inviting to new users would be a one-click method of adding bare-bones works to your library from existing works, or maybe even the series pages.

Well since the OP is kind of petulant about not wanting to participate in the functionality of the site, what behooves welcoming? She's already counted herself out to a large degree by taking her toys and going home. If I find a site, fool around with it and decide it's not for me, I don't join anyway and post about how I don't like it.

>19 Bookmarque: She's still using the site. She had 30-something books catalogued when she posted, and is up to 100 now.

And of course, if you don't want to welcome someone, you can always just say nothing at all....

Aerrin and Zoe's point is an important one. I think that we should be extra nice to newcomers even if we feel that they are behaving other than we wish. Kind explanations will do much more to modify a newcomer's behaviour as we wish than any amount of mockery. (Even high quality mockery like #13).

Eh, I don't agree. If someone walks into my hangout and starts to whine, I'm not likely to be all friendly like. Saying nothing only encourages the whine factor. Stay or don't stay, I don't really care, just quit whining and threatening to take your toys and go home if things don't go your way.

Where was all this whining and threatening? I didn't realize that people were obligated to enter every single book they owned if they wanted to use the site. Saying that you're not going to enter all your books because it's too inconvenient isn't the same as threatening to leave if things don't go your way.

Let me repeat that she has added many more books since starting this thread. The "taking her toys and going home if things don't go her way" is all in your head.

Agreed. The O.P. has entered just over a hundred books, and has only been here for, what, two days? And "Gee, this is a lot more work than it could be. Is there a shortcut?" really doesn't seem like whining or threatening to go home to me.

Well it did to me and others so whatever.

To whom, if you don't mind my asking?

This is an efficiency I'd like to see as well - especially since I can often identify editions by cover. I have full series on quite a few things, not to mention multple books by authors. It would be a boon if there was a way to kind of go to, say, a Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett page and see top books drawn from your source and then click all the books you'd like to add at once.

It'd be fantastic for wishlisting as well.

The problem with this is what will be proposed as a series - in most series there is a tone of stories and omnibuses together with the core items. I somehow do not see how unclicking all the not-necessary ones and picking up the correct edition for each work will be faster than adding them one by one... It might work if someone do not care for editions but even then...

I wonder if Tim is worried about making it too easy. If you allowed generic editions to be added automatically from series and author pages then someone could add all the books from the for Dummy series and everything ever written by Azimov and Heinlein and create a huge dummy library with almost no effort. Is there the potential there for people goofing off and malicious mischief?

Yeah, this is why I'd rather have to check a box for each book I want to add rather than having a way to add the whole series with one click. Checking 100 boxes to add a hundred-book series would still be a whole lot faster than searching individually for 100 titles or ISBNs and then clicking to add each one.

>30 _Zoe_:

Don't think so... if you really want to add a full series, just copying a title after title is fast enough. Even if there are checkboxes and so on, it still will need to search in Amazon or somewhere else for all of them - and that's what makes individual adding slower I guess...

Even if there are checkboxes and so on, it still will need to search in Amazon or somewhere else for all of them

Well, not if there are generic editions....

>32 _Zoe_:

Putting a pan on the fire before the fish is caught...
When there is a generic edition, a lot of things might be possible. But as the site stays now, there is no realistic way for this.

>29 jjwilson61:
Or Agatha Christie :) That's what I am a bit unhappy about also - it will make adding things to wishlist so easy that we will end up with a lot of people with 10 000 books in a wishlist. And Tim had always said that LT is better for libraries with less than 5000 books (or something along these lines)

#29 -- There's still the 200-book limit for free accounts . . . so, if somebody wanted to create a library with all of the books you mention, they would have to pay at least $10 or stop with 200. I'm not sure how they could create malicious mischief with this tactic, either -- do you mean by using up a lot of bandwidth for adding so many things at once? By skewing the stats?

By skewing the stats?

If this is indeed what jjwilson61 meant as mischief, I'd point out that our Wishlist collections, no matter how quickly we added books to them, could be seen as skewing the stats*. Unless LT introduces rules as to which books you must enter and which ones you may enter -- and which ones you may not enter -- skewing the stats doesn't hold water as an argument.

