Which field for adding Table of Contents?

Hi, I will have to add quite some annals, collections of essays etc. These make sense only when I add the table of contents, so people can find out if there is something interesting in it („Jahrbuch 1987 of topic x“ does not tell us anything). It should of course be displayed in tinycat, too.

I tried to use the "book description" field, but have the impression this was deleted. Please advise which field is reserved for this information, I couldn't find. Thanks!

"Disambiguation notice" is the best field for this in Common Knowledge. The field serves several purposes, and one is to hold the work's TOC.

Put it in your 'Comments' field. Then nobody else can delete it and it can be displayed in Tinycat.

>2 aspirit: The CK help page says nothing about TOC there. I also doubt that it shows in Tinycat.

*usually the best field

But if you want the TOC to show in TinyCat, you might need to put it in a review with an actual review statement. I think the disambiguation notice doesn't show on TinyCat.

Someone here may kindly correct me if my thoughts aren't accurate.

If you put it in the review field it will get flagged.

>3 MarthaJeanne: I'd previously asked around about where TOC goes. It's the disambiguation notice. You can see that's where the TOC on different types of works are entered, by others, not just me. LT Help doesn't hold all guidance of this site. I'm fairly certain that's why we have places to ask LT-related questions that aren't only about the Help in Talk....

I belately realized CK might not transfer to TinyCat.

>5 MarthaJeanne: Members can flag any review they want, but there's no good reason to flag a review that contains the TOC.

>7 aspirit: If the ToC is all that's contained in the review, then yes, there's every reason to flag it as it isn't a review. If, on the other hand, you include the ToC as part of a review (discussing each item in turn), then it's less likely to get flagged.

It's annoying not having a designated field for a ToC, especially when it comes to anthologies. A certain amount can be done with work-to-work relationships, but that relies on somebody having entered the entry as a separate work.

>7 aspirit: Amen to that! I really don't see why anyone would flag that. I have a lot of science books and I often put the TOC into the review, so I can see which subjects the book covers. I also add whether I liked the book but that's just to remind myself if the book should go or stay if I need more room on the shelf.

I will amend that. If it is just the TOC it will get flagged. Probably also if the TOC is over 90% of the 'review'. There needs to be a sense that the reviewer has actually read the book and not just stuck the TOC in there while cataloguing.

Member's description is not supposed to be just copied from elsewhere, which is probably why it got deleted.

>10 MarthaJeanne:

So if I sat there with the book open in front of me and transcribed the TOC from it letter by letter into the Book Description field, that would be OK because then it would be 'my' description. But if I did it by cutting and pasting the identical information into the Book Description field from some other source that would be a violation of The Rules?

In general I'm for The Rules but this just doesn't make sense. I propose an amendment to The Bylaws...

=Tables of Contents may be stored in the Book Description field whether they are generated by user typing or by 'borrowing' from some other source where they have been already typed out.

The alternative would be that a dedicated TOC field be added to CV.

No, any way you just copy it would not be your description.

>11 Crypto-Willobie: Nope. Transcribing it is the same as copying it from somewhere.

"Book Description" is supposed to be something "you" wrote, not something copied/transcribed from somewhere.

Comments is the best field for TOC if one wants it displayed in TinyCat. Not sure if summary can be displayed there, but that's potentially another option.

CK is never a good idea for something one wants to be a permanent part of one's catalogue and exactly as you've input it.

>12 MarthaJeanne: >13 AnnieMod:

I'll just have to disagree.

There must be a sensible approved way to enter an easily-findable table of contents. Review doesn't make sense; disambiguation doesn't make sense; comments in a personal catalogue is of limited value. And a table of contents is in fact a kind of description of a book.

Just saying no no no is of no help. Someone should come up with a genuinely good solution. As of now Book Description seems to me the best.

>15 Crypto-Willobie: I don't understand why "review doesn't make sense".

Here's an example from my own catalog (in Danish, sorry). The first part is TOC and the second part is my review of it. If I took away the TOC I'd need to include much of it in my review anyway for it to make any sense to me next time I'd look at it.

https://www.librarything.com/catalog/bnielsen&deepsearch=121734217

>15 Crypto-Willobie: Sure - but it is not by choosing a field at random and declaring it as the correct one - when that field was added for a different reason. Open an RSI, get LT to add a new field.

