Omnibii for eBDs, love em or hate em

[unboggling]

Omnibuses of novels abound, some edited and formatted wonderfully - like HarryT's ER Burroughs - and some not. Love to read them, if the formatting's not distracting, but how do I catalog them? They're a higher level of abstraction than "book."

In my former placid pBook universe, I solved this dilemna mostly by not buying omnibii unless a novel was available only there. So it was a rare case in my printed out pBook spreadsheet that I took along to pBook stores so I wouldn't buy books I'd already read (and still owned because I might read it again someday), or already read and trashed (because I wouldn't read it again.) And I solved the occasional exceptionn case there by listing novels subsumed in Omnibus books as separate records, with a symbolic indicator meaning 'a subsumed novel in an omnibus listed elsewhere.' And listing trashed books at that same level of 'not an actual book.' Similar to calibre's empty book concept.

But in this not so placid eBook universe, what should I do?

Say I want a search to find Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar but I don't have it listed that way under the title Tarzan Omnibus 1 (HarryT's). If I didn't think to list all the subsumed novels in parens in the title field, making an unwieldy long title string, I wouldn't find it. Novel names as tags?-yuch. Custom column just to handle this? - doesn't solve the search problem.

How do other people, especially professional librarians, like to handle this problem of different levels of abstaction in their cataloging? I'm leaning toward the same method as in my pBook spreadsheet, separate novel records with symbolic indicator of 'subsumed novel in Omnibuses elsewhere' and perhaps the Omnibus title in a comments field.

[unboggling]

er, omnibi? However it's spelled or pluraled....

[CWatkinsNash]

I'm not a professional librarian, but I'm obsessive and using Calibre, so if nothing else, I'm thorough.

I haven't done so yet (as I've only acquired two omnibuses so far and haven't gotten around to it) but my plan is to list the individual novels using the "empty book" function, tagging them with "Inc" (included in other work), including the omnibus title in the comments, and otherwise treating them as actual books. The omnibuses themselves are tagged as "Anthologies", which I use as a catch-all for any collections (whether traditional anthologies or single-author collections), and also use the applicable genre tags.

As I mentioned, I only have two so far, (Sherlock Holmes and a giant G.B. Shaw collection) and doing all of the above will have to wait until after I fix all the godawful metadata on the huge load of Kaplan freebies I downloaded.

[Andrew H.]

Omnibuses, please!

If you group books by period (i.e., 19th Century), you can usually easily deal with this issue. Genre might work for more modern works, although it's more problematic for older titles which usually don't fall neatly within our genre conventions.

[unboggling]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

list the individual novels using the "empty book" function, tagging them with "Inc" (included in other work), including the omnibus title in the comments, and otherwise treating them as actual books. The omnibuses themselves are tagged as "Anthologies", which I use as a catch-all for any collections (whether traditional anthologies or single-author collections), and also use the applicable genre tags.

Yes. So far that seems the best solution.

[unboggling]

OK, omnibuses. I'd search and replace omnibii if I could. Curious, I just looked up octopus in dictionary and was astounded to find plural is not octopi.

Omnibuses. Reminds me of those tall red double-decker buses in London. The item is not omni in the sense of "all ways or places" and is not a bus. I could have used "omnibo" or "omniboses" above which at least point toward books. But imho the term should be metabook since it is a higher order of abstraction than book.

[unboggling]

or maybe superbook

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

If you group books by period (i.e., 19th Century), you can usually easily deal with this issue. Genre might work for more modern works, although it's more problematic for older titles which usually don't fall neatly within our genre conventions.

I can definitely see the logic in that approach, but apparently I'm not happy unless I can do "search math":

18th Century + Fiction + Gothic + Enlightenment = Wieland: The Transformation

That's why I love Calibre - it lets me overcomplicate things to a satisfying degree.

Fortunately, I haven't yet come across too many older works that don't fit into my genre/tagging system. That said, I realize most people don't (and wouldn't want to) use as many tags as I do. I just don't think I could find anything any other way. I even considered using the Dewey Decimal System for my non-fiction titles. (The LOC classifications make me twitch.)

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by unboggling

or maybe superbook

I prefer megatome.

[unboggling]

megatome. metatome. demiitome? as in godlike.

There's a worthwhile article discussing genre at wikipedia. I found it by searching "genre & definition" - summing up to: all definitions are relative, vague, and subjective and are used mainly for marketing. And the MR wiki here has good lists of genres and the BISG official genre categories. I printed them out and went madly tagging/untagging for hours today.

I used tag "Omnibus" for omnibuses, and eventually when I enter the Omnibus' included novels as separate records I'll add tag "inOmnibus" to whatever other tags seem to fit.

[Hellmark]

When it comes to eBooks, I really have no preference when it comes to getting an omnibus or not, IF the omnibus is well formatted with a good Table of Contents and all that. I've run into some collections (take that odd plural form of omnibus!) that were better put together than individual ebooks of the same works.

[unboggling]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

When it comes to eBooks, I really have no preference when it comes to getting an omnibus or not, IF the omnibus is well formatted with a good Table of Contents and all that. I've run into some collections (take that odd plural form of omnibus!) that were better put together than individual ebooks of the same works.

I've seen many better-formatted omnibuses available on this site.

[Freeshadow]

I always loved series as an omnibus - as PB too