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Focus on Reading - Week 52 - Tags
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When I first started Goodreads I think I was a little confused on what tags were and how they would be used by other users. I have so many tags. Mostly for main genre, then subgenre, and other key indicators like location or theme. I used to have a tag for books-I-own, but started using a "tbr" exclusive shelf instead. My most used tag is horror (surprise!), followed by "fiction" then "thriller."
I feel like tags are a little misleading though because I tag all my tbr books as well, so I haven't read them, just tag them as I see fit.
I didn't use to have a lot of tags. Now I do. I used to have just a few. Genre ones, maybe things like time travel or politics. Or Jewish, or non-fiction. Now I have some locations for sure. Countries and some cities, like Paris, Jerusalem, NYC. I used to think the tags were sort of just for me to keep track. But now having done so many years of tags and challenges, I see that they are also for everybody. Things like airplanes and writing and spies and witches, etc. Dogs. I won't use tags that don't make sense to me. Like "coffee".
I’ve gone the other way to Amy - I used to tag a few things and now I don’t at all. The only ones I use are the standard ‘want to read’ and ‘completed’ and I have quite a lot of my owned books listed as ‘shelved’. I do keep meaning to go through my TBR and tag things so I can search more easily, or create lists for upcoming months, but it never seems to happen. I save my sparse organisational skills for work rather than leisure!
I have a ridiculous number of tags that I use largely for challenges, favorite categories, and things I might want to refer to again later (and they often do come in handy). I won't stop soon because they keep me from creating multiple word or excel files with lists of books based on searches. As messy as it is, it's the lesser of two messes. Tags make it easier to add book to listopias, which are heavily used in some challenges. I also like being the go-to person in my local bookclub when someone is looking for a book about a particular subject, or wants to buy something for a person who likes X and Y. I tag books I have already read, for the benefit of others who might be looking for a book like that for a future tag read, challenge or interest. I also tag books that I haven't read yet, such as when I'm searching for an upcoming monthly tag or challenge. Otherwise I would never remember the titles, even just a week later. Though I'm starting to put many of them in shelves such as "July 2022 possibilities."
I have lots of tags. I use them to define major categories and topics. My most used (no surprise) are my favorite types of reading: literary fiction, historical fiction, and non-fiction. I also like to classify books by continent. I wish there were an easier way to group tags into major categories and sub-categories. I currently use a beginning letter (like "y" or "z") to group them but find this method rather unsatisfying.
I only have 5 tags (mystery, historical mystery, fantasy, continue series and medieval mysteries) and mostly use them for books I want to read to make it easier to find what I am looking for. The one I really need to clean up is continue series and I need to go back someday through all my books to get it updated.
Compared to a lot of other readers, I do not have that many tags. I once only had genre's , but over the last couple years I have expanded a bit. Like Kate, I have good intentions to sort things out more, but I just never get around to doing it. My most used tags are Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Non-Fiction and Non-Fiction History
RachelG. wrote: "I only have 5 tags (mystery, historical mystery, fantasy, continue series and medieval mysteries) and mostly use them for books I want to read to make it easier to find what I am looking for. The o..."Rachel G, I didn't know you were a medieval mystery fan, we will have to compare notes.
Booknblues wrote: "RachelG. wrote: "I only have 5 tags (mystery, historical mystery, fantasy, continue series and medieval mysteries) and mostly use them for books I want to read to make it easier to find what I am l..."Count me in on medieval mysteries. Also ancient rome and ancient egypt.
I haven't read very many medieval mysteries or Ancient Rome and Egypt. I would love to find more but I prefer my books to be on the cozy side and have found that some of the books I have tried have been more gritty than I like. My favorite medieval mystery series I read this year is Tania Bayard's Christine de Pizan series. In the Presence of Evil is the first I think.
When I first joined GR I did not understand shelves or anything. I cannot even remember the impetus behind joining and was pretty disengaged until I started doing the Popsugar Challenge. I needed a way to track books read or considered for prompts, and spreadsheets were NOT working for me. They never do. I love having access from any device, and I love that it is all digital.Creating and maintaining a shelf for PS each year starting in 2016 rapidly opened up GR, for groups and tracking both reading and books that catch my eye for some reason or are recommended to me. The one thing I do not track are all my owned print and digital books. Too massive an undertaking to add given my extensive collection of TBR Towers, plus shelves of read books I keep. I just add to GR as I read or consider reading those.
I have relatively few shelves, and all active ones (around 90) are on one page. Those on second page are inactive or locked and have a 'z' in front - all challenge or year event specific, mostly Popsugar at that, and kept for reference.
