Series page now shows all books

I've changed the series page, so you can get all books in a series, not just the books you have. The ones you have are then marked with green checks.



The only problem is simple size. Members with lots of books—particularly lots of dummies guides, travel guides, and etc. will see a lot of data. When I do it, the result is 390k in size. This will, I predict, hang some people who have 10,000 books and are running IE6 on a PC Junior.

The answer is either to divide it up into pages or do give each series a "see more" option. Any preferences?

Awesome!!

I'd vote for "see more."

Mine doesn't! A case in point is Adrian Mole, the first on the list. According to the series page there are 9 books entered and I only have two. Only these two show on my series coverage page - but, on the plus side, they both have green check marks!

Never mind, I clicked on the "All books in the series" link and lo and behold, all the books in the series. Bad case of foot in mouth disease today for some reason.

You're back to awesome, Tim.

Also, this page is a real case for Wishlist aware check marks.

Click on "All books in series."

Having played with this for a bit longer, would it be possible to implement this feature on a series-by-series basis?

I own a copy of No Mean City, a gritty tale of the harsh life in the underworld of the slums of Glasgow, which some pillock has put into a 4000+ book publisher series called Harlequin Romances. I am mortified! What if my mates see this? What if my Mother sees this?

Besides, it makes the page too long.

While I'm asking for ponies, would it be possible to ignore certain series on the list. A lot of them seem to overlap.

>5 justjim:

The ability to fix it is in your hands.

Done. Probably made someone mad though. Goodnight.

How about individual twisties for each series? (Should I provide you with two beers for tomorrow night? Oh, wait -- this was after that! Is this the result of three beers? Buy that man more beer!)

definitely voting for a "see more" option. that list was way more overwhelming that i thought it would be. but very interesting as well.

it would also be interesting to be able to ignore a series. for example: if i'm reading a series in chronological order i'd like to ignore the publishing order since it's really just repeated, unnecessary information. or ignoring the Best American series, since it's huge and i'm only interested in the one book i've got.

I want a real pony: I would love each series to have a choice: See all, See my books, Ignore. That is the only way my series page is going to be useful at all. It is way too long now even without the new changes.

Thank-you, Tim.

Thank-you; thank-you; thank-you.

Now all that's needed is a one-click button on a work page to add the work (canonical title and author) to your library and automatically import to your Wishlist collection.

That's perfect :) I like it as it is - if I want to see only one series, I can just open the series list - this page is useful exactly because it has all of the series in one place...

Thanks for this. My one complaint would be that the ordering still doesn't work as intelligently as it does on the series pages.

I love this! Something I have wanted since series began - thank you!
I would definitely like a 'show more' button but also - like MarthaJeanne - the choice to ignore at times; especially those really long series I know I am never going to add to.

And then what Noisy suggested... :)

(...all this is NOT helping me control my TBR mountain!!!)

I like!

After clicking "all books in series" I see a little wheel spinning around, and when it stops --- nothing.

Do I need to keep waiting?

>17 myshelves:

must have timed out. i get that sometimes too. try refreshing, but if that doesn't work make sure to note it for tim.

#18

Already tried refreshing.

I'm puzzled that the little spinning thingie disappears pretty fast. Usually when something times out on me, I see an indication that it is working on loading for a much longer time.

I really like it, but instead of (or, preferably, along with) the current "your books/all books" option, I wish there could also be a "your books/all books" option for each series. It would be a little cluttered, but there are some books that I have (Legends II for example, or Star Wars and Doctor Who books) that are in many different and often very long series that they overwhelm everything else that's listed.

Or even just a your books / all books for the especially long series. Longer than, say, 20.

The all books option on a series by series basis would also make it possible for large libraries to actually load the 'all books' (which I can't do at present).

Like #17, I get only a blank page when I click "All Books in Series". Perhaps it is an Opera-specific problem; perhaps the data overwhelm the server.

21 infiniteletters

I dunno, it would kind of defeat the purpose if I couldn't show all books with a smaller series. My point was that the longer ones overwhelm the smaller ones, so I'd like to be able to open them one at a time.

I think I'm going to have to do it by pages. The more I think about how it's done, the less attractive it is to do it in little pieces like that.

What do you mean by "less attractive"?

Edit: I'm just curious if you're talking aesthetics or coding (or something else). If it's aesthetics, I disagree, but of course if it's coding, I bow to your superior knowledge.

