Genres vs. Tags? - Page 2

HomeInMyShoes · 08-05-2011, 11:46 AM

^But if you want to find all the SciFi books in your collection you have to ask two questions to get the answer instead of just sorting the list by genre and pulling out SciFi. I find the concept that a book can only be in one genre as terribly confining and really unhelpful at times. Where do I put "The Sharper Your Knife..." It's Fiction, It's a Romance (sort of, maybe smalll r romance), and it's got some nice recipes in it. So it's both fiction, non-fiction, cooking, romance. If I'm looking for something to make for dinner and want to scan my cookbooks, I probably won't remember that there are some recipes in that novel. Using tags instead of a single-entry column like genre could help me out in this case. And I do mean in THIS case because everyone searches and finds things differently. If the original poster is going to come up with what they should do, they need to look at how they find things and how they classify the world in order to know what path they should go down.

All they need to know is the pros and cons of both using the genre column or using tags instead and determine what they need. This doesn't have to be an OR question, the best search facilities let us do both because searching and browsing are two different processes and yield different information for us.

chaley · 08-05-2011, 01:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

Using tags instead of a single-entry column like genre could help me out in this case.

There is absolutely no reason why a genre column must be single entry. If someone follows the tutorial, then the column is multi-entry.

Pinecone · 08-06-2011, 07:37 AM

It depends on YOUR needs.

I don't care about 8 million genres or tags. I know what most of the books I have are. I know the authors and what they write. So I just need a grouping for some one off or small numbers of books.

Whatever works FOR YOU. I was just presenting a way of doing it that works for me.

Also, I use these to create collections on my Sony. I don't need a Fiction collection of 1400 books, and a Scifi collection for 600 books, all of which are fiction. If it not Non-Fiction, it must be Fiction.

Pinecone · 08-06-2011, 07:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chaley

There is absolutely no reason why a genre column must be single entry. If someone follows the tutorial, then the column is multi-entry.

I think he was commenting on my system of organizing, where my Genre column is a Series Like column.

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08-05-2011, 11:46 AM	#16
HomeInMyShoes Grand Sorcerer Posts: 19,226 Karma: 67780237 Join Date: Jul 2011 Device: none	^But if you want to find all the SciFi books in your collection you have to ask two questions to get the answer instead of just sorting the list by genre and pulling out SciFi. I find the concept that a book can only be in one genre as terribly confining and really unhelpful at times. Where do I put "The Sharper Your Knife..." It's Fiction, It's a Romance (sort of, maybe smalll r romance), and it's got some nice recipes in it. So it's both fiction, non-fiction, cooking, romance. If I'm looking for something to make for dinner and want to scan my cookbooks, I probably won't remember that there are some recipes in that novel. Using tags instead of a single-entry column like genre could help me out in this case. And I do mean in THIS case because everyone searches and finds things differently. If the original poster is going to come up with what they should do, they need to look at how they find things and how they classify the world in order to know what path they should go down. All they need to know is the pros and cons of both using the genre column or using tags instead and determine what they need. This doesn't have to be an OR question, the best search facilities let us do both because searching and browsing are two different processes and yield different information for us.

08-06-2011, 07:37 AM	#18
Pinecone Guru Posts: 902 Karma: 1660722 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Maryland Device: PRS-650, PRS-600, PRS-350	It depends on YOUR needs. I don't care about 8 million genres or tags. I know what most of the books I have are. I know the authors and what they write. So I just need a grouping for some one off or small numbers of books. Whatever works FOR YOU. I was just presenting a way of doing it that works for me. Also, I use these to create collections on my Sony. I don't need a Fiction collection of 1400 books, and a Scifi collection for 600 books, all of which are fiction. If it not Non-Fiction, it must be Fiction.

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