Hello!

Got to start somewhere, might as well start here. This is the hello or welcome message for the 'Weavers' group. What I'd like to see is all weavers on LibraryThing joining this group much the same way we join various other electronic communities and for much the same reason. Our passion almost died out in the US because we didn't share and we didn't band together. We survived that barely; now however we have a whole new set of tools that should allow us to not just survive, but to prosper. Sharing our bibliographies is one way to prosper. We can see and ask about books we don't have. We can gradually build up reviews. Even find a preserve errata! Look we spend our lives covered with fiber and book dust, might as well put it to use!

--hsm

Hi Hugh

Marg Coe here! I've just started entering books which might be a slow process . . . but I'm game.

Marg

Peg Carpenter here! Like Marge, I've just started entering and it's going to be a very slow process.....

Peg

I've just started cataloging my books today. I have lots of books!

Sandy

My message to Marg applies to you and anyone else who joins. I'll help as needed!

Seem to have lost my message to Marg! Oh well, the gist of it was that as a weaver I have three priorities. In order, the 1st is that I love to put looms together. The 2nd is that I love to read about weaving. And coming in 3rd, I love to weave. Good news for all is that I do the book thing really well which stand me in good stead to help others...

--hsm

Ruth Blau here. I guess we mostly already know one another from WeaveTech. I'm also the librarian for Complex Weavers. About a year ago, CW decided to convert the library catalogue from a word-processing file to a database. I've been mired in designing the db for several months, but now (thankfully) CW is considering using LibraryThing instead of creating our own db.

So far, I've just put a "practice" listing, consisting of about 8 books, for CW into LibraryThing. If I get the board go-ahead, I'll do the whole collection (slowly). With the addition of Ralph Griswold's generous bequest of his weaving (and related) books to CW, the collection should eventually be 2000 to 2500 books.

Question for those of you who are more experienced w/ LT: can you search for a book using more than one tag? I've tried this (even using the format suggested on the Search page) and cannot get it to work. I've emailed LT founder Tim, but got no response. Example: in my practice listing, I have 4 tags: General Weaving, Narrow Ware, US, CAN (the latter two are to indicate books that are in the US CW library & books that are in the Canada branch library (or both). How would I structure a search for all books on Narrow Ware in the Canada branch? The search page indicates that the syntax should be Narrow Ware+CAN, but this doesn't work. What I get from that search query is all the Narrow Ware books, even those that don't have a CAN tag. If I can solve this issue, I think I'll be able to persuade the CW board to accept LibraryThing.

Ruth

Ruth, until a better way is found (like getting an answer from Tim...) you might play with the following approach. If all that can search on is single tags, create joint tags. For instance instead of 'Narrow Ware' and 'CAN' how about NW_CAN or some such. It is a 'hack', but might get you there none the less.

--hsm

Ruth, here is a recent msg. on the "Recommend Site Improvements" Group (very interesting ideas here!) on the Topic "More options to search by tag":
Message 1: maryanntherese unread
I would like to be able to search my library by multiple tags, or to exclude certain tags from my results.

Example: Search for all items tagged both History and Own.

Or: Search for all items tagged History but exclude Greece.

I am pretty new here, so I apologize in advance if this is already a capability!
flag abuse Post a message
Oct 16, 2006, 7:05amMessage 2: GreyHead unread
You can already do this - to some extent, but the syntax is odd and bears only the remotest relationship to the 'help' on the Search page.

The results of my last experiment are in this FAQ. The summary is:

You can search for a single tag using the 'tag_a' format
or search for all tags except another tag (or tags) using '--tag_a'
or search for one tag but not another tag using the 'tag_a --tag_b' format e.g. 'cover -- user-cover'
You can search for two tags by using the 'tag_a ++tag_b' format BUT only from the Search Page (not the Catalogue page)
In each case you must use a double hyphen or double plus to get correct results.
You can use '*' as a wild card for all tagged entries (untagged entries will not be found).
You can use 'tag_*' for partial tag searches e.g. 'cover*' will find entries tagged 'cover', 'cover-no' and 'cover-user'.
Logically we have the capability to search for a single tag and to do AND & NAND multiple tag searches. As far as I can see OR searches e.g. 'nlp or signed' do not work at all.

Does this help?
Pat Stewart

Helps quite a bit for me at least Pat. Much thanks. Looks like LibraryThing needs work behind the curtains to achieve consistancy. Hmmm---feels like a job op!!

--hsm

Hello,

I have been doing a list with covers for a while, a few books here and there. I will add my books slowly. I appreciate the group.
Judie Eatough

Hi from a newbie to this Weavers group. This will probably show up as CWLibrary, but it's being written by Ruth Blau, Complex Weavers librarian. We're gradually entering the entire CW library listing (about 2000 entries, I'd guess) into LT.

Ruth

Hi Ruth

Welcome! That sounds like a great thing you're doing.

Louise

I have a question. I been trying to find a weaving class in L.A. and can't find one that fits my schedule. Is it possible to learn from books or is a class required? Thanks

belle

Hi gautherbelle

I think it is possible to learn from a book, but as Maggie O and I have been discussing we find it so much more enjoyable to undertake interactive learning. May I suggest that you look through a copy of the magazine 'Handwoven' - you just might find a class that fits the bill. Alternatively this is a great time of year to start planning a trip to a fibre festival somewhere rural. These events are great fun and usually run classes and/or exhibits of weaving for beginners.

Louise

Rod Byatt here. Have start uploading books on Japanese textiles.
Finding it curious that many important texts aren't in the available search facilities, e.g. Kyoto Shoin Art Library of Japanese textiles vols.1-22.
Will learn as I go, hoping eventually to enter self-published books, out-of-print books and books published before the era of ISBNs.
Cheers,
Rod

Hi Rod,
it's not difficult to enter books that can't be found automatically...Just click on "add the book manually" (at the bottom of the page) and enter the information you have.
Never mind if there is no ISBN, I have a lot of old books that don't have any, but it's not a problem! (It's only a slow process... I do a few books at a time, when I can, that means it will take forever to enter all my books)

Elena