Great ideas for arranging your commentary collections!

I thought it could helpful to discuss how we arrange our commentary collections. I'm very interested to know what others are doing?

Over the years I have renamed all my commentaries into a format with [1] the book covered, [2] the surname of the author(s), and [3] the series it is part of.

I have then sorted the commentaries into various collections (see below) and then prioritised them according to my preference.

I would love to hear how you are doing it?

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Comments

Kevin A

I use Mark Barnes's collections with a custom guide with them all added. https://community.logos.com/forums/t/88829.aspx

I have never thought about renaming the commentaries, but definitely something to consider; did it take long, how did you go about it?

Mark Rodgers

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1103259#Comment_1103259

Hi Kevin.

Yes, it took a long time to begin with. But now I am on top of it, it's just a case of renaming new commentaries I purchase.

I started by working through a book of the bible. In my case I began at the beginning, Genesis, and renamed all my commentaries relating to that book.... and so on. If I was teaching on a book later on, I would work through all those commentaries relating to that book and rename and sort them.

It has been incredibly helpful to work through the commentaries in renaming them and tagging them, as it has made me look at each commentary afresh.

Kevin A

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1103262#Comment_1103262

Yes that sounds like a good way, just as you get to each book...and if you are spending many weeks in a book, not such a hugmongous task.

I will have a good think about it. Is there anything with hindsight you would do differently?

DMB

I renamed all my commentaries into a format with [1] the book covered, [2] the surname of the author(s), and [3] the series it is part of.

I did also, but prefixed it with book number (01-66), so all the commentaries are both title-sorted and grouped. I use the 70s for deutero's, 80-90s for pseudepigrapha.

Mark Rodgers

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1103289#Comment_1103289

Kevin

It took me a while to work out how to organise the commentary collections. As you will see from the screenshots, these are the ones I ultimately settled on. Obviously with hindsight, I would have saved a lot of time by doing what I did at the end

I would also, in advance, create dividers for each book of the bible, to use in the prioritising pane. As you add more books, these become indispensable for clearly separating the categories of prioritised books.

Finally, there is no point re-naming, tagging etc commentaries that have been superseded or surpassed by other commentaries in your resources. This is partly a personal decision, but I have weaned out all commentaries that I think fall below a certain qualitative value (compared to others I have), and I do not tag, re-name, or add these to a collection.

Mark Rodgers

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1103295#Comment_1103295

[quote]

I did also, but prefixed it with book number (01-66), so all the commentaries are both title-sorted and grouped. I use the 70s for deutero's, 80-90s for pseudepigrapha.

Denise

That's very interesting! I love that idea! Thanks for sharing that - had not thought of that....

Wouldn't it be great if there was a way of renaming books in batches, so that you could add prefixes or suffices!

NB.Mick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1103296#Comment_1103296

Wouldn't it be great if there was a way of renaming books in batches, so that you could add prefixes or suffices!

If you were to use tags, you can apply them in batches. I use those to group/sort my commentaries and to have a quick collection at hand for searches etc. Thus I tag #01 - Gen, #02 - Ex... #39 - Mal, #61 - Mt, #62 - Mk etc (which is the Logos sequence, deuterocanonicals/apocrypha go from #40 onwards). You may find the numbers in Logos resource IDs and also in the wiki to easily reference rule-based collections.

Mark Rodgers

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1103303#Comment_1103303

Thanks for that Mick! Very helpful!

Robert M. Warren

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1103312#Comment_1103312

A heads-up when using the mobile app (at least the Android; maybe the iOS is different):

The user-edited resource title will display, but sorting by Title will sort internally by the static/unedited Logos resource Title. Or: I have missed a setting somewhere.

I use tags like '(01_Gen)'. In desktop, sort by My Tags. In mobile: search "mytag:(01_Gen)" (actually the '(01' is all that's needed).

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1103259#Comment_1103259

I use Mark Barnes's collections with a custom guide with them all added. https://community.logos.com/forums/t/88829.aspx

I have never thought about renaming the commentaries, but definitely something to consider; did it take long,

+1 [Y] for creating mytag collections using Mark Barnes collections with historical group modification (split Modern into two time periods plus added Contemporary & Recent):

Commentary1Antiquity (prior to 0599)
Commentary2Medieval (0600 to 1500)
Commentary3Reformation (1501 to 1749)
Commentary4Awakenings (1750 to 1900)
Commentary5Modern (1901 to 1950)
Commentary6Contemporary (1951 to 2000)
Commentary7Recent (2001 to Present)

FYI: reason for mytag collections is cache refreshing in a library having ~5,000 Bible Commentary resources (mytag is faster than collection rules, but does require manual tagging of new Bible Commentary resources).

