Cataloguing Folio books

An oddity or peculiar? Is it only me noticing? Quite a few recent members of FSD do not show any Folio books in their libraries or, indeed, any books at all.

I don't either, and I'm not recent. I've got my books catalogued in a different way and it's just too much work to do it here, too. I'm here to discuss books and get information, not to catalogue my library publicly.

>1 drasvola:

I notice, Antonio, very much. It's a comparative rarity these days to find people cataloguing their books, whereas I joined LT specifically for that purpose - that's what it's for, after all. Within a week or so I found this fascinating group called Folio Society Devotees and I haven't been able to break the habit.

I've some 2500 books catalogued here - or rather I've some 2500 entries, as where possible I generally acquire an author's works entire and all at once, a few times each in the cases of Shakespeare and Landor, and if I've a complete multi-volume set I enter it as a single item. Folio books are very under-represented among those I've listed, for various reasons. Again, there's the "set" effect - my Folio Trollope came all at once, I don't expect there's a single "Folio Society works of Trollope" entry waiting in Overcat to be adopted, and chasing up the 48 individual volumes to list them here has never appealed. Folio books, especially LEs, tend to be conspicuous, and one of my motives for listing here is to ensure that I don't inadvertently buy the same work twice_ there's not much risk of my accidentally acquiring a second copy of Birds Drawn for John Gould through forgetting that I already have one. While I've done a fair amount of tidying-up author and book entries here on LT I'm not generally motivated to compose an entry from scratch, which would often be required to enter at least newly-published Folio books. And... oh, I don't know. I'm sure there are other factors than these, but, whatever they may be, when a book arrives here I usually record its presence within a week or two, or three, unless it's from Folio...

Personally I appreciate people who do but wouldn’t judge those who don’t.

Having said that, it definitely reflects a commitment to the site and, even if the opposite doesn’t necessarily prove anything, it’s more often than not an effective troll filter.

I’ve seen >2 SF-72: around enough to know he’s for real :)

I have over 2k books, about half of them being FS. I use Google Sheets for cataloguing. I’m on my second try actually, having completed one at the beginning of the pandemic then failed to keep it up. I’ve been on LT for a few years now, joined for the community aspect.

>6 RRCBS: same same. Excel is a wonder.

I use Access. I joined the site as I wanted to list my reading (so joined the 75 book group), rather than joining to catalogue books I owned

I use it as I like the format and find it easy to use but I can understand if others prefer not to use it.

As others have said, I catalogue my books elsewhere. I’m only here for the discussions.

Like >2 SF-72: I'm here for discussion and information. I also find I find Librarything's index system too restrictive in terms of what the overview shows and what information you can catalogue. I track my books through Google Sheets and have a number of columns that I find useful to refer to in a jiffy; namely what's found on the Folio publication page that lists type, paper, printer, binder etc that I find useful to be able to refer to in a jiffy. I also like to track other information that might seem rather useless like where I bought a particular volume, how pages it has, who wrote the introduction, the translator, the book's original language, all of it which I can easily filter when needed.

>3 folio_books:

Thank-you, Glenn, you got my point perfectly.

To stress my post's intention: I was referring to recent members and have never questioned the choice to catalogue or not, or the method to follow.

I have somewhere around 2,000 books, but who’s counting? Cataloguing is boring. I know where my books are and only rarely am I unable to put my hands on one quickly. I joined Librarything for the discussions in FS Devotees and a few other forums.

Perhaps a tangent, but if one uses the basic column names expected by LibraryThing when importing records one can simultaneously gain the flexibility of cataloging using a spreadsheet and the convenience of online access (along with the nice search, filter, and infographic functionality of LibraryThing). The importer will ignore any unrecognized columns, allowing me to systematically record details such as bindery, press, paper, and so forth, which LibraryThing inexplicably (from a bibliophile's perspective) doesn't seem to care about.

This is what I do. For simplicity, every once in a while I delete my whole library on LibraryThing and reimport my personal spreadsheet. So there is no hassle wrangling individual entries.

Pro tip: leave the ISBN field blank even for books that have one to avoid LibraryThing being too smart and guessing things like cover images.

I also use a few simple Excel formulas to compose the tags for each book based on the contents of other columns, which I find quite useful.

>12 drasvola: I suspect there to be some overlap with older members in the reasoning why newbies don't use the LT catalogue but I think it simply boils down to what a person's first platform is that determines which ecosystem they become entrenched in.

