You can put almost any column into the collections column field. It is a comma separated list of column names. I currently have it set to:
Code:
#kobobookshelves, #readstatus, #status, series
"#readstatus" and "#status" are custom columns I populate with the status such as "toRead", "Reading" and "Finished" along with a couple of other things. The two columns exist because I have different libraries and the names are inconsistent.
"series" is the series name, so it creates a collection for each series in the library.
"#kobobookshelves" is a custom columns I populate with whatever other collection name I want. I don't set this for all books, just the ones I want in some special collection.
You can have a complicated set like I do, or a single column such as "author" if all you want is a collection for each author.