Plus... what about books that have different contents even if they are the same book (different introduction for example)? People care about introductions sometimes and they ARE part of a TOC... So it gets complicated - you need this on the editions level, not on the work one...

>17 AnnieMod: Good example. I have quite a few of those. 1st edition, 2nd edition, ... Preface to 2nd edition. Added chapters, etc, etc.

>16 bnielsen:
I have put TOCs in reviews myself. I still regard it as an imperfect solution. For one thing they function in a review only as part of a... description of the book.
The good part of doing it that way is even if the review gets flagged nothing ever really happens to it -- it just sits there with a flag.

>17 AnnieMod:
"what about books that have different contents even if they are the same book"
I had thought of that. There would have to be a way to differentiate, but that is perhaps something to be perfected after we get the field.

From this thread, I learned that the BOOK DESCRIPTION has to be in a member's own words. I'm sure no one cares but I won't be doing that. But I have in the past, if there is no description anywhere on the book page, added the description from the publisher or author in that field. Here is one you can review (and delete if you so choose) https://www.librarything.com/work/26145570/book/198579231 Screengrab for when it gets deleted: https://gyazo.com/165e79fa877e657260ff2937e1bd01cc

I clearly see that it says 'LT member's description', I figured that is where members input a description vs. some entity. How do the other description fields get populated? --- question #1. #2 How can you tell if your reviews have been flagged? I often will add the TOC on books I have shelved and as I read them I add my "reviews".

I guess I should go private mode, which I wanted to avoid so I could "give back". I enjoy reading reviews to help decide if I want to read something or help gain deeper understanding when I get confused. So I figured leaving my stuff public would pay it forward but if I'm gonna get flagged for having a TOC on a tbr book, that is pissy and I rather avoid participating.

>20 Corinne2020: How can you tell if your reviews have been flagged?

Go to Home, click on the Reviews link in the secondary menu bar at the top, then sort your reviews by votes. Flagged reviews are at the opposite end of the sort as reviews with the most votes.

>1 WikipediaLokalK: and >20 Corinne2020: You can put the table of contents in the comments field on your copy of the book. Comments are searchable in your library, cannot be altered/deleted by other members, and cannot be flagged.

ETA: clarifying where comments are searchable

>20 Corinne2020: I'm sorry the disagreements on what's allowed where and how is stressful. I've also have the urge to go to private status. Some good news is that reviews flagged as "not a review" remain visible on this site to everyone and can be counterflagged.

Disambiguation notice makes sense to me in at least some circumstances: when there are similarly named collections / anthologies that are distinguished by their contents, then listing the table of contents is a perfect way to disambiguate them.

I wouldn't complain if people generalized that to a rule saying that it was ok to list contents in disambiguation notices.

As for putting the TOC in a review, go right ahead. The review will probably be flagged as "not a review" (because it's not a review), but that won't affect your usage of the the review field for that purpose. Having reviews flagged as not a review doesn't do the user any harm, and won't get the review removed (unlike flagging as spam which will get the spammer kicked off the site).

>22 amanda4242: A problem with only putting the TOC in a comment is that other members aren't likely to see it, which means it's not likely helping in the creation of work-to-work relationships or work identification (for personal confirmation, separations, or combinations).

ty aspirit. i understand amanda. ill have to think on how i want to change how i catalog. my TOC becomes my review slowly over time while pecking away at the different collections.

RSI created:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/332959

ETA: This has been a much discussed and frequently requested field since at least 2009. The RSI has a link to the seven other threads that I could find.

>24 r.orrison: True, but it prevents other people from changing or deleting it. I encourage people to use work-to-work relationships when possible, but sometimes that isn't an option, e.g. someone wants to list the introduction or afterword.

Edited to fix typo.

>27 gilroy:
Thank you very much, gilroy

>19 Crypto-Willobie: Thanks for clarifying! (And the same thanks go to all the rest of participants here. I like the discussion.)

>22 amanda4242: thanks, I'll try that!

Thanks all for this lively discussion and for bringing it up to a feature request at https://www.librarything.com/topic/332959

For now, the comments field seems to fit my needs