... as long as we're talking about the series page, I'd like to suggest that there be a link to it from the catalog page, along with tags, collections, and so forth. (And eventually authors ....? with the ability to sort their list of works by title, date, popularity)

Yeah, sorry, coding-wise.

What about pages based on the first letter of the series (0-9,A,B and so on + Show All at the end)? It will be easier to find your series than if the pages are based on length... Although I guess these can also get too long... But then something clever like Ba-Bo and Bo-By should be achievable if someone's page gets too long?

Found a curious bug with showing all books in all series. The author links for (some) books I don't own link to the wrong authors.

eg: The 1st series I have books for is "007 - published order". The Ian Fleming links for the books before the one I own link to http://www.librarything.com/author/dozoisgardner while the one I own and those after it link to http://www.librarything.com/author/flemingian

Going to the individual series page does not show this problem.

I've added pagination. I think it's the best solution for a variety of reasons. I like the user interface better, but, even if I didn't, the programming advantages are substantial.

Any chance for adding the total numbers somewhere - just now if I want to see how many series I have (with how many books), I need to add the numbers from each page?

Ah, links.

It would be nice if there was an overall summary, as well as a per page summary.

I like the way it goes from 100 per page to 50 per page when you select all works.

I like this layout. It makes the whole thing more manageable.

Is there any hope that the language version problem will ever be solved? If the series is added in non-English site, it doesn't show on the series statistics pages.

Jeez. I know my original library import was a little haphazard, but since Tim implemented the whole check/series thing, I've discovered four books I knew I owned that somehow never made it into my LT library. And they had isbns and everything. Now I'm resisting the temptation to blow off work and go through my shelves book by book again...

See http://www.librarything.com/topic/65380

Thanks Tim! Works now, and I love it.

Urm ... in the I Want a Pony category ... any chance of a little red X for "Don't show this series"? Pretty please?

There seems to be a bug.

It is only listing the books on my series summary page that I own (with green checks). The books on the series page that I don't own, have not been listed to the series summary page.

For Example:

http://www.librarything.com/series/Aimee+Leduc+Investigations

Series: Aimee Leduc Investigations

Series by title (9)
Titles Order
Murder in the Marais by Cara Black 1
Murder in Belleville (Aimee Leduc Investigation) by Cara Black 2
Murder in the Sentier by Cara Black 3
Murder in the Bastille by Cara Black 4
Murder in Clichy (Soho Crime) by Cara Black 5
Murder in Montmartre (Aimee Leduc Investigation) by Cara Black 6
Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis (Aimee Leduc Investigation) by Cara Black 7
Murder in the Rue de Paradis (An Aimee Leduc Investigation) by Cara Black 8
Murder in the Latin Quarter by Cara Black 9

I know there are 9 books, but I only have 7.

This is what is on my summary page (with green checks):

http://www.librarything.com/profile/FicusFan/stats/series

Aimee Leduc Investigations

* Murder in the Marais (Aimee Leduc Investigation) by Cara Black (1)
* Murder in Belleville: An Aimee Leduc Investigation by Cara Black (2)
* Murder in the Sentier by Cara Black (3)
* Murder in the Bastille by Cara Black (4)
* Murder in Clichy (Soho Crime) by Cara Black (5)
* Murder in Montmartre (Aimee Leduc Investigation) by Cara Black (6)
* Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis (Aimee Leduc Investigation) by Cara Black (7)

It doesn't list the 2 books I don't have.

Also the number at the top for total series, is not the same as the one on my profile/home page

Not a bug. There's a link to see all books, not just your bugs.

Sorry, didn't understand what the links were for, so didn't use them.

All books works.

i do like the checkmarks and the options for seeing other books in the series than the ones i own, ...

but i'm definitely NOT liking having to click the number links to see my whole series ... i'd like to see an option to show all the series at once.

>43 lachapakhan:

Do you mean, to have all of the series you have books for to be shown together all on one long page, rather than only seeing a page at a time and then using the number links to see another page's worth?

>43 lachapakhan:

The problem is that the page can get very very long—and crash people's browsers.