I have fixed, besides the given read, currently reading, and want to read, dnf, giveaways (because I don't want to have those in my want to read automatically), and audio. As for rest, some are specific to challenges like PS 2022, some are broad like feminism, others are used to organize or track my reading like monthly reads and books like preorders, and some are pretty specific like geographic or genre. I do not like having pages of books to look through, but at the moment my biggest shelves are:
First in Series - 438*
Historical mysteries and romances - 352 - I decided not to split because both genres often fit the book by my loose standards.
*includes a LOT of read books. Often used to look up series I have read znd lost track.
I try to tag all books to multiple shelves; I hate having a book tagged just want to read or read. I also tag loosely, in whatever makes sense to me at the time. I see tagging as very personal, meant to assist me in my reading however it best works.
Since I can access GR on any device, I sometimes go through the shelves and reorganize: especially the want to read shelf. Great task when waiting for or riding a bus or suffering a bout of insomnia.
I use a lot of tags. Location, time period, genre, topics within the book... I'm a library cataloguer and I use them like subject headings. If I want to find a book I've read later (often when I can't recall a title), I will use my tags to find it.
After reading some of the other posts, I'll add that I usually tag books after I've read them. I use my initials for tbr books (so I can use a tagmash over at LibraryThing to find what will fit certain themes), and I've tagged a few other tbr books with "Canadian fiction" or "Canadian author", but for the most part, I only tag books after I've read them. I have 14 pages of tags. I am not going to page through them all to figure out which I have the most, but guesses include "animals", "historical fiction", "biography"...
I tag with what seem appropriate tags as soon as it hits any shelf. I edit after reading..adding or subtracting.
I am not consistent in when I tag - sometimes when I add them and other times after I read them.
I only use the tags Owned, Want to Read, Read, and under Owned, I mark if the book is on Audible, Kindle or Nook (nothing for print books). I can see that tags for genre, setting, etc. would be helpful for challenges. But I am not that interested in being efficient. I really enjoy the hunt of looking through my books each time there is a tag or challenge. Just going to a list or spreadsheet seems boring. When I joined GR about 2011, I went through over time and entered all my books. It has helped me avoid buying the same book twice.
I don’t use tags, other than Reading and Finished. My intention on here is to keep track of what I’ve read, so I avoid cluttering things up too much with the want to read function. If I accidentally hit that option, I delete it right away- or I’ll get confused and wonder when I read that book!
Plus, I’m not organized enough to consistently tag everything I’ve read. Maybe someday. Sigh.
I've so enjoyed these Friday discussions about books. Can it be a full year already that we've been doing this? Thank you Fran, for spearheading it. I hope that other PBT members may want to continue these discussions. I have a few topics in mind myself that I may post. It's been eye-opening and fun!
Holly R W wrote: "I've so enjoyed these Friday discussions about books. Can it be a full year already that we've been doing this? Thank you Fran, for spearheading it. I hope that other PBT members may want to contin..."Thanks, Holly. I loved doing this, but the year mark seemed to be a good time to take a break.
As for my tags, I'm like Cindy and use tags for "Location, time period, genre, topics within the book." I also try to highlight topics which are of particular interest to me as animals, environment, refugees, immigration, human rights.
I used to just add tags when I began reading or finished a book, but I'm beginning to add tags when I put a book on my tbr, so I can locate ones which I might want to read for a PBT tag .
While I don't have 14 pages of tags, I do have 4 and my most used tag is mystery.
Since I replaced my written book journal with Goodreads, I have a bookshelf for every year of my reading life. I label it "my-20xx." I know GR would generate a list if I sort my "read" books by date read, but I like having a separate shelf for each year. It lets me have a perspective on what has been working and encourages me when I hit a reading slump. I do use other tags, mostly for genre, with historical fiction being the biggest shelf (123). I also have a favorites shelf, which comes in handy if someone asks me for some recommendations. I recently added a shelf for "diverse voices" since it has been a personal goal to read more of these. I have shelves for books read for F2F bookclubs, and PBT monthly tags.
I keep the tags to one page. I do use the "z" trick to keep the tagsI am using to 1 page.
I use GR mainly as an “index” to date read to locate entries in my annual paper journals (kept since 2002) where I always included reviews, comments, passages I wanted to remember, etc.. Having said that I also insist on creating an abridged “review” for almost every book I put up on GR. Unfortunately GR has a habit of losing many of my reviews (usually every time they do an update some reviews get erased. So annoying.)I use my shelves as memory prompts - if I have trouble recalling an author or title I can usually remember what type of book it was: natural history, fairytale retelling, Asian setting, women’s issues, etc. and it narrows the search considerably.
