Tag Grouping

Firstly, I will admit that in my heart I am envisioning this as a possibly-more-attainable version of what seems to be an oft-requested feature — custom data fields.

One of the appeals of tags is the versatility — I can use it to tag that my copy of Eragon is "removed from circulation" and/or "in need of repair," that Bridge to Terabithia is in the "children's section" and also that one of the topics of the book is "grief/loss." A book might be tagged for the "mystery" genre and also because it is a reading for someone's "book club." A book might have been "borrowed from Tim," "recommended by Jodie," or "loaned to Skylar; damaged upon return." You might tag a book as "mature," "offensive," or "potentially upsetting." My point being: these are a lot of different categories that someone might use tags for — "borrowed from Tim" is a different category of tag than "dystopian fiction," and both are different tags than "in need of repair." But currently they are all classed under the same category of "tags."

I would love if we could create groups of similar-purpose tags, and have the ability to use these groups separately, ie when customizing list group styles, to have the genre tag group shown after the author, and the location tag group right before the call number. I have three different ideas of how that might look function-wise, depending on what is feasible for the coding/infrastructure of the site. In order from, in my opinion, the most to least desirable formats:

A) Everyone gets to name and sort their tags into groups. Maybe there's a maximum of 5 or so groups, maybe not, but you get to name your own, so the column in the list view reads "(name of category) tags." Maybe there is a miscellaneous/unassigned group as well.

B) Everybody gets 5 groups (or however many is reasonable), which are already called something like "Group A tags," "Group B tags," etc. Column in the list view would read "Group A tags" or whatever the default name is, but one would get to determine the categories each tag belongs to for oneself. A miscellaneous/unassigned tag group might be nice here, but if not, I would hope all existing tags would get dumped into the same group together when the feature is introduced (instead of being deleted or randomly assigned or the like).

C) Universal groups. LT itself determines a certain amount of "canonical" (for lack of a better word) groups, and each user determines which category their tags belong in. Then you can drag "genre tags" and "location tags" or whatever combination you like into your list group styles. Suggestions for universal tag groups:
Circulation
Physical description
Location
Topics
Genre
Groups (such as book club, summer reading 2018, restricted from public access, to be donated, etc)
People
Miscellaneous/Unassigned
I strongly feel that a miscellany category is almost required for this option, because there will always be use-cases that can't be predicted. Maybe you want to tag which animals show up in your books, or tag sensitive material, or track which books you think are just objectively the best, so all your friends can read those first.

I may be the only person on this site who doesn't use the tag system for cases which would objectively help me stay organized because I get so incredibly bothered by tags which I perceive to be in different categories from one another showing up in the same column, but regardless, I think this is a feature that would be widely used/appreciated.

Thanks for reading.

Edit:
I want to clarify that I'm not using tags for all these example cases. Most of these are example cases I have pulled from either looking at common tags, or from LT's own explanation on tag usage here: https://www.librarything.com/concepts ("Tags are a simple way to categorize books according to how you think of them, not how some official librarian does.")
I know genre is a category; nonetheless the vast majority of tags I see are genres, and there are plenty of genres that aren't in LT's genre list, like the example I used of Dystopian Fiction, or for nonfiction, I have a lot of books I'd like to put under the genre of 'psychology,' which I can't, because it's not on LT's list.

Personally, I use tags exclusively to note where in the library a book is, ie Children's or Special Collection, because having an 'other call number' Chi 553.46 is different than tagging that book as 'Children's', and I have reasons why I need both those bits of information on a book. I am migrating from a system where each field had unique information, and that's the way I stay organized. I would love to be able to add subject headers to tags, for when a book doesn't have them or when I feel like one is missing, but it would not be worth it for me because I would lose the organization of having a field which is only for the location of a book.

I suggested this feature because it would help me stay organized, and I added other examples to show how it might help others stay organized as well.

I don't see the point. Most of the 'groups' you want have dedicated fields. If you don't care to put your locations into 'Other call number', that is your business, but it's your choice. If you have it in tags, it's with all the other tags (although if you start all your location tags with @, you can group them that way.) . There is a 'genre' feature, a circulation feature. Comments and Private comments are good places for some of the other information.

Why don't you spend some time getting to know the site?

Custom data fields are very hungry for computer resources. Even the addition of a single extra plain field would require a lot of extra resources.

Tags are meant to be free form, brain mapping type items. They aren't meant to be controlled. To do what is proposed in >1 GraceCollection: would take away that free form aspect of the field.

Also --
Borrowed by, Loaned to: Lending Feature.
Paperback, hardback, board book: Media type field.
Shelf location: Other Call Number.
Mystery, Fiction: Genre field.
Damaged on return: Comments or Private Comments

No need to create new tag groups when other fields already exist.

Also, for most libraries things like "borrowed from Tim," "recommended by Jodie," or "loaned to Skylar; " should not be in tags, as the names might be identifiable. It is not good practice to name individuals in an open database. Such information should be hidden in the circulation feature or placed in Private Comments. You may have your library set to private, but most libraries on LT aren't, and you might change yours at some point.

>4 MarthaJeanne: I totally agree.

As an aside I've found great pleasure in looking at the full tag mirror for some of my books, i.e. The Picture of Dorian Gray

https://www.librarything.com/work/1527/summary/61146458

because it displays the many, many, many ways of using tags.

I think the suggestion can be viewed as a another to add tags.
It could be implemented pretty similar to the current "media" field, to have several layers of tags.
For example, tags can be:
Genre
├Literature
│├American literature
│└Greek literature
└Travel
　├Asia
　├Europe
　├...
Media
├light novel
├manga
├...
Publishing status
├completed
├discontinued
└ongoing
Reading status
├...

