Library management

Those of you who may have obtained a large library, I am interested in your methodology regarding library management. In other words, do you have a particular method that you use to ensure that the many books that you own do not get lost in the shuffle? I have found that many times in the course of using the books in my library, I occasionally stumble upon a book that I did not know that I owned. In addition, I am constantly buying other books that I think would be beneficial to my study. With all of that said, I am probing the forms to see if there is a particular method that you use to manage your library, and not lose sight of the books that you own. How do you ensure that a particular book is going to show up when you need it for your study? Thank you in advance.

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James C.

Tag every book you own. It takes time but is very important. Also create collections.

abondservant

Might suggest joining the following faithlife groups.

https://faithlife.com/logos-library-theology-denomination-tags

This one is the product of an 18 month crowd sourcing project to sort through all the resources we had in our Logos Libraries and label them in categories to help us understand the perspective of a given book at a glance. One of the benefits of Faithlife.com (owned & run by the same people that make Logos Bible Software) is that collections and other "document" types can be uploaded to the groups and with a click incorporated into your logos library. This group has 40 some categories; from the macro (denomination streams) to the micro (individual denominations). Its not perfect, nor does it include EVERY title, but it gets maybe 90% of all of them.

Secondly, I suggest joining this faithlife group.It helps you organize your commentaries by types, or by book of the bible.

Todd Phillips

I don't tag every book (I don't find it necessary), but I do create a lot of collections. Most of my collections are dynamic collections based on the subject, author and title meta-data (many examples here: https://wiki.logos.com/Example_Collections). My static collections tend to be smaller collections that are based on my preferences (like favorite Bibles). Using collections makes searches much more targeted and is a good way to browse your library since the library can be filtered by collection now.

I tag the books that don't have subject meta-data for the categories I need. For example, I tagged the books that I consider to be systematic theologies, because the subjects and titles assigned to these types of resources vary too widely for my tastes. I also tag books with the package name I bought them in, since order history doesn't tell me what I got in a package.

Many of my dynamic collection rules tend to based on lists of author names, like my reformed theology collection. This was enhanced by the group effort to categorize all authors based on theology in this thread: Theology/Denomination Tags . This resulted in many shared collections available in this Faithlife group: https://faithlife.com/logos-library-theology-denomination-tags/documents (you'll have to join the group to see them). I have similar collections but I don't use the shared ones because I like my naming conventions better.

I use the star ratings to mark every book. I give them all 2 stars by default. That way, any book without stars I consider to be new (and not looked at yet). I can find these non-starred books easily to process them ("rating:0"). Depending on the book, I add any necessary tags; I make sure that it is appearing in an appropriate collection (and if not, I determine what in the collection needs to be changed to include it); and I add a rating (2 stars if I don't have an opinion on the book).

I also generally sort my library by Last Updated. This column may not appear by default so you have to right-click the column headers to turn it on. I dragged it over to the left to be able to see it better. This allows me to see recent library changes easily.

Orpheus Heyward

Thank you to all. Very Helpful

John Fidel

There are so many variations on how to manage your library, all of them good, you just need to find what works best for you.

Tagging:

I started out with no tagging, but quite a few collections. A few years ago I took the rule for each collection and copied and pasted it into the library search box. I then used this method to tag resources by categories I already had rules for. I then sorted the library by mytags and it showed me every book not tagged. I then used a pre-created list of categories to finish tagging.

Each mytag category does functions as a collection, but you may want to create or modify collections using the mytag: Example: mytag:bib dictionaries AND rating>3 to create a favorite bible dictionaries collection.

Prioritization:

I prioritized the following types of resources for my favorites:

English Bibles, Greek Bibles, Hebrew Bibles
Commentaries
Bible Dictionaries
Lexicons
Devotionals
Apostolic Fathers to get an English version when referenced in pop ups.
Josephus to get the English version when referenced in pop ups.
Philo to get the English version when referenced in pop ups.
Harmonies to get my favorites first in the parallel passages section of the PG.
OT Apocrypha to get the resource I want when referenced in pop ups.
Advanced features for LXX lexicon, TWOT so those lexicons open on double clicks and reference pop ups.

Special Series:

I also created a few special series so if I am in a layout that has the NA28 open and I go to a OT passage that is linked it will switch to the BHS 4.18. You can be creative depending on how you use your layouts and what you want to switch if you change passages.