Since I am in several f2f discussion groups I consult GR often at meetings on my iPad when recommending similar titles and the shelves make finding books quickly much easier. Before I retired as a librarian I also used my GR shelves to assist with readers advisory queries. I’m still adding shelves as new areas of interest arise or new sub topics occur to me.
An aside to Shelly - have you looked at your “stats” from your profile page. GR already gives you a look at each year’s books and you can see them all sorts of ways. (at least on the web version- I never use the app.) I would never give up my paper journals - I don’t really trust GoodReads or any online/cloud platform to keep my reading history safe. It only takes one big sun flare and or one idiot (or corporate entity) pushing a button and it could all disappear.
I wish I was the kind of person who would take time to write notes and reviews about every book I read. I am often impressed by the detailed reviews many of you post. But while I love to talk, I don’t really like to write. I assign stars in GR but I don’t write reviews. It seems like GR is just so huge, my opinion isn’t needed. Even in PBT, I don’t always get around to posting books that aren’t for the monthly tag. I have a paper journal to track books I read, but all I put in is the title and authors.
I use tags / shelves for every book I read. NOT counting "concierge" (which, like Cindy, I used for tag-mash purposes) the most used tag is "strong women" (994 !)
Distant 2d and 3rd
"series" (591)
"historical fiction" (420)
Going through my list of tags (4 pages) I found four shelves that have '0' books. Wondering how to delete those?
Book Concierge wrote: "Going through my list of tags (4 pages) I found four that have '0' books. Wondering how to delete those?..."Easy. When in edit shelves, just click on the 'x' on far right for shelf you want to delete. A warning window opens asking if you want to delete. When done click save.
Theresa wrote: "Book Concierge wrote: "Going through my list of tags (4 pages) I found four that have '0' books. Wondering how to delete those?..."Easy. When in edit shelves, just click on the 'x' on far right f..."
You beat me to it. I also use this function to rename shelves. I've combined shelves this way once or twice. (rename 2 shelves with the same name)
Jgrace wrote: "You beat me to it. I also use this function to rename shelves. I've combined shelves this way once or twice. (rename 2 shelves with the same name)"Does that work? I have a couple that could be renamed and brought into one shelf, but never wanted to go through the books one by one.
Booknblues wrote: "Jgrace wrote: "You beat me to it. I also use this function to rename shelves. I've combined shelves this way once or twice. (rename 2 shelves with the same name)"Does that work? I have a couple t..."
You know I'm not sure. Now that I think about it, I've only done that with really small shelves. I may have created a new shelf and added each book before deleting the old ones.
I also rename but if I want to combine shelves with books in them, I edit the shelves of each book in the one I am deleting before deleting shelf. If you delete shelf with books on it, those books are removed from all your GR shelves. For example, I had multiple Christmas shelves but recently combined into one, a shelf I already had. I did go through each book in the ones I was eliminating to make sure first it was already tagged Christma the new consolidated shelf, and removed from shelf I was going to delete. Once done I refreshed to be sure shelf empty so I coukd delete. Even with all the Christmas themed books I have, took little time.
Theresa, I hope you didn't have to retag each book one at a time. BATCH EDIT - Does anyone use this?
When I want to combine shelves, I use Batch Edit. I can copy all the books from one shelf onto another. Then after checking I can go back and delete the unneeded shelf. This is easy if you're paying attention. You can also delete a whole pages of unwanted books from your account using batch edit. But be careful because I don't think it is easily undone.
Theresa, when I delete shelves using the regular shelf edit function, (using the x at the far left of the page) the books themselves are not deleted, just that tag. However if you click the X at the far right when looking at a list of books, this will delete the book from all shelves.
Also wanted to add that - despite 14 pages of tags - I really try not to have duplicate tags like thriller and thrillers. It happens occasionally, but I try to avoid that. And I will fix it if I notice a duplicate later. Even with tags like "family", "family relationships", "family history" - to me those are different, so I keep them. Sometimes they overlap and I use more than one for the same book, but they are slightly different to me.
I was going to copy/paste my page 1 for people to take a look, but even that's too long!
