how to enter pattern books

I have a bookshelf full of pattern books. which of course are not books, well I don't even know what to call them but assume a Ravelryer on LT knows what I mean.

Long runs of periodicals, for example, Workbasket, McCalls, Herrschner's. Leisure Arts stuff. I am sitting here trying to enter a stack of them and cannot figure out how to do it.

If LT is not going to give us a template, maybe one of our Ravelry librarians could set up the best way to enter our pattern books so that we all match?

The book feature on Ravelry is quite clumsy. They have so many other things to do, that it looks like they just haven't had time to build this feature.

Right now, you can add a book or a magazine only if it is already in Ravelry. But many of the well-known authors and popular books are in there.

Go to your notebook, and select Library from the links at the left. You will see a bookshelf, and across the top are tabs for books, magazines, etc. Click the "add book" link, and you can search by title or author to see if it is already in Ravelry.

Individual patterns are entered in your notebook, as projects (you have actually started) or queue (things you plan to make). Even if you can't enter a particular book or magazine, you can enter patterns from it into your projects and/or queue.

The pattern may already be in the Ravelry database, but if it is not, you can click a link at right to "add this pattern to Ravelry's database". It will be submitted to the "powers that be" (volunteers) to review the pattern description for accuracy and get it entered into the database with photos, etc.

Thanks for the quick reply.

Unfortunately I haven't gotten that far in Ravelry yet, still trying to figure out LT.

What I was trying to do is enter a series of WorkBaskets into LibraryThing and I couldn't figure out how to do it.

Is there a way to enter periodicals into LibraryThing? Does something like a Leisure Arts pattern book count as a periodical?

I know how to find anything in a library. I ask the librarian for help.

Help please.

A day or so ago nperrin sent me to a spot for info on ISBN. I learned just enough to be dangerous.

From there I ended up with ISSN and I think LoC had the ISSN that I needed. Anyway it said the ISSN should be added after the title. That is what I do, and also the vol. #, FWIW. The correct ISSN is on some of my wife's "stuff" but that is for another day.

>4 flabuckeye:

Sorry, I don't know. I haven't been entering magazines here, so hadn't really thought about how to do it.

Magazines now have their own tab in your library. If you'd entered any magazines before, you'll see that they've moved to the new tab.

They've been working to get more magazine issues registered in the Ravelry library. I now have all of my Interweave Knits and almost all of my Vogue Knitting issues included. Don't know about the status of Workbasket, as I don't have any of those to have looked it up.

And the "needed for your queue" tab seems to be working much better too. I had a few magazine issues on the "needed" tab. As soon as I got them entered, saying that I have the issues, they properly disappeared from the "needed" tab.

I personally think that Casey is actually triplets.

I personally think that Casey is actually triplets. (#6)

No kidding!

Wow! This is a confusing thread :-)

DianeNeedlework -- you might take a look at my catalog. Go to my tag page and select "magazine"; that will bring up the ones I've entered so far. You can view the details page from there and see what info I included. I only include the basic publication info.

Since I am completely confused, this thread fits right in to my situation.

Tag page? I am looking at your Ravelry magazine page with the Interweave Crochet, Fall 2007 there. That is all I see. When I click on it I get more information about this one issue. Do we need to enter each issue separately?

Another thing I am confused about (well this could go on forever) is importing LT files into Ravelry. I swear I saw instructions for how to do this someplace and now I can't find it. That'll learn me to take good notes. Any help there?

Diane, I think pdxwoman was referring to her LT catalogue. I took a look, and she has several magazines, all tagged 'magazine'.

sarahemmm is correct...I was talking about looking at my tag cloud and selecting "magazine".

How you import from LT to Ravelry:

In LT, go to "Tools" tab. The second section in the right hand column is "Import/Export". Select "Export as CSV" and download your entire LT file to your computer. You do not need to edit the file in any way.

Now go to your Ravelry "Library" page. Click on "Add Book" in upper left corner of the faux shelving unit. A window will open where you can search by title/author or you can upload from LT. Browse for your CSV file and then click "open". Ravelry will go through your file and upload any matches it finds. It may not upload every crochet/knit book you have, because it only uploads ones it already has in the Ravelry system.

You write excellent directions.

I got all my needlework stuff that has been entered into LT prettied up, all tagged and subjected. Exported, browsed, uploaded.

Now it says "0 new books detected" and I don't know if this is because I did it wrong (and how could I possibly have gone wrong with those explicit directions) or because none of the books I have put in LT so far (most of which are weaving and origami) are in Ravelry.

Or possibly my sentences are so long no computer can read them?

Most of my knitting and crochet stuff is periodicals. I will find a book that actually is in Ravelry, put it into LT, export, etc.

to be continued.

Thank you for such clear instructions.

AHA Laurie Perry is now covering both LT and Ravelry with cat hair.

So I guess I need to wait until whoever is the person who puts things in first puts in things that I want to put in.

Will now concentrate on entering stuff into LT. Which means I have to figure out how to put in periodicals.

LT did let me put in one reference to Workbasket. Subject is "Fancy Work" which I think has possibilities.

Are pattern books, like for example the Leisure Arts booklets, in the Library of Congress?

Diane:

LOC has ISSN catalog, I believe. Periodicals / Mags / Pattern Books use ISSN rather than ISBN; has something to do with mailing, I think. However, you can't do an ISSN look-up via LT.

If Ravelry says "0 Books", it's because Ravelry is behind the curve. They don't have nearly enough books in their database. I don't depend on the Rav Library to catalog my books -- I do upload, but only so *other people* can see what books I've got if they want.

Glad my instructions worked! :-)

I'm late getting here, but just want to thank you pdxwoman for helping me import my knitting books to Ravelry.

Thanks for this. It really helped me to import my books. It didn´t take them all but I will try to add them again later.

Anyone can add books to the Ravelry database. You need to add at least one pattern from the book; you can add all if you wish but the minimum is one or the Rav database won't create a record for the book. The Rav wiki has instructions on how to be a volunteer database editor there. Once the book or periodical is added by someone (anyone) to the database and connected to any pattern, you can add that material to your personal library there. Until at least one pattern is entered by someone, no one can add that book or periodical to their personal library.
While generally high-profile books and popular periodicals get added very quickly by someone, less-known periodicals, especially ones which only have a smattering of knitting or crochet patterns (such as Wild Fibers or Living Crafts, which frequently have knitting or crocheting but are not centered around those) may not show up for years until someone gets determined to link their personal project to the database for good.
I think many people are more comfortable creating a database record here on LT for an item they don't find already entered than people are on Ravelry; I'm not sure if it's because Ravelry is more image-focused and people are shy about uploading images, or if people just feel that the core of LT catalog management whereas Ravelry is more used as a social outlet with an added bonus of project management and sharing.
In addition, since knitting/crochet material frequently is published in a variety of media other than books, Rav was set-up from the beginning to manage pamphlets, pdf files, periodicals, and books. LT was primarily initially developed only to manage books; now periodicals are being added from what I understand.