Tag Mirror vs. Group Catalogue Search

In another thread, Tim asked which we would prefer to have back: the Tag Mirror or Group Search. After some confusion, I think this means searching the catalogue of individual groups. But nothing seems to have come of it either way, and the discussion wasn't in the ideal location.

Which would you prefer to get back?

I would like to know for sure what he meant by group search. If he did, in fact mean searching group catalogues, then I would lean towards tag mirror. But if he meant general search in Groups, then I would prefer that.

What does the Tag Mirror actually do? I think it was disabled before I ever had a chance to notice it.

*chants* I want Tag Mirror back! I want Tag Mirror back!

I'm pretty sure he meant searching all the libraries of all the members of one group at once. This has been much requested.

>#3

You know the tag cloud on a work page, which brings together all the tags used on that work by every member who owns it? Tag mirror is pretty much that, but for all the books in your library, not just one.

The specific feature about Tag Mirror that makes it a "mirror" is that all the tags in it are somebody else's - it gives you a look at how other people have tagged your books, in aggregate.

I'd really like to be able to search in group catalogues once again, something especially important for private groups set up between family members and friends. Tag Mirror is fun, but not something you'd go back to again and again.

7> I think your tags are probably in there too. It's just that they're probably insignificant when combined with everyone else's tags for the same works.

Thanks for the explanations!

>8 kathrynnd:

Except I did go back to it again and again when it was available. I mean, I can read through a lot of books and it's interesting to see how the tag cloud changes and shifts depending on what I've added to my library. I suppose the rate of change will slow down soon, but even if it does I'll still go to it for the main reason I used it before: a convenient starting point for just browsing tags that might be of interest to me.

The likelihood of me ever wanting to search through what other books a group holds is pretty low. I understand your use case, but I wonder how many families or book clubs actually have groups set up. Now, I might get interested in the books held by a member of a group or even more, but more likely I'd want a browse. Even then though, there's not much advantage between looking just in one group compared to just looking in all of librarything.

Maybe if LibraryThing interested more of my friends and family and I could create "groups" I could see more of an advantage.

I have seen posts from a number of members who wanted to have family groups exactly because it would allow searching the whole family's books; the last such post I saw, the person found the lack of this feature to be a deal-breaker.

Personally, I'd prefer to see some better way to link family accounts. Groups are not an ideal solution and never have been. For example, some people want to maintain separate profiles but one library; it would be nice if there were a way to sync two different account so that books added to one were automatically added to the other, but could then have separate ratings etc. Or (and?) there could be a whole new kind of group, a Personal/Family group, that allowed catalogue browsing as well as searching as long as there were fewer than X books/members, maybe with other minor differences as well (automatically private?).

Basically, if the goal is to address the needs of families, Tim should start from scratch and consider how best to address them, rather than spending a lot of time making difficult changes to a feature that's largely not about families--especially when those changes won't be fully satisfactory anyway.

I'm one of those who made a family group and was happily cataloging everyone's books. But stopped mid-stream when searching-within-groups went away. Now I've been adding their books to my catalog so I can search again. But what a waste of time! Especially when some of them had gotten over the 200 and became lifetime paid accounts. Now they're unusable for my purposes.

I agree with _Zoe_ - (man, its happening to me, as well!) - there should be a better way to do the family thing, but if not, I'd sure like it back like it was.

But I loved tag mirror, too. :)

Maybe if LibraryThing interested more of my friends and family and I could create "groups" I could see more of an advantage.

I can't help with your friends and family, but anyone can start a group on the group page.

14> If you mention this to Tim, it's highly likely he'd offer you a refund on all those extra-and-now-useless paid accounts. That's just how he rolls.

>15 jjwilson61:
I meant that I could create groups independently of individuals choosing to join or not.

In other words, I had "professional friends". My "professional friends" wouldn't know I'd put them into a group/category/tag. But I'd be able to search that category of people's books. So I can quickly know if a book is held by the a large number of library software developers as opposed to normal library developers.

There might be a way to do this with private groups, I haven't played around with it much.

In the end though, I just can't see myself using it much. My wife and I do have a few books that would be "in common", but I wouldn't bother to track them together. For gift giving I only care about the ones wanted/held by each persons. Almost no one I know uses LibraryThing. The few who do track reading tend to use shelfari or Good Reads. Almost all those who maintain "want lists" do so on Amazon.

16> {Cue whiney-toddler-voice.} But, I don't ~want~ a cookie. I want the whole box!

(Translated to say: I'd rather wait and see if the good stuff comes back before thinking about a refund. Since the bulk of our gifts for any gift-giving occasion were always books, that group search was invaluable. I really hope it comes back in some capacity.)

If group searching came back I would try to talk a few friends into joining LT and forming a private group so it would be easy to see has the other books of favorite authors, or other books on subjects of interest to make borrowing books back and forth easier.

It might be that this would have to be limited to small groups, but for family and private groups this would be invaluable.

Does anyone know if anything has come of this? Would be very exciting to see group-search back in operation soon!

Tim said on the new feature thread about groups and connections that it is on its way!

21> Thanks for this. I had a look on the new features group thread but can't see anything there - can you/anyone else point me in the right direction? Thanks!

Check the LibraryThing blog (link at the bottom of any page or top right of your Home page) - he's got a post about the groups and connections, and he usually puts a link to the Talk thread about it in the blog post.

23> Thanks; I've seen that post, but that's about a different feature to do with groups rather than the group catalogue search feature that this thread is about. The latter is what I'm seeking an update on!

I think he mentioned groups/connections in the thread about Add Books. He said that he was working on it, but had to put it aside temporarily because the person he needed for it is out or busy with another project right now, so he'll do Add Books first.

If you mean this thread, it wasn't groups; it was tag watch. Tim said, "I said I would be rebuilding tag watch, but the dynamics of development—who's available, who's not, what needs to happen, when, etc.—had me spend Sunday redoing the Add books page instead."

25, 26> Thanks. So, still no news on the group catalogue search feature being rebuilt/re-enabled, Tim?

I always loved Tag Mirror, not so much because of my tag mirror, but because of others. Even if they tagged lightly or not at all, I could still hit their tag mirror and see "cooking mage mage the ascension owod rpg white wolf wod" and know at a glance their collection.

I would like to see group search working again (yes, it indeed worked years ago). Groups like Wikipedia-Bibliothek have been founded just for this feature.

Full ack to AFBorchert. We moved from our site at Wikipedia to catalogue our collections and now we're no longer able to search them :(

I would love to see Tag Mirror back again, it was part of the reason why I signed up for the site, and I am not very good at tagging my own material.

Just seen that tag mirror is back up and running - nice!

What about Group Catalogue Search?