Here's a sample of the start of page 1:
11th-century (1)
12th-century (10)
13th-century (3)
14th-century (4)
15th-century (16)
16th-century (36)
17th-century (24)
18th-century (27)
1900s (7)
1910s (25)
1920s (24)
1930s (37)
1940s (18)
1950s (32)
1960s (31)
1970s (43)
1980s (32)
1990s (9)
19th-century (166)
2000s (1)
20th-century (30)
21st-century (3)
9-11 (1)
abandonment (2)
abolitionists (2)
abortion (1)
abraham-lincoln (2)
abuse (54)
academia (10)
activists (1)
actors (22)
adolf-hitler (1)
adopted-children (3)
adoption (7)
adultery (10)
adventure (63)
@ BnB -Before I forget, again, I also wanted to thank you for this conversation, it has been really fun getting to know folks and their reading! I also wanted to tell you that I stole this idea from you for my Fantasy group. I am awed at how you kept it up for 52 weeks with fresh questions! I have only posted 25 questions so far (I don't do it every week) and I am now out of ideas! I am thinking of wrapping it up too and trying to think of something new to spark conversation over there. Might be time to abscond with Theresa's Kaffeeklatsch .
Joanne wrote: "@ BnB -Before I forget, again, I also wanted to thank you for this conversation, it has been really fun getting to know folks and their reading! I also wanted to tell you that I stole this idea fro..."One of the reasons I decided to stop at 52, was I was scraping the bottom on questions. Sometimes things come up in other discussions, that I could tap into. It has been an interesting and fruitful experience.
LibraryCin wrote: "Also wanted to add that - despite 14 pages of tags - I really try not to have duplicate tags like thriller and thrillers. It happens occasionally, but I try to avoid that. And I will fix it if I no..."I can tell you are a librarian!
NancyJ wrote: "Theresa, I hope you didn't have to retag each book one at a time. BATCH EDIT - Does anyone use this?
When I want to combine shelves, I use Batch Edit. I can copy all the books from one shelf ont..."
First I don't have that many books in the shelves when I am consolidating and second I often delete books or recategorize them as I see what all I have tagged them. Batch Edit rarely serves me.
When deleting however you do it, GR warns you if you are also deleting the book permanently. You need to pay attention to the warning windows.
Joanne wrote: "@ Might be time to abscond with Theresa's Kaffeeklatsch ...."🤣🤣🤣🤣
Be my guest!
BooknBubbles - I too want to thank you for a year of reading and book conversations. It has been fantastic in every way.
I also know from Kaffeeklatsch and fully appreciate that a moment hits after a year or so when coming up with a new conversation starter every week...or just doing a new post ... is a struggle. I so appreciate bloggers and columnists more now, and was impressed at your ability to come up with a fresh topic every single week! As you know, I shifted kaffeeklatsch to every few weeks, and anyone is welcome to start one if I haven't. I am sure that will work great here too.
I should confess that the conversations here sometimes triggered my Kaffeeklatsch 😉
Theresa wrote: "Joanne wrote: "@ Might be time to abscond with Theresa's Kaffeeklatsch ...."🤣🤣🤣🤣
Be my guest!
BooknBubbles - I too want to thank you for a year of reading and book conversations. It has been f..."
Thanks, Theresa. I am hoping that someone else will occasionally step to the plate as it is clear that we love talking about reading almost as much as we love to read.
Theresa wrote: "Book Concierge wrote: "Going through my list of tags (4 pages) I found four that have '0' books. Wondering how to delete those?..."Easy. When in edit shelves, just click on the 'x' on far right f..."
So how do I get into "edit shelves"?
Book Concierge wrote: "Theresa wrote: "Book Concierge wrote: "Going through my list of tags (4 pages) I found four that have '0' books. Wondering how to delete those?..."Easy. When in edit shelves, just click on the 'x..."
At my books:
Brings you to:
I use pretty much all the shelf editing options.Thanks, Booknblues! I do have a few topics I could post from time to time. I'm sure we can keep it going among all the members here if there is interest.
Robin P wrote: "I can tell you are a librarian!..."LOL! Yup! Not only that, but a cataloguer! :-)
Theresa wrote: "Book Concierge wrote: "Theresa wrote: "Book Concierge wrote: "Going through my list of tags (4 pages) I found four that have '0' books. Wondering how to delete those?..."Easy. When in edit shelve..."
Thanks .. I'd never noticed that before!
Booknblues wrote: "This is week 52 of Focus on Reading, after a year of this feature, I am..."
You're fantastic! I missed so much this year. Maybe we could rotate through the topics again? You (or someone) could just add a quick post to bump up a topic?
I really enjoyed these. I have opinions on everything!
Also really enjoyed these!!! Didn't always manage to answer but appreciated the reflections.
This is week 52 of Focus on Reading, after a year of this feature, I am going to take a break from the weekly questions and do a more occasional one.
Please feel free to introduce your own focus on reading for any questions you might have.