Book collectors tend to start out as casual readers and for that something like Goodreads is the most popular platform for those people to flock to which also has a catalogue feature. Once they start delving into fine bindings as a hobby they're already use to Goodreads and likely have a substantial list of titles there. Arriving to a site like LT some probably don't see the need to export and maintain two catalogues, or see the value only in using LT when Goodreads is a much more active platform to engage with, especially by individual titles. Librarything, for all it's value as a news source for publishing news, is comparatively antiquated.

>14 abysswalker: Interesting. I've never tried importing into the LT catalogue, but it sounds convenient. My excel spreadsheet has separate entries for editor, translator, and illustrator, whereas the LT catalogue groups these under the same heading of "Other Authors." Can LT make the relevant discriminations during an import?

I have about 5000 books now. I have never catalogued them, neither here, there or at home. No need to. They are mine and I know where they are, where to grab them when I want them. I am here for some conversation and mostly updates on FS books, releases, reviews.

>15 wongie:

Thank-you for your well-considered comments. Again, I was not trying to judge anyone. If anything, as >5 bacchus.: suggested, in the back of my mind was something akin to a troll filter.

I find the LT catalogue very useful and convenient - far better than GoodReads which never worked for me, so most of my collection and reading is on it. Being totally nerdy, I actually enjoy maintaining LT. It enables me to include all that 'other information ' that >11 wongie: enjoys too, but can totally see where people are coming from who think it's too heavy or not flexible enough - whatever suits! I do enjoy perusing other catalogues though - find myself enabled all too frequently!

I catalogued about 10 then gave up. Too many of my read books go back out the door either as gifts or to the second hand shop. If I made a full list I would spend too much time with data entry and not enough time reading.

Also, if you forget about a book and find it again, it is like a gift from past you to present you!

A long time member, and spent several months entering about 2,000 books from an Access spreadsheet to LT back in 2008, mainly for the ability to add book covers and sort. Catalogue all books owned, or given away.
Started using Goodreads in 2015, mainly because there are more reviews and graphics were interesting. Catalogue books read.
I agree with >15 wongie: that new readers are now more likely to catalogue using Goodreads, as it is the dominant program for recording the books you read (rather than own).

I took the time to catalogue everything on Goodreads, which I found more intuitive than LT. However, they have betrayed me! A recent update to the Goodreads platform removed the ability for users to add new books to the catalogue. Since most of the private press books I buy aren't in their catalogue, this means I have to go to the trouble of posing the details of the book in the librarian forum and show up every couple of days to bump the thread until it gets added a couple of weeks later. This is impossibly tedious, so I gave up and now simply do everything in a spreadsheet.

I started cataloging on LT five or six years ago when a business coach asked me for a list of books I'd read. I entered a few hundred books and realized I wouldn't read most of them a second time. So, I gave most of them away and have continued to cull my library.

I try to read most genre books on a Kindle and save the physical space for nice editions, such as FS or Fine Press, of classics or works that inspire me. The LT interface would be much more useful for me if there was a way to link with vialibri.net to see up to date valuations for individual titles as well as collections.

>11 wongie: "I also like to track other information that might seem rather useless like where I bought a particular volume, how pages it has, who wrote the introduction, the translator, the book's original language, all of it which I can easily filter when needed."

"From where (acquired)?", "Pagination", "Other authors" - "Introduction", "Other authors" - "Translator", and "Original (Languages)" are all built-in fields on LT's Book Detail pages. "From where?","Pages", and "Original Language" can all be sorted on in LT.

>22 ubiquitousuk: I’m a Goodreads Librarian who never looks at the forum, but if you want data added we can work out a means of communication.

Absolutely nothing about this group says you had to have folio books catalogued. There is nothing "odd" or "peculiar" about it.

Welcome to Folio Society Devotees, a Library Thing forum for those who are interested in discussing the beautiful books published by the Folio Society. Everyone is most welcome to join.

I joined by accident when I googled if they ever have sales.

Whether one uses the cataloguing or socializing features of LibraryThing, it is first and foremost geared towards the former. When in doubt, always go back to the manufacturer's specifications/ manual :)



https://www.librarything.com/tour/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibraryThing#:~:text=The%20primary,stores.

There is absolutely no requirement to catalogue your books as a Folio Society Devotees member.
Use this forum in any way you like, socialise, catalogue, review or just lurk and enjoy; just be civil to each other.

Every day is a learning day. I was not aware that library things was primarily a website to catalogue your collections. I guess the clue was in the name! I was aware that some people used that function, but honestly have never looked at other peoples catalogues, although I have enjoyed seeing their home library pictures!

