Added a custom column for theme

[Graham44]

I sometimes, quite often, get a hankering to read a particular type of story. Not just say a ghost story but a ghost story with maybe a creepy graveyard in it.

Now browsing through your book covers and synopsis in Calibre wont always tell you what exactly a book is about, sure there's a creepy house on the front and the synopsis says it's full of ghosts and the genre is ghost stories, but is there a creepy graveyard?

To get over this I've added a custom column titled theme, and in this I will populate it with keywords for the story, creepy house, graveyard, battles in space etc I think to stop this becoming totally unwieldy I will have to create a list of standard phrases so I don't end up with say Space Battles and Battles in Space.

I also need to figure out how to stop it becoming too specific to each individual book, perhaps creepy graveyard would be too specific and instead creepy atmosphere

Some figuring out needed, but that's half the fun!

Has anyone else done something similar?

[Sirtel]

No. I've thought about it, but I have far too many books in various genres and such a list would become too lengthy and long-winded in no time.

I guess if one reads only a definite set of genres and subgenres it might make sense. My tastes are a bit too eclectic for this, and I've amassed too much stuff.

[Graham44]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

No. I've thought about it, but I have far too many books in various genres and such a list would become too lengthy and long-winded in no time.

I guess if one reads only a definite set of genres and subgenres it might make sense. My tastes are a bit too eclectic for this, and I've amassed too much stuff.

Yes I can already see this may be a problem, figuring out a way to label something with any meaning but without being too specific is proving challenging.

Also I can't figure out how to search for data in a custom column. I've created the column and named it Book Themes, I've created a list (just in a word document) of phrases I am going to use, Ghost, Creature horror, Mystery, Location horror etc and I can add these no problem. I can also click on these phrases in the side panel of a book and it will bring up all books with the same theme. But can I get the search bar to search just this custom column, so instead of having to find an initial book with Location Horror and clicking on that say is there some way of typing in Location Horror in the search bar and have it only search my custom column?

At the moment if I type in say Location Horror it will find the book I added Location Horror to but it will also find any book where Location Horror is mentioned in the text anywhere

Ignore that last paragraph I've found how to do that - Advanced Search, drop down menu then you can select your custom column for me #theme guess you could do #theme in the search bar as well

[theducks]

Why a custom column (I belong to the mean-0lean DB group )
The Tag browser (and Saved searches) allow
AND type searches.
tags: Ghosts and Horror and Graveyard

Oh!
Did you specify which to search (instead of letting it be the general, all allowed)
#theme:Graveyard

[Graham44]

Originally Posted by theducks

Why a custom column (I belong to the mean-0lean DB group )
The Tag browser (and Saved searches) allow
AND type searches.
tags: Ghosts and Horror and Graveyard

Oh!
Did you specify which to search (instead of letting it be the general, all allowed)
#theme:Graveyard

The way I set tags up they are more an overview so Sci-fi, Ghosts, Historical fiction etc, I wanted a way to drill down into this further so say Ghosts > Haunted house > Creepy item but I think this is going to be way too specific to be practical.

What I may do (just thought of this as I was typing) is at the beginning of each synopsis, or somewhere within the book info is put keywords i.e Haunted house; Creepy item so when Im looking at a category I can see at a glance what each book is generally about. That way if I particularly want to read a haunted house book I know it will be under Ghosts then I just flick through the books until I see keywords I want.

[fidvo]

I don't see a problem with your approach, as long as you make a distinction between the main categorization and the optional details.

I'll use your "Ghost > Haunted house > Creepy item" example. If you make your column a tag-like hierarchical column, then you would enter it in Calibre as:

Ghost.Haunted house.Creepy item

If this is an example of what you'll have in your library, I recommend a 2-level main hierarchy (e.g. Ghost.Haunted house) with an optional 3rd level that you only use in certain circumstances.

You'll probably have quite a few Ghost.Haunted house entries, but you may not have anything to put at the 3rd level for most of your books. That's okay. Don't feel you have to get that detailed; just use that 3rd level when you need it.

I recommend starting by coming up with a set of 2-level tags that will cover most of your books. Don't worry about making it exhaustive, you can easily add onto it later. Start categorizing your books with these tags.

If you decide that in some cases, 2 levels doesn't quite cover what you need in a specific instance (e.g. you really need that "Creepy item" category), go ahead and add a 3rd level. It won't mess up anything; it still falls under the "Ghost.Haunted house" category.

In the tag browser, if you click twice on an entry that has sub-entries, the filter will include all books that have the main entry regardless of whether it gets more specific. For example, if you click twice on the Haunted house entry under Ghost, it will include not just books tagged with "Ghost.Haunted house", but also books tagged with "Ghost.Haunted house.Creepy item".

Also, if you write down your list of tags ahead of time (I like to keep mine in a text file in Calibre), this should minimize the problem of using different wording for the same tags.

I hope this makes sense. I know I can get long-winded in my explanations sometimes.