Reply => https://community.logos.com/forums/p/139386/890581.aspx#890581 in thread => Listing Commentaries by Bible included:

Commentary Titles (with preference for shorter title to show in Passage Guide, Search Results, Tabs, ...)

?< for Plagiarism Alert

#### for Year

Series OR Author

(Author) is optional, which is helpful for series with more than one author for commentary on a book

Separator is = for Top 2 and : for others

Bible Book(s)

Optional suffix

Abbreviated Title

Bible Book abbreviation(s)

Series abbreviation

#### Year is optional, which is helpful for series with more than one author for commentary on a book

After using modified Commentary Titles, have updated personal title convention:

Commentary Titles (with preference for shorter title to show in Passage Guide, Search Results, Tabs, ...)

?< for Plagiarism Alert
#### for Year (content composition)
Series (Abbreviation OR Initials of Primary Author)
(Author) is comma separated list
Separator is = for Top 2 and : for others
Original Title
Optional suffix (Year translated/published)

Abbreviated Title

#### Year (left out when content spans many centuries), which is helpful for series with more than one commentary on a book
Series (OR Author Initials) abbreviation
Bible Book abbreviation(s)

Keep Smiling [:)]

Mark Rodgers

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1103324#Comment_1103324

Thanks for those very helpful comments

Do you have an up-to-date snap shot to give us an idea of what your commentary books and arrangements actually look like?

Michael Kinch

Thank you. Some very helpful information here.

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1103324#Comment_1103324

After using modified Commentary Titles, have updated personal title convention:

Commentary Titles (with preference for shorter title to show in Passage Guide, Search Results, Tabs, ...)

?< for Plagiarism Alert

#### for Year (content composition)

Series (Abbreviation OR Initials of Primary Author)

(Author) is comma separated list

Separator is = for Top 2 and : for others

Original Title

Optional suffix (Year translated/published)

Abbreviated Title

#### Year (left out when content spans many centuries), which is helpful for series with more than one commentary on a book

Series (OR Author Initials) abbreviation

Bible Book abbreviation(s)

Added Jewish indicator to my Commentary Title conventions: (Asterisk has six points => Star of David reminder for me)

Commentary Titles (with preference for shorter abbreviated title to show in Passage Guide, Search Results, Tabs, ...)

?< for Plagiarism Alert
#### for Year (content composition, which can be a range of years)
Language suffix: null = English, g = Greek, h = Hebrew, L = Latin
Jewish * OR Goyim (Gentile) space
Series (Abbreviation OR Initials of Primary Author)
(Author) is comma separated list of last name(s)
Separator is = for Top 2 and : for others
Original Title (helpful for searching Logos.com and forum resource discussions)
Optional suffix (Year translated/published)

Abbreviated Title

#### Year (helpful for series with more than one commentary on a book)
Series (OR Author Initials) abbreviation
Jewish * OR Goyim (Gentile) space
Bible Book abbreviation(s)

Two Library screen shots show Title variety:

Note: my custom series "Top 2 Commentaries" includes many volumes from https://www.bestcommentaries.com/topcommentaries plus several historical resources, especially Jewish commentary: e.g. John Lightfoot & Dr John Gill understood Jesus was Jewish so their comments include Rabbinic insights.

Keep Smiling [:)]

Bruce Dunning

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1103324#Comment_1103324

+1 for creating mytag collections using Mark Barnes collections with historical group modification (split Modern into two time periods plus added Contemporary & Recent):

Commentary1Antiquity (prior to 0599)

Commentary2Medieval (0600 to 1500)

Commentary3Reformation (1501 to 1749)

Commentary4Awakenings (1750 to 1900)

Commentary5Modern (1901 to 1950)

Commentary6Contemporary (1951 to 2000)

Commentary7Recent (2001 to Present)

I've been meaning to do something to split up the divisions that Mark Barnes used but had not done so. Seeing your categories inspired me to update mine which is what I did tonight. Thanks!

The only thing I changed was the dates as I decided to be consistent by ending on an even number and starting on an odd number. e.g. 0-600, 601-1500, 1501-1750, 1751-1900, 1901-1950, 1951-2000, 2001-Now.

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1103322#Comment_1103322

A heads-up when using the mobile app (at least the Android; maybe the iOS is different):

The user-edited resource title will display, but sorting by Title will sort internally by the static/unedited Logos resource Title. Or: I have missed a setting somewhere.

I use tags like '(01_Gen)'. In desktop, sort by My Tags. In mobile: search "mytag:(01_Gen)" (actually the '(01' is all that's needed).

Robert's caution merits repeating.

Neither the mobile app nor web app respect customer re-titles. On ios apps, they sort of do for the first 15 or so, then show the re-title but ignore it for sorting, then finally dump the re-titles entirely. The web app doesn't bother ... one big reason I don't bother with it, since my titles are my workflow.

Like Robert, I also tag all the books.