Like a few others, I have been using the site to keep up to date on Folio information, have been interested in peoples recommendations (resulting in my being enabled quite a lot!) as well as trying to share what little knowledge I have. I have also benefitted from peoples help when I have had questions, e.g. when I was buying the Samuel Pepys Diary LE. Also, like a few others have mentioned, I know what books I have and where they are and genuinely do not see a benefit (to myself) in cataloguing them. I am likely to be the only one to read my books, I have not had great experiences when lending out books and so I have learnt that if I want someone to read a book I like, then I should buy it for them :)
I realise that FSD does not require people to have a catalogue and I am certainly not rebelling or feeling challenged that I have not done so :)

When I joined LT (for life - there was a fee, originally) it was to keep a record of my hardback books, which are mostly FS; many extra features have been added to the site over the years but I never use them, just stick to the basics, and keep my home page as uncluttered as possible.

I've written my own cataloguing system website for my book collection, same as I did for my music and movie collections. I would like to eventually import the list into here as well, though. But like many have posted already, I'm here largely for the conversations with fellow bibliophiles.

Well, either I'm doing something wrong, or it's a real pain in the tuchus to add the right book to your library. I'm trying to add my meager Folio Society collection to my set here, and the search function insists I look against various online libraries. Why can't I just go to the existing library of one of the FS aficionados and do "add book to my library" directly from their list? Why when I try this does it redirect to the search page to look for a book which is clearly already in the LT database? This is compounded by the search not finding the exact edition that I started with, nor the same cover. Maddening. I can only think I'm doing it wrong.

>32 Shadekeep: I concluded there’s no such function which is maddening indeed. I hope we are both doing it wrong…

>32 Shadekeep:, >33 bacchus.:

You're not wrong. This thread...

https://www.librarything.com/topic/50866

begins in 2008 with Tim Spalding answering a query by saying that it can't be done, and its newest posts, 158 and 159, are essentially the same query put and answered in the same way last month.

>34 terebinth: Wow. So one of the most useful ways to quickly build your library is not a priority. And I say this as a software developer who does this kind of thing all the time. Either the site must be built in an eccentric way that makes this infeasible, or there's some woolly-headed thinking about why this is not a good thing to do. Very disappointing. I'll abandon my cataloguing attempt and go back to just using the discussion side of the site.

I did create a simple collection page here a while back with a very select portion of my library, that's been easy enough to maintain at least.

https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/User:Shadekeep

I joined LT 15+ years ago to catalog my library. I use that catalog each time I'm browsing at bookshops to avoid duplicates.

The discussion groups were a nice discovery after the fact.

I've been here about 15 years too and cataloguing my books was the initial intention. Somehow I've only done 250 odd out of 1,800 :) I've recently had bookcases made and once I've got all my books sorted properly on the new shelves I do plan to finally get round to cataloguing...honest :-D

Like >2 SF-72: SF-72: I'm here for information. My catalog is not here :)

>2 SF-72:

Ditto, except I don’t even have an alternate cataloguing method. Either way, it’s just too much time and work. I also don’t feel compelled to share my library publicly, or peruse others’ for that matter.

Wow, that sounds grouchy. Sorry! Running on fumes at the moment.

Edit: I also think of my library as more than just my books - all media, including CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays, Blu-ray Audios, DVD-Audios, SACDs, and whatever other formats I have should be included. LT is woefully unprepared to handle this level of variety and detail. I also have concerns about the ability to manage such a database from website-only interface.

This is first site I built for cataloging, it's for my music collection. http://aperto.hexidec.com/

I later split the Classical music into its own site. http://apertomaestro.hexidec.com/

The I did my movies. http://apertocine.hexidec.com/

Now I'm working on books. This one is still in development, none of the sub-pages (Book Info, Author Page, Genres) work at the moment. It's also doing a forced redirect to https that I need to take out. http://apertofrontis.hexidec.com/

Despite having built these, I'm really slack about keeping them up to date. I know there's a ton of music missing from the first one, and there are movies and books waiting to be added as well. I'm the kind of person who is more engaged by the challenge of creation than the routine of maintenance. 😉

Wow that’s so interesting about music and movies. I got rid of all my DVDs and CDs a few years ago, but for some reason, real books still enchant me.

>40 Shadekeep:

LT does not limit you to books. You can start separate collections for anything you wish within your page and catalogue independently. I have collections for books, e-books, comics, films and recordings.

>42 drasvola: Oh, I know. But the system is such a pain to add books to, I can't even bother with the rest. And I've had these sites for a long time now.

>42 drasvola:
Perhaps, but LT is no Discogs when it comes to music and even Discogs has it's own identity tracking issues.

>44 treereader:

Well, LT is truly geared for bibliophiles.