Using Series for Magazines

I’m curious if someone can help me. I’m trying to add magazines to our collection, that can be checked out by members of our community group.

Other similar libraries use the series function, so I’ve been trying to figure that out. I’ve read a bunch of threads regarding this, and the ones I’ve “successfully” added were added manually, then I go into the work only work page to add it to a series.

However, the next one is confusing me because I see the magazines that other libraries have cataloged, but when I go to add them on the add book page they don’t come up. So I try to add manually, but I feel like I’m making a mess of the series. I don’t want to duplicate them? And when I try to delete the item - because I don’t want to duplicate it - it takes the item out of My Books, but the duplicated listings are still found in the series page.

Is there one, a way to remove these entries that I’ve messed up. And two, a way to somehow use the entries that are already in the series? I also would prefer the title to be worded slightly different, but can probably live with someone else’s version. Is there a way to use the series description, but still customize that in your view on My Books?

If two entries have been combined, it is easy to separate them from the editions page. Deleting and reentering will only make more mess.

It is also easy to combine two works if the autocombiner doesn't do it. Easiest is provably to add both to the workbench, on the right hand side of the work page.

Once separating and combining are done, there will be no problems on the series pages.

Most individual magazines will not be found in sources, as that is not how libraries deal with them. Therefore the Add Book button won't help you enter them.

MarthaJeanne Do you have a better way of dealing with magazines? I’m just starting out on this endeavor, and am open to any and all ideas. They need to be able to individually be checked out to members of our group. And easily searched for to see which issues are in our collection.

>3 BoulderHandweavers: Then you have to enter each individually, and that manually. What you can do, is enter one carefully, and then open two windows, to copy and paste the things that stay the same.

BTW very interesting set of books. I'm surprised we have none in common.

>3 BoulderHandweavers: In this case you will need to add them as separate entries into LT :) I personally find the manual adding page (look under the list of sources on the Add Books page) to be the easiest way to add magazines - you add only the pieces of information you need (title, author, tags?, Publication details (date, number of pages, publisher and so on). Then if it gets autocombined wrongly, you rescue it out (separate it -- or come to the Combiners group and ask for help) and if it does not get autocombined but we already have copies of that issue, you can combine via the workbench (or again come and ask for help). And if yours is the first copy for that specific issue, once you add it, you can then add it to the LT series.

You can use whatever naming convention you want on your copies (thus making them easy to find for your members) and if different people use different names, we can easily combine the two records regardless of the titles.

Thank you everyone for your help!

So, I have not played with the workbench, but it looks like that’s where I need to go.

The magazine I was trying to add, which looks like many of the issues are already entered, is “cloth paper scissors”. There are a few series with that name, and I feel they are all essentially the same. The most accurate probably the cloth paper scissors studio, although that may have gotten dropped at some point in time.

It’s been mentioned that I can come and ask for help. Can I have someone walk me through this process so I can better understand what I’m doing?

I think I did it correctly :). I went into the series, added my version to the workbench, then went back and added the issue I wanted to combine it with. Read all the notes and combined. It’s now where it belongs. Thank you everyone!!! Much easier than I thought it would be :)

>7 BoulderHandweavers: It looks complicated but it is really straight forward - you can also combine from an author page or sometimes LT will offer you to combine from the page of the work itself. The workbench simply allows you to pick any random 2 works and put them in a position that allows the combination to be done. Great powers, great responsibilities and all that.

One hidden feature - if you need to add a LOT of works to the same series, add them into the workbench. Then go to the series and when you go to add a work from that interface, it will allow you to add the works from your workbench. That is useful when you are adding a ton of magazines in a row -- add them all, add them to the workbench, add all other stragglers into the workbench, do all the combining if need be and then use the add Works page of the series to add the ones that are not in the series yet into the series.

Please also note that if the same series is added twice under slightly different names, we can also combine series (look at the series page for it - as long as the two series have at least one work in common, they show up in the side bar and you can decide to combine them or set a relationship (is a subseries, is a reordering and so on) - for magazines, it will be almost always to combine them.

And do not hesitate to just post in Combiners! and ask for assistance if you are not sure or if you think something is messed up -- deleting a book never solves an issue like that and anything is fixable :)

>8 AnnieMod: AnnieMod Thank you for all of that! I do think it will be helpful, as we have magazine series going back a few decades :).

I did research the cloth paper scissors, and the studios version is a distinct and separate magazine. So, no combining there.

Thanks again! I’ll reach out again when I run into problems :)