That is, I recommend that the tag tree(?) can be collapsed/expanded.
And the tags can be added by clicking in additional to typing.
--
I hope the tag field in the export file remains unchanged.

>6 HsuBattery: but you can already do this with the existing tags, if you want.

>6 HsuBattery: But that takes away the free form idea behind tags.
Also, the ones you are stacking can be done in other existing fields.
Have you looked into the MDS fields that exist? Or the Library of Congress call number?
Or perhaps have you turned on the Genre feature?

Reading status is tracked through collections and dates (though I also understand a tag for these as well, but no need to stack that.)
Publishing status? That would be comments.

>7 bnielsen: The existing tag system do not have a tag taxonomy/group/tree that can be collapse/expand.
And I would like to know how to add tag by clicking instead of typing.
These two are the improvements that I recommended.

>8 gilroy: There are many ways to use tags, it can be done in other existing fields doesn't mean it shouldn't be achieved using the tag system.
The following tags are popular tags that be done in other existing fields, but these are still popular tags.
#1. to-read → shelf
#2. fiction → genre
#3. non-fiction → shelf
#4. fantasy → genre
#5. history → genre
...
#8. read → shelf
#9. biography → genre
#10. ebook → media
...
#43. paperback → media

>9 HsuBattery: I admitted to using a tag for a feature that exists. But I was also here before that feature was built. So it's my backup
People still list author, series, and awards in tags. That's not the argument from me.

I'm more objecting to the taxonomy being in a different feature, so not needing to mess with the free form nature that is tags. You want a taxonomy, go to the feature for that.

>9 HsuBattery: Those are popular tags which recreate other features of the site because tags can be used by the user in any way they want. There is nothing stopping you from creating your own hierarchy of tags, such as https://www.librarything.com/tag/literature--Greek--Epics or https://www.librarything.com/tag/literature-Greek-Crete
but it doesn't make sense for the LT staff to spend their limited time creating a way for tags to function in the same way as other, already existing site features

And I would like to know how to add tag by clicking instead of typing.
Once you type at least 3 letters of a tag, a drop-down will show tags you are already using that start with that sequence of letters, and you can click from the list to complete the tag.

>10 gilroy: It's actually nested tags, not taxonomy per se. I have it in my note-taking app and it's wonderful. Anything can be nested as long as it makes sense for your purposes. I'm certain though that it's a huge project for a site like LT to implement now and it's dubious how feasible it even is in light of tag combination. Too many would become uncombinable and would then not appear prominently in tag clouds. In a local setting where you only have your own tags, it's perfect.

>9 HsuBattery: Most of those tags were added before those features were introduced. Genres are very recent, but even collections were not a feature from the beginning.

>2 MarthaJeanne:
I don't put a description of where a book is located in the 'other call number' because that's where I put the call number. The 'genre' feature that is native to LT doesn't have my example of 'dystopian fiction,' nor does it have 'psychology,' a tag I would love to use on my own books. From what I see on the site, genres are one of the biggest use cases for tags in the first place, because the native list doesn't feature every single genre that exists, and some people want to sort their books in a different way. I also use the circulation feature, but it doesn't give me anywhere to note that a book was removed from circulation specifically for repairs, or indeed, to put any other information (edit, Norabelle pointed out that I was underutilizing this feature, but I will leave this sentence in for context). I am using private comments, but again, that means anything I put there is in the same category as everything else I use that field for, and furthermore, comments don't function the same way tags do.

>3 gilroy: I don't see how any freedom would be taken away with this suggestion. If you didn't want to group your tags, you could leave them all in the same group with each other, and it would work exactly the way it does now. I'm simply offering a suggestion for users who want something different.

Also:
Lending feature doesn't seem to work with my example of "this book was borrowed from Tim," which is an example I pulled directly from LT's examples of how to use tags, nor does it cover my other example of "this book was recommended by Jodie."
I never mentioned media type.
I use the 'other call number' field to put in the call number for a book, which for quite a few books in this collection is completely unique to that book, not to spell out a section of the library that many other books share.
'Genre' may have 'mystery' and 'fiction,' but it doesn't include genres like my example of 'dystopian fiction.' I added this example because I see that a lot of use for tags comes from people tagging genres, which signaled to me that if this suggestion were implemented, one of the major groups most people would use would be genre.

>4 MarthaJeanne: "Borrowed from Tim" example is taken directly from LT's guides on tagging. https://www.librarything.com/concepts

I don't think single first names, especially common ones, are identifiable enough to be a problem, except in the context of someone you already share a social circle with viewing your library and knowing which Tim you borrowed that book from, but in that case, I don't see the harm in it being identifiable. Nonetheless, I do not and would not use tags this way personally, it was an example I took from LT itself.

>13 GraceCollection: I also use the circulation feature, but it doesn't give me anywhere to note that a book was removed from circulation specifically for repairs, or indeed, to put any other information
You can add additional circulation statuses such as "removed for repair" by clicking "other" and then "other..." from the drop-down.

>16 norabelle414:
I see! Thank you, I hadn't noticed this.

There was talk of tag bundling being enabled early in the site history - see here for one example https://www.librarything.com/topic/20487 but I don't think it is likely that it will be enabled this late in the game.

>18 Aquila: What a shame! Thank you for sharing, though! Do you know if the symbol system readafew mentions here still works? I might see how it feels to have a '! group,' '& group,' etc.