Rating:

I use ratings for resources that I want to create collections using the mytag: and rating for favorites. Mostly bible dictionaries and commentaries. I do not rate every book in my library. I simply sort by mytag when I get new resources and the new ones are the ones not tagged. I then tag them using my predefined list.

I have a pretty simple tagging category list. You can always go to the L6 upgrade page and open the collectors edition to see what categories Logos uses to list the resources. I do not use the denominational tags as it is more than I need. I do separate out my commentaries by several categories. I have included collections sections in my passage and exegetical guides such as Background, Exegesis and Hermeneutics, Introductions etc. so I can get to those harder to incorporate, but very important resources when I am studying a particular passage. The Cited By tool can also assist by having the mytag or collections set up in that tool.

I think the key is to experiment a bit, but have a plan in mind before you get too far along. The process of going through this will bring hidden treasures to your attention and will allow you to incorporate them into your work flow through the use of custom guides and the cited by tool.

Hope this helps... enjoy the process.

Rosie Perera

Tagging

My goal is to tag every book I own, but I confess I have gotten very behind on this task because I have such a large library and acquire new resources frequently and can't keep up.

I went through the process once with my entire library when it was smaller, and now I attempt to keep up whenever I receive new resources. To do this, I save all the emails that tell me I have a new resource or bundle to download in a separate email folder. I keep them marked as "unread" until I've dealt with the tagging for all the resources represented by that email.

My tagging scheme includes tags for building collections; the date when I acquired the resource (since Logos does not give us that: they give us the last date when the resource was updated) -- I encode this as Bought: YYYYMMDD; the bundle or base package that the resource was acquired as part of if it wasn't stand-alone (e.g., Bundle: XXXX or Base: L5 Portfolio); and any other tags that might be relevant to me personally (e.g., if it's a book by one of my seminary professors I tag it RegentProf, if it's one I want to read soon I tag it TOREAD, and so on). Finally, I choose a virtual "shelf" that I might put this book away on if I had it in my physical library at home. That way I can peruse my books by shelf the way I can with my print-based books. So, for example, Shelf: OTStudies. These are different from my collections, because books can be in multiple collections, but they can only be on one shelf.

Rating

I use a rating scheme that several other people use. Before I've finished my tagging, the Rating is 0 by default. So I can easily filter my library for books that still need to be tagged. Once I complete the tagging, I set the Rating to 2 stars. This tells me only that I've tagged the book. It says nothing about how I value its content. In fact it pretty much tells me that I haven't really looked through the book enough to decide how valuable it is to me, so it defaults to 2. If I determine that a book is not useful at all but it's not so disagreeable to me that I'd hide it, then I give it 1 star. If I think it's decently useful, I give it 3 stars. If I think it's very good, I give it 4 stars. And if I think it's one of my most excellent resources, I give it 5 stars.

Collections

I have a huge number of collections. It's very helpful for searching and for looking for books to recommend to others on a variety of topics.

depdad

I don't want to sound too ignorant, but what is tagging? its benefit? and how do you tag?

Thank you

Chris Gregory

I was wondering this too

Beloved Amodeo

what is tagging? its benefit? and how do you tag?

You Tag from your Library. It is a way of organizing your resources. It is helpful in keeping track of your resources and can be used in making Collections.

Once you've performed the above task it will result in the following:

Open the info pane (red arrow) and select the book you want to Tag; be sure you don't select on the title this will open the book. You may click anywhere else; this will result in the following:

Enter your Tag in the space labeled Add tag

Rosie Perera

I don't want to sound too ignorant, but what is tagging? its benefit? and how do you tag?

Tagging is a way to assign user-defined keywords to a resource in your library. You can use those keywords later in filtering your library or making collections.

Here are some places you can go to learn more about Tagging, what it is, how it can be useful, and how to tag books in your Library:

https://wiki.logos.com/Tagging

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZXyyeZusnY (Logos 4 intro video on Tagging)

Finally, here is a great general tutorial video about the Library by MVP Mark Barnes, with a good section on tagging. Also Mark offers his suggestions of tags to use for your commentaries. It was made for Logos 4, so some things are slightly different now in L6, but most of it is still relevant.

http://www.logosbiblesoftwaretraining.com/videos/the-library/

Cynthia Tucker

Can any of you explain how the Collections groups in Faithlife work? I joined one group, but am unclear about what to do. I clicked on a document and got a copy. Is that all I need to do? What should I see in my library to know that I've done the right thing? lol

Maybe the groups can include a tab that has instructions for those of us who are new?