Blog post ties it all together: http://www.librarything.com/blog/2009/05/better-statistics-other-improvements.ph...

i do mean that ... to have it all shown on one long page.

i understand it might crash some people ... that's why i said i'd like to see it as an option. those who can't handle it, wouldn't have to use it.

it's a lot more painful to look through series, now ... i like the series feature, but after going through it tonight, i probably won't be going through it much, anymore ... i have enough series that it takes long enough to look through it all, anyway. going back and forth through multiple links to do it just makes it not worth it, any more.

Hey. I've raised the number of items per page significantly, from 100 to 250, if you are just asking for your books. (Asking for others' books has lower minimums because so much other data is thrown at you.) That should reduce series to three pages for you.

Tim,

Any chance for my pony --- I mean my little X? (#39)

This is kind of interesting. I have a couple/few of "The Complete Idiots" guides *I know, hangs head in shame* but I don't have the complete set. Does that make me an Incomplete Idiot? Or conversely, if I had the full set would I be a Complete Complete Idiot?

>47 timspalding:
Items per page raised to 250? My settings only offer me up to 200 -- though that is twice as much as before, which I love, thanks!

It's definitely a wonderful addition, and will save me from having to add the Series-- tags, thank you!

But how does one uncouple a book from a series when it's wrongly flagged? McSorley's Wonderful Saloon is NOT a Harlequin Romance by *any* stretch of the imagination ... and I see from the comments that others have been having the same problem with other books.

Go into the CK record and remove the series name to uncouple a book from a series.

staffordcastle -- thanks. I've been using LT exclusively as a cataloguing tool (guess what I do for a living?) and haven't explored such things as "Common Knowledge", so I am grateful to have it pointed out to me.

Does anyone know how they got into the series?

>53 Tanuki.kun:

Common Knowledge is original cataloging. The rest is measly copy-cataloging! :)

In the 50's, Harlequin was publishing more than Romances. They actually didn't go strictly romance until the 60s. So, for 10 years, they published inexpensive novels.

If you look on alibris, you can actually find the edition of McSorely's Wonderful Saloon that was published by Harlequin:

http://www.alibris.com/booksearch.detail?invid=9513480212&browse=1&qwork...

Now, it doesn't make it part of the Harlequin series - it wasn't even exclusive to them when they published it, but it does answer the question as to how these non-romances are in the series. (I'm guessing the series was simply called Harlequin Romance at the beginning and it stuck.)

But, hey, I learned something new today. :)

I didn't know that Harlequin Romances constituted a series. Are they numbered or something? I thought "Romance" was just a category used by the publisher. I have some mysteries that the publisher has labeled things like (from memory) Walker British Mystery, but they are connected only by being published under the label. Are Folio Society books (or books from all of the other publishers of quality editions) a series? The works are related only through the publisher. Are book club editions a series?

This is why I want to be able to ignore/redX/not show some of the "series" in which my books pop up.

Or maybe when we get collections, I can somehow move books around so that they won't be shown on my series list?

The various Harlequin/Silhouette imprints are numbered by publication order.

>>54 timspalding: Does anyone know how they got into the series?

By the publisher

Entry from the Canadian National Catalogue

NAME(S):*Mitchell, Joseph, 1908-1996
TITLE(S): McSorley's wonderful saloon / by Joseph Mitchell
PUBLISHER: Toronto : Harlequin Books, 1953.
DESCRIPTION: 224 p. ; 18 cm.

SERIES: A Harlequin book ; 210

Click Search AMICUS, (no registration required)

60 >

One could then make a case for marking it as part of aa Harlequin series, but not as a Harlequin Romance.

However, even I (who errs on the side of inclusion in the Series wars) can see that the publisher's SKU is not the same as a series number. 1953 was pre-ISBN.

Getting to the party late but for what its worth...

MY pony request is a "see yours" link by each series that goes to my catalog page with those checked books on it.

Many of the series books in my catalog are not owned but have been entered into the catalog with the intention of putting them in the wishlist collection when it becomes a permanent reality and not just a "play" reality Green checks at this point just mean that I know the book exists in my catalog not that I necessarily own it. It would be really useful (to me at least) to have just the green checked books in a series on the catalog page for power editing or collection editing.

It would be like the "see yours" link on the author pages.

I am assuming that the green checks will be drawn from the all collections data when collections goes live.

I love these green checks and it is fun to see them popping up in new places!

61>

A case could be made for inclusion of the 1953 book but LT series are made up of works and as there were two previous editions of McSorley's wonderful saloon published in 1943, one in the US, one in Canada, this work cannot be included in the LT series. As for the Harlequin numbered series, the numbers continue well past the beginning of ISBNs. I don't think you can consider the numbers the publisher's SKU.