* So could wish list accounts, back before there were Collections.
Edited for clarity.

Putting a pan on the fire before the fish is caught...
When there is a generic edition, a lot of things might be possible. But as the site stays now, there is no realistic way for this.

Yes, but it makes a lot of sense to focus on the ultimate goals. This is one of the most-requested features, especially among new users. The fact that it can't be accomplished instantly doesn't mean we should just give up.

That's what I am a bit unhappy about also - it will make adding things to wishlist so easy that we will end up with a lot of people with 10 000 books in a wishlist.

This is why we need more separation of wishlists.

>37 _Zoe_:

Having the wishlist with more separation won't fix the fact that the site is not intended for such huge libraries.

I guess skewing the stats. Tim is concerned enough about bad data to have sabotaged the green plus (it doesn't work the way 99% or even 100% of the people expect it to work; wouldn't you call that sabotage?), so I'm wondering if he has a similar reason for not doing this.

>38 AnnieMod: If that's really the problem, it's easily remedied. Tim can cap the size of the wishlist, or of libraries in general, if that's what he's actually concerned about.

Deliberately making the site inconvenient to use to prevent people from using it too much seems pretty backwards to me. That's not the way to be successful.

>39 jjwilson61:
Tim did indeed give bad data as the reason for semi-disabling the green plus. That said, I'd hardly call bad data skewing the stats: bad data is bad data, while I'd read "skewing the stats" as inflating the stats.

I don't think Tim was concerned about wishlist accounts before because they didn't account for a large percentage of the books on the site. But being able to add truly huge amounts of works to your wishlist with little effort might change that equation. I hope this feature isn't added before Tim gets around to adding more separation between the wishlists and the rest of the data.

>42 jjwilson61:
Well, my wishlist collection contains a dozen books. My wishlist account, on the other hand, contains over a hundred. So it can work both ways.

Edited for punctuation.

>40 _Zoe_:

What I am saying is that before they open the easy way to add books, they need to figure out a way to prevent the problems from it happening. Now technically you can add 10 000 books but it is highly unlikely. If a click adds 1000 books, the situation is different and other controls need to be put in place.

It is always about how the majority will behave -- a few people adding 10 000 books are not a big deal; 1000 doing so might be.

Might be wrong but from what had been said on the site, that's what I suspect is one of the issues

i often feel that people who are rude or snarky to newcomers should be ready to cough up some extra dough. it's fine and dandy to talk about people "coming into your hangout" and acting a way you don't like, but it's a very different thing if it's your business. i was similarly (well, much much more aggressively) run off another site with that kind of behavior. we all have to remember that LT, first and foremost for some, is a business that needs to make money for any of us to be able to enjoy it.

as for # of books cataloged having a cap, i don't think i agree with that idea. but there should be some sort of extra charge for insanely huge libraries. maybe something like:

up to 200= free
200 to 2,000*= $10/yr
2,000 to 4,000= $15/yr
4,000 and up= $20/yr

of course, lifetime memberships would be a bit more problematic, so there would have to be a way to charge them the $5 when they move up a category.

*these numbers are for example purposes only. i think there would need to be some sort of vote to set the actual numbers

>45 leahbird:

What you forget here though is that most of the big libraries owners (at the site as it is now) are helping the site in a lot of other ways - combining, separations, CK and so on) so if something start to get charged based on the number of books, this also needs to be considered. Just thinking aloud.

>45 leahbird:
And a smallish detail with bigger consequences: When someone passes 2,000 books, does the $10 they already paid count towards the $15?

As with AnnieMod, I'm just thinking aloud, but I like to see things fully thought.

I definitely think it's worth considering these things, I just don't think the whole feature should be outright rejected on these grounds.

Charging slightly more for more books seems reasonable, especially since the numbers people were talking about were pretty large ones. I wouldn't start the extra charges at 2000, but at 5000 or even 10000.

I'm not sure that combining etc. should be taken into account for charges. Tim has seemed pretty reluctant to create different levels of users--just introducing the tiny medals was a big deal.

