Collection Rule

Chuck Forsythe

Greetings all:

 

I am trying to create a collection of studies of Bible Characters (persons)

 

This rule gives me 10 resources:

subject:biography ANDNOT (title:history OR subject:"church history" OR subject:"christian biography" OR subject:histor) ANDNOT (title:jesus OR title:"Christ" OR title:"lord")

 

If I try to "tighten up" the rule, and write it this way:

subject:biography ANDNOT (title:history OR subject:"church history",histor,"christian biography") ANDNOT (title:jesus,"Christ","lord")

I get only 7 titles. It leaves out these three titles (which were in the first collection)

MacAurthur's Twelve ordinary men :

Richard's Every man in the Bible

Varner's The chariot of Israel : Exploits of the prophet Elijah

 

Can you tell me what is happening?

 

Thanks

Chuck

Rosie Perera

ChuckForsythe said:

Can you tell me what is happening?

You need to use parentheses with the filter:a,b,c syntax:  it should be filter:(a,b,c)

So try this:

subject:biography ANDNOT (title:history OR subject:("church history",histor,"christian biography")) ANDNOT (title:(jesus,"Christ","lord"))

I get more hits in my library than you do, but this version of your second rule gets the same hits as your first rule.

This rule does get all kinds of biographies of non-Bible characters, though: Calvin, Augustine, Spurgeon, Paul, Therese of Lisieux. These are probably not books you have in your library, but if you're trying to make a good dynamic rule that will function well if more resources are added, you need to tweak it a bit more. It's such a varied topic that is likely to have so many exceptions, that it might be hard to make a sure-fire rule that will catch every book and only the right books. I'd be tempted to tag the books related to Bible Characters and then do a collection rule based on that (e.g., mytag:BibleChar). You can use Library filters to help you find the books to tag in the first place.

Just to give you another point of comparison, here's what I came up with for this collection from my library by tagging the ones I felt belonged in this category:

Adventures in Faith: Studies in the Life of Abraham	De Haan, M. R.
Every Man in the Bible	Richards, Larry
Every Woman in the Bible	Richards, Larry
First Person: Essays in Biblical Autobiography	Davies, Philip R.
Gleanings from Elisha: His Life and Miracles	Pink, Arthur W.
The Leader's Guidebook: Life Principles from the Women of the Bible - Book One	Barber, Wayne A.; Rasnake, Eddie; Shepherd, Richard L.
The Leader’s Guidebook: Life Principles from the Women of the Bible - Book Two	Barber, Wayne A.; Rasnake, Eddie; Shepherd, Richard L.
Learning Life Principles from the Kings of the Old Testament	Barber, Wayne A.; Rasnake, Eddie; Shepherd, Richard L.
Learning Life Principles from the New Testament Men of Faith	Barber, Wayne A.; Rasnake, Eddie; Shepherd, Richard L.
Learning Life Principles from the Personalities of the Old Testament	Barber, Wayne A.; Rasnake, Eddie; Shepherd, Richard L.
Learning Life Principles From the Women of the Bible - Book One	Barber, Wayne A.; Rasnake, Eddie; Shepherd, Richard L.
Learning Life Principles From the Women of the Bible - Book Two	Barber, Wayne A.; Rasnake, Eddie; Shepherd, Richard L.
The Life of David	Pink, Arthur W.
The Life of St. Paul	Stalker, James
Life Principles from the Prophets of the Old Testament	Barber, Wayne; Shepherd, Richard L.; Rasnake, Eddie
Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God	Coats, George W.
New International Encyclopedia of Bible Characters: The Complete Who's Who in the Bible	Gardner, Paul D.
Paul: Apostle of the Free Spirit	Bruce, F. F.

 

Chuck Forsythe

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/123728#Comment_123728

Thanks Rosie! 

I knew to use the parenthesis, but forgot. I'm doing a lot of forgetting these days <grin>.  I actually have it right in a many other rules I created.

Also, I really appreciate your list. I'll have to work on this. I have all of the books you list, except the last three and Davies' book. So, I'll have to tag the books.Thanks for the heads  up. 

I really like the idea of the dynamic rule. Yet, for some subjects, creating a rule seems about impossible (given the lack of consistency in title and  subject field).

Chuck

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/123905#Comment_123905

Although I don't have all the books you do, a better rule for my books is:

(((subject:biography OR title:biography) AND subject:bibl) OR subject:"apostles--biography" OR title:"life of") ANDNOT (subject:Jesus, title:Jesus)

It might add a few you don't want (you can manually remove them), but I prefer false positives to missing resources if I can help it. If you buy resources in the future, you'll spot false positives when you're searching in collections. You may never spot new resources not being added to your collection.

 

Chuck Forsythe

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/123969#Comment_123969

Hi Mark:

Thank you!

I share your philosophy on collections. I certainly would prefer to need to remove resources than to try to find reources I may or may not know I have.

I used your rule and got 7 additional hits (3 need to be removed and 4 resources I did not get with mine). However, it misses most of the resources Rosie listed that I have. So, I guess I'll be looking at this some more soon.

 

Chuck