How about "See More" when the books in a series are more than, say, 10? I'm getting series with many MANY books thrown at me just because I own one Batman book, for example.

Yeah, the series page is a bit hard to navigate - same for the places, characters, and awards pages.

I always love 'see more'!

is that enough votes for "See More" Tim?? Please make all the Library of America books disappear from my series!

#68

I'm still hoping for "See Less" aka "Ignore." :-)

You can delete the series info for your works which are not exclusively published as part of a series. One of mine turned out to be included where the series description said it shouldn't be.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/65385

Note the discussion & caveats. I'm still waiting for clarification on whether I can pull a work published under various other imprints out of Harlequin Romances. If I want to look at "See all Books," that one book will generate a helluva long list!

#66

Yes. I'm beginning to wonder if I have any books that haven't won an award from someone. :-) And there's always NY Times Bestseller. That's an "award"?

#69, according to Tim it is. There is a whole thread about crappy awards somewhere.

I myself don't care one way or another. So I won't be visiting that page.

I too though would like both an ignore and a see more option on the series page to fine tune what I want to see/print on the series page.

Tim - there's a number difference. On the Statistics/Memes page it says I have 797 series - on the Series page, it says 836. I am NOT counting to see which is right, sorry - that's just too many. But there must be a coding difference to come up with the different numbers.

Awards is also off - 211 on Stats, 212 on Awards. 212 listed (that number, I can count!).
Characters matches. Places is off by one - 1057 on Stats, 1058 on the Places page.

69> myshelves - That's kind of the definition of 'not a series' - if a book has been published under several different imprints, then it's definitely not a book belonging to a publisher 'series'. The Dummies books are a series, although they're only linked by publisher, because they were written specifically for that publisher/imprint and have never been published outside it. But just because Harlequin (or Penguin, or Scholastic) published a book doesn't make it part of any series that they publish.

Personally, I strongly dislike the 'Harlequin Intrigue' or 'Harlequin Blaze' "series" - they're imprints, not series. 'Baby Makes Three' is a sort of series - the authors were writing for an idea. And 'Redstone Incorporated' is definitely a series - one author, one 'universe' with consistent characters. 'Family Secrets' is multiple authors but again one universe with consistent characters. That's the real definition of a series to me - if they're in the same world/universe, and especially if characters from one book show up or are referenced in the other books.

Which isn't to say that you won't get into an edit war if you remove your book(s) from the Harlequin series. I'm (obviously) not the person who listed them there, and that person may feel differently about the whole thing. Sigh.

>69 myshelves:, 70

I hate, hate, *hate* the fact that "New York Times Bestseller" is considered an 'award' on LibraryThing. It's not an award, it's a statement of fact - 'this book sold a lot of copies according to one particular sales chart' - is all!

If a book has "300,000 copies sold!" plastered on the front, would that mean one should add "300,000 copies sold!" under the Awards section of the book in question? Quite rightly, I think such a suggestion would be laughed off the site. Yet what difference is this from the NYT Bestseller 'awards'?

I did once try deleting the 'awards', but quickly gave up when considering it would take months to do all 7,000 plus books (I think it was).

I did once try to raise the issue with Tim, but initially he misunderstood me, and declined to further respond after I'd clarified what I meant.

Anyway. Sorry to vent, but it's a situation that's irritated me for a long, long time.

Regarding the "whole thread about crappy awards somewhere," I've tried searching Talk for it but can't find it. If anyone can provide me with a link to it, I'd appreciate it.

I will try to find it. It may now be called Crudy or Cruddy

>74 AnnieMod:

Thanks. No wonder I couldn't find it, it didn't occur to me that everyone would shorten "New York Times" to "NYT". Heh.

It's "cruddy awards" in Common Knowledge and WikiThing: http://www.librarything.com/topic/65409

(ack, never mind).

> 47

the just-my-books series page is a bit better, now that more series are included per page. thanks.

one thing i've noticed, though, is that if i'm looking through the series and i want to change over to the all-books verison (usually because of something i'm looking at, right then), it brings me back to page 1 and it's not clear exactly which page i need to go to to get back where i was.

it might be nice if there was a way to change over from one mode to the other without losing your place.