And a smallish detail with bigger consequences: When someone passes 2,000 books, does the $10 they already paid count towards the $15?

I would say yes.

>48 _Zoe_:.

I would say yes.

I agree. Like an "Upgrade Your Account ($dollar_value_here)."

But, uh, I'm morally opposed to tier systems on account of the fact that I have limited funds, as I keep buying books.

45> I think atlargeintheworld agrees too given his last sentence:

...so there would have to be a way to charge them the $5 when they move up a category.

> 45: I wouldn't terribly mind having to pay a couple of extra $$$, but I do resent the idea that there's anything "insane" about having a couple of thousands of books in the home. ;-)

>47 AnnaClaire: i would say yes, most definitely

>48 _Zoe_: yeah, the numbers were completely arbitrary

>49 aethercowboy: yes, an upgrade option is exactly what i had in mind. when someone signs up (or becomes a paid member for the first time) they could also have the option of picking their tier then. so they could go ahead and pay $15 if they knew they would hit that mark.

But, uh, I'm morally opposed to tier systems on account of the fact that I have limited funds, as I keep buying books.

yes, this is the problem i have as well.

>50 jjwilson61: her

>51 Nicole_VanK: yes, it's insane... insane that you get to have them and i don't!

insane that you get to have them and i don't!

Give it time. I seem to have about a 30 years start on you.

I find the snark violently offensive. OP is asking for assistance, not contempt.
OP, as a new user, could be asking for a functionality or shortcut that is not immediately visible. I found that it took a lot of clicks to add 15 books by the same author, from the author page. I am not a collector; I am a reader, and the edition itself has little value to me. I simply choose the edition that has the greatest number of Librarything members, for "data aggregation."

I support the idea of generic editions for wishlists. One of the primary functions of my Excel Booklist was to keep track of books I already owned by prolific authors. There could be an optional feature for fanatics that would allow them to target the specific edition they "wished" for.

>53 Nicole_VanK: I foresee many storage problems in my future.

>53 Nicole_VanK:
Now this made me think what will happen here after 30 more years... (eying all boxes that are still packed after the last moving).

>55 _Zoe_:.

That's why I procured an e-reader, so I could stop buying Public Domain and Creative Commons dead-tree books. Though, I'm thinking of taking more advantage of my vaulted ceilings... I could double my current storage space.

I'll probably get an ereader eventually, but I don't think it's time yet, for various reasons. Maybe in a couple of years.

I'm also hoping to have an office one day, which would help a lot.

And if necessary, desperate times call for desperate measures:

>58 _Zoe_:.

I was indefinitely putting off getting an ereader. But Google Books gave me one, so I didn't complain.

Whenever I finally move into a house, I'm going to contract a circular book spire with a reading desk/chair in the middle. But for now, a limited number of book cases.

That is an awesome chair.

>58 _Zoe_:

Does that come in a toilet version?

>59 aethercowboy: You have a good point there. Will they give me one too?

I'm having trouble visualizing your circular book spire, but it sounds pretty impressive.

>60 DaynaRT: Somehow I wouldn't be surprised.

>59 aethercowboy:.

There were only 30 to give out. You missed the boot on this one: http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2009/10/announcing-winners-for-10-days-in.html

Imagine, a really tall bookcase, wrapped into a gentle circle (or into a hexagon, or some other aesthetic n-gon, for some n in N where n < 10 (and n != 0, if you define N to include 0)), and a really tall ladder on a circular track. And a cat somewhere, for good measure.

Edit: hey, it's still there!

missed the boot

I love it! :D

Imagine, a really tall bookcase, wrapped into a gentle circle (or into a hexagon, or some other aesthetic n-gon, for some n in N where n

This would definitely be interesting. I'm curious to know the further restrictions on n, though....

>63 _Zoe_:.

n is a Natural number (a nonnegative (and maybe nonzero) Integer).

I doubt I'll take n from any other number set, unless I live in Massachusetts, near Arkham or Dunwich.

Yes, but then what? n in N, where n....

