KYLE: Proposed new type for books

I agree with Jan. This seems like a "Subject" or a tag rather than a Library Type.

Jan Krohn said:

What I think we actually need is a new field "topical type" or similar, apart from the current "type". One of those would be "Apologetics and Polemics", another one "Counselling", another one "Ministry", another one "Leadership", another one "Archaeology" etc. And every resource would go into one library type (dictionary, systematic theology, journal etc.) and in one topical type (as defined above). A setup like that would enable us to select resources on a very granular level right out of the box.

I believe Subject provides this, though the categories there are inconsistently applied. Perhaps there needs to be a new field like "topical type" or "category" or some such. But there is overlap among these categories too, and each individual might categorize things differently. There is overlap between "Ministry" and both "Counseling" and "Leadership". So, like Subject, it would be a field that could have multiple values. But it would take eons to get it set up such that all existing books in the Logos catalogue had sufficient data filled in to be useful.

Since tagging already gives us the kind of granularity you desire, but the bottleneck is getting your whole library tagged well...

...what I propose instead is a new feature, which I'll call Tagging Scripts. This would be an automated way of going through your library and tagging a whole list of books with a given tag. Users could create tagging scripts to share with each other. And Faithlife could create tagging scripts that users could download. For example, tag all your Apologetics and Polemics books easily by downloading one script called, say apol-polem.lts (LTS = Logos Tagging Script), and running it. You'd run these scripts from within the desktop app. There could be a Faithlife group for sharing LTS files. New Libraries would come with a whole set of scripts for tagging your library.

Tagging is a task that is very labor intensive, every single user has to do to get the most out of Logos, and most people don't do sufficiently. (I gave up long ago, as it was impossible to keep up with it.) So this feature would be a huge win for users, and would make Logos so much more useful.

MJ. Smith said:

I see several of the current types as subject/topics as well ... but it's not worth my time to push.

Oh wow, I see that now. I had not realized how much they had expanded (one might say "overloaded") the Type field. It used to be used only for differentiating types of resources that had different features or indexing methods (e.g., Calendar Devotional, Biblical Commentary, Media Collection). But now it seems they are using it for categorizing Monographs (Church History). Unless they're creating features that work only on Church History books, I'm not sure the reasoning behind this.

MJ. Smith said:

I would like to see a new category of "Apologetics and Polemics" which I believe requires the dual name because of the differences of understanding of what constitutes apologetics.

I would also like to see an apologetics type, but I would leave it at "Type:Apologetics" and just include polemics in it, because the longer type would be cumbersome in the Library and I fear it would likely confuse people.

Dave Hooton said:

Assigning 'proper' Types to monographs is the real issue but it has consequences for books that have not been assigned according to their topic e.g. Encyclopedia, Handbook. Tagging is a personal matter and does not mean that you have to tag resources outside your range of interest.

Ideally, it would be both, a personal as well as a general matter.

Some people use a research library to research topics outside their area of expertise or personal interest.

In their respective areas of expertise I assume most people can create a much better tagging system than a professional librarian.

On the other hand, professional librarians manage to tag (physical) research libraries with thousands and thousands of books, so than any researcher who is looking for material on any topic can already narrow down the selection of resources they need to consider, based on the tagging.

If something like this would be useful in Logos, that depends massively on how someone uses Logos. For sermon preparation: probably not so much. For Bible study: unlikely. For academic research: definitely. For apologetics: absolutely.

I do see that FL is actively improving the tagging, for example, by adding more types. I appreciate this greatly, and will gladly throw in my ideas in hopes that the end result will provide the maximal benefit for the greatest number of users. The denominational tagging is another example where Logos is adding massive value to an already existing library. Of course it could be better, but I do see it improving with almost every release.