Change Collection

Hello,

Not sure if this is the right place to write, we are pretty new to this wonderful community, but I was wondering if there was a smart way to move all the books now present in "My Library" - about 1250 books, to another collection folder, or if I have to do it manually by changing the collection for each book.

Thanks for your help
Have a great day
.A

>1 Bibli0spin: You can make bulk changes to collections and tags by using the lightning bolt icon along the top of the catalog pages. It’s towards the right side.

It appears you know how to custom create collections.

>1 Bibli0spin: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/HelpThing:Your_Books/Power_Edit

I've been entering all the books from my personal library into the collection called "Your Library." I'm also using collections for "audiobook" and "ebook," as well as a few others. Some books are in more that one collection.

So, here is my question, should my audiobooks and ebooks also be added to "Your Library?" Or, should that be reserved for print only? What are other people doing?
Thanks,
Carolyn

>4 CarolynBurke7: Your library, your choice :)

I use Your Library for my physical books (paper or audio on disks) and "Read but Unowned" for any book I read/listen to but do not own. Then when I look at an author or series page, I see green for the books I have around the house, blue for any book I had read but do not own in any format and grey for books I own in some kind of a digital format (because all books not in one of the other two collections will fall into this category for me based on how I catalog - physical audiobooks will be both in Your Library and in Audiobooks so they show up green because I have them on a shelf somewhere; Audibles and all ebooks will always be grey if I own them). But this is how I use the site.

Figure out what is important for you on different pages - and that will tell you how/what you want to organized and how.

I have everything I own in Your Library (as well as in other relevant collections). It makes it easy to search for anything you have in whatever form. Organize it the way it's most useful to you. Theoretically, you can have separate collections for physical books and ebooks, and both added to Your Library. But if searching those collections separately isn't important, you can also just use Your Library and use tags for the format of the book. Many other possibilities, depending on how you'll want to search and where you want the information to be

Thanks for the input everyone! I'm still processing but will report back later on that!

It's so nice to have a supportive group to ask questions. I'm loving LibaryThing already. I'm retired and this makes me feel like a librarian again!

Now, I have another question. I want to track all the books in my library but I also want to track all the books i have read whether I own them or not.

What are people doing about the books they have read but don't actually own in any format?

There is a set collection, 'Read but unowned'. Books I own are in 'Your books'. Ones I have discarded or borrowed from the library are in 'Read but unowned'.

I also use the "read but unowned" collection for library books, but for things I used to have but have discarded or lost, I have a separate collection called "Discarded&lost".

I have various tags that separate the books in the Read but unowned collection: Discarded, @Hauptbücherei, Overdrive, ...

Again, thanks for the input.

>2 2wonderY: Thank you so much, that was really helpful!

Thank you all for the great tip! I just massively moved the books from "my library" also to my collection "English" in 2 seconds! you just saved me a ton of time!

I have another question, just to be extra sure... now all the books appear in both "my library" and the collection "English": is it possible to remove the books from my library and have them show up only in the collection? I think I know how to do it, I just don't want to end up deleting 1500 books... (not quite sure what the function of "my library" is)

Also, in your opinion, is such a move (removing the books from "my library" and transferring them to a specific collection) a smart one? Our goal is to set up an elementary school multilingual library (about 7000+ books), and the idea is to divide them into 4 main categories (English, Italian, French, and German) with Italian being the local language.

Thank you once again for any tips or suggestions you can provide! Your input is greatly appreciated

Books need to be in at least one collection. You can remove them from Your Library if you wish, again using Power Edit. Just be sure you are removing them from the collection and not deleting them.

Most people use 'Your Library' to distinguish books they own from those they have borrowed, or since given away. Ie, not 'Read but unowned'.

Your Library is for whatever you consider your library to be. Some people consider their library to be all the books they've ever read and some people consider all the books they physically have. Remember that LT was originally and still mostly is for people cataloging their home libraries

How do I adjust my settings to make the space allotted for a field's box bigger or smaller?

>16 CarolynBurke7: You can't resize the box for fields on your own - some will automatically resize on the "Your books" page, depending on how large your screen is, but that's about it.

It should be noted that the Your Books page will be updated as part of the UI revamp that is in progress so the way that the boxes resize may change in the near future.

Thanks for the input.