Le sigh. I have at last count something over 1100 books in my two TBR lists (400-odd owned, just shy of 700 unowned) (and ever growing, as I add books way faster than I read them). I love love love being able to use this site to keep track of the many, many books that catch my attention and which I would promptly forget about if I didn't have a list of them all in one place. And I would really love to ever see generic editions and one-click adding for all those books. Is this really abusing the site?

Admittedly I haven't thought this through exactly, but it seems like if you're deliberately making your site harder to use and less accessible, there is something amiss with your philosophy about what your site is for.

I'm also having a pretty hard time seeing what's "malicious" about adding a gazillion wishlisted books.

See, there's the problem right there. To some of us, it doesn't seem very difficult to use, and seems very accessible.

I honestly don't mind adding books. I even do some of them manually. It doesn't seem hard to me. Maybe it's because I'm old and remember using typewriters and writing things out by hand.

I love this site, and the ease with which I can keep tabs on the hundreds of books that I own. (Well over 2,000 the last time I looked.)

>58 _Zoe_: now i'm coveting that chair.... damn.

I honestly don't mind adding books. I even do some of them manually

My library on LT has 5,174 books in it plus the eleven that I am going to be entering in just a few minutes. I don't have a cue cat. Maybe I am insane.

@68 I didn't say it was difficult to use or inaccessible. I said it was more difficult to use and less accessible than it needs to be, and if this is deliberate, I think that's ridiculous.

Just because it works OK doesn't mean it couldn't work better and isn't that what RSI is in theory for?

Part of the issue is that originally the focus of this site was getting top-quality cataloguing data - not just title and author as some want.

The problem is that as people who just want the latter started to use LT they either added any old edition, just added the title and author manually, or did horrendous stuff like adding a work "all books in the Foundation series".

There still exists a tension between the two groups.

There has always been a problem with people who add extreme numbers of books (Project Gutenberg was one of the problems in the early days). One could say that they want to read 100,000 (or a million) books does that mean they should be on a wishlist? To my mind the personal connection between you and any one of a 100,000 wishlisted books is very weak. Far weaker then someone who has a wishlist of a 100 or even 500 books. At some point - and I don't get to make up the number - the connection is so weak that it should be deemed to be irrelevant.

doesn't mean it couldn't work better and isn't that what RSI is in theory for?

Of course. Views on whether this would be an improvement differ - as you noticed. But bringing it up is perfectly okay.

did horrendous stuff like adding a work "all books in the Foundation series"

And yet, people are encouraged to do this "horrendous stuff" by the lack of a feature like the one requested here. It doesn't work just to tell users what they should and shouldn't do; if they're using an undesirable workaround, the best solution is to give them a proper solution.

>65 _Zoe_:.

Silly me. Defeated by the less-than sign.

n <10.

I forgot the rest of what I said after that... Probably something funny.

My library on LT has 5,174 books in it plus the eleven that I am going to be entering in just a few minutes. I don't have a cue cat. Maybe I am insane.

yes, clearly insane... do you have a spare bedroom? i have a cuecat. i will gladly trade you my cuecat (which i have never actually used :gasp:) for uninhibited rights to your library.

I have a Cue Cat. I got it back when they (RadioShack) were giving them out like a strange guy in the park gives out candy to small children. It's a PS/2 one, even! I have honestly never used it, so it sits like a chthonic grimalkin in a box of tangled wires and Unix live CDs.

yes, clearly insane... do you have a spare bedroom? i have a cuecat. i will gladly trade you my cuecat (which i have never actually used :gasp:) for uninhibited rights to your library.

I was going to say you could just come by and use the reading chair in the basement by the big shelves, but Tennesee to Virginia would be a long commute for you.

@ stephmo

yes exactly! I mean, my Pratchett series is nearly all the same with one or two different ones thrown in because they were gifts. It would be great to be able to load the whole collection and then tweak it rather than go one by one. I was also thinking of promotion. You know, when Penguin Classics or something comes out you can add just a title and it could ask you if you have other books from the same collection. That way, if you don't, you can just add what you like, but if you do, you have the option to add everything at once. Oh rapture ;)

So far it's been great and I've added lots of books, but I'll need a whole weekend of not school or work or music journalism to add everything. bored programmers of the open source, hear my call!

cheers,
Mermaid

#79

Yes - but you might get a load of British editions or a different US edition to the one you own.

Also the Discworld series has lots of omnibuses, the companions, Science of Discworld books, plays, maps, art books and other non-core books.

>80 andyl: She was responding to my response. Which is a rough outline for simply organizing and offering functionality to the commonly offered up, "just type in the author's name" workaround. Or are you saying that is too overwhelming and are proposing that libraries not accept author names for searches because it might pull back too much information?

I'm trying to understand how your "problem" is somehow going to be any different than what we have today.

>72 andyl: Is there an, errmm... official way to go about this?

I came across such a user today (listings lots of series they had collected, even incomplete ones, as "books a b and d of series x". And no, they were not omnibus edtions). I find this a bit annoying, as these "books" then appear on author pages and combining them (some of them are translations of popular titles/classics) seems to be impossible. It also defeats the purpose of "similar libraries" and other useful features of LT for that particular user as they are the sole owner of that "title" (although of course lots of other people DO own those books...) I started to write a private comment in their profile about this, but deleted it after a couple of lines because I'm not sure it's my business to tell people how to use their account. But now I'm wondering if there's an established method to report/modify these books or something?

The fact that they get listed on the author page as "works", in my opinion, makes it about common data and not just an issue with an individuals library. I don't know what can be done about this if a person doesn't want to change it. Perhaps there can be a way to flag books on an author page to suppress them?

I think it's LT's responsibility to make the site convenient enough that people will use it properly. If there's a much-requested feature that they've refused to add, I don't think anyone has a right to complain when people find a work-around.

This goes both for quick adding of series and for alternatives to paying (e.g., ads) to allow adding of more books.

Refuse to add seems pretty harsh. They can't possibly implement everything that anyone suggests.

82> No, unfortunately, there's really nothing anyone can do. It's considered rude to tell someone how to put stuff into their own library (though a misspelled author or title could get a polite note - very polite and cautious, in case the recipient goes ballistic). At least those multi-books appear at the bottom of the list, since it's sorted by number of copies.

It might also be a way of getting around the 200 book limit. But since that method pretty much defeats all the connection abilities of LT, it doesn't seem very useful to me - those who choose to use it are mostly hurting themselves, as you point out.

Twelve years later, and I also wish I could add an entire series to my account at once. I don't care about particular ISBN, just want an electronic record of my wishlist. For example I'd like to add the Core books from series Harry Potter, Redwall: Publication Order, Mars Diaries, and Boxcar Children. It seems I have to manually gather hundreds of ISBNs just to add these four series.

>87 micahlindstrom: and speaking of 12 years later... i got lost in the middle of all that before i realized how old this post was.

i made the mistake once of thinking it would be nice if we could click on a list of books already entered.

what is a dummy library? and why should i fear it?

>87 micahlindstrom: Actually, you just need the titles and author, in an import file, if you care for no other details than those.

If one has some stacks of books with ISBN barcodes then adding them with the mobile app is rather quick. That has certainly changed since 2009.

But some of the examples were for wish list purposes. If one could find a page for a series that had ISBNs then it might be possible to use a file with those numbers with the import feature.

Probably only a few of the previous respondents are still around and at the same time interested in this dormant topic.

James

I import my ebooks on a regular basis, using the LibraryThingSample.csv file at the bottom right of this page https://www.librarything.com/import (you get to it, normally, through More>Import>Universal Import).

I enter author, title, published date if I have it, tags...I forget, there's several other fields. I don't bother with number of pages or call number...huh, I probably should fill that one out, since I normally have to edit it on LT afterward. I specifically don't enter ISBNs, because if you do the import will go looking and fill out data based on that, and it's often wrong data (ebook ISBNs are still a little wonky). Without ISBNs in the import, LT will create a book record containing exactly what you have in your database.

I fill the database out by exporting from calibre, since I'm trying to enter my ebooks. But filling it out by hand, even for several dozen books, shouldn't take too long, especially if all you want is title and author. Just don't change the column titles or rearrange them, and LT will enter that data just fine. It will be marked as "manually entered" in your catalog.