108 new groups (series)?

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ScottLawton
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Post by ScottLawton »

Based on some automation (e.g. related books with at least 2 'volumes') and some manual editing, I created 108 new groups in my copy of the data. I'd be happy to share the full list of book IDs (or any other combination of fields) if any admin is interested.

The benefit to listeners/visitors: assuming the 'group' link is automatic, it helps people quickly find other books in a series -- or notice that they're accidentally starting from the middle!

One caveat: in a result list, groups appear LAST ... whereas they're (arguably?) the most important result so should perhaps appear first (and/or intermixed with the other results). So, the individual listing is improved by adding more groups, but the search result may be somewhat worse. (If there's ever any tech support available for implementing a fix, I'm willing to try to find the simplest code change to move groups to the top.)

In any case, here's the list of suggested group names. (Admins may well have better suggestions in several of the cases.)

Adventures of Captain Hatteras
Airplane Flying Handbook FAA-H-8083-3A
Allan Quatermain
An Idle Fellow
Annals
Aristipp
Around the World on a Bicycle
Arsène Lupin - English
Arsène Lupin - French
Ashton-Kirk
Autobiography Memories and Experiences
Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
Barsoom (John Carter of Mars)
Bear Creek
Bindle
Bluebird Books (Mary Louise)
Briefe
Celebrated Travels and Travellers
Celebration of Dialects and Accents
Chinese Union Version Bible
Christmas Carol
Christmas Short Works
Clara Vaughan
Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady
Cleek
Clog Shop Chronicles
Cocoa Break Collection
Comédie humaine
Cuentos de Hadas
Deathworld
Don Juan
Don Quijote
Don Quixote
East by West
Esperanto Self-Taught with Phonetic Pronunciation
Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels
Fábulas
Farthest North
Favourite Chapters
Foxe's Book of Martyrs
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Growth Trilogy
Handbook of Nature-Study
Hans Christian Andersen: Fairytales and Short Stories
Harper's Young People
Henry VI
Heptameron of the Tales of Margaret, Queen of Navarre
Herodotus' Histories
Historical Newspaper Articles
History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria
History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great
History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless
History of Standard Oil:
History of the Inquisition of Spain
Insomnia
International Short Stories
Junior Classics
Kinder- und Hausmärchen (1812/15
King Henry IV
King in Yellow
Knickerbocker's History of New York
Lectures of Col. R.G. Ingersoll
Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton
LibriVox Language Learning
Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
Life Of Charlotte Brontë
Life of Reason
Mapp and Lucia series
Mardi
Mark Twain's Journal Writings
Memoirs of a Revolutionist
Memoirs of Jacques Casanova
Monsieur Lecoq
Morals (Moralia
Morte d'Arthur
Nature's Miracles
Noites de insomnia, offerecidas a quem não póde dormir
Our Island Story
Outline of Science
Poème du Mois
Pollyanna
Portrait of a Lady
Princess
Raffles
Red and the Black
Relatos y Cuentos
Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government
Rivals of Sherlock Holmes
Robinson Crusoe
Sämtliche Schriften 1911-1921
Science of
Selected Poems of John Clare
Selections from The Army and Navy Hymnal
Shakespearean Dialogues
She
Skylark
Students’ Roman Empire
Tamburlaine the Great
Tom Sawyer & Huck Finn
Trilogy of Desire
Varney, the Vampyre
Verzamelde korte Nederlandstalige Werken
Waverley
Wealth of Nations
Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Raven Edition
Worst Journey in the World
Young Folks' Treasury

If more detail is desired, just specify what info you'd like (id, title?, author(s)?, ___?). It's easy for me to export any combination of fields.

Scott
Cheers,

Scott
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annise
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Post by annise »

This is a personal view , not something that has been arrived at by discussion so please treat it as such
Firstly - a bit of history
Grouping originally was thought of to cope with bible readings - with all the small books from several versions the search results were improved by grouping them as versions KJV etc. and we extended it to cover some other things - I added the Palliser series group so people could pick the Trollopes easily for example - and the Faerie Queene and Gray's anatomy because they were difficult reads and seemed to work better when split artificially.
The current search does not display them very well I feel but at the moment we just have to put up with it and I would not add multi volume books automatically when they have the same title because of this - I don't see any problem with not for Volumes 1 and 2
And I would prefer the groups to appear in the right place in the search - not top or bottom :D - and maybe have an image now everything else has one.

Anne

Added later
I certainly do not see any need for 2 volume series being grouped at the moment when they have the same name - if people can't work out that Around the world on a bicycle Vol. 1 is followed by Around the world on a bicycle volume 2 , I weep for them
RuthieG
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Post by RuthieG »

I can see the point of groups for series i.e. when the titles of each book in the series is different. Example search https://librivox.org/search?q=anne%20of%20green%20gables&search_form=advanced.

But I cannot see any point in

a) grouping all versions of one particular title together.
b) grouping Vol. 1 & 2 of the same title together. e.g. https://librivox.org/search?q=east%20by%20west&search_form=advanced
c) grouping something like Christmas Short Works Collections together. e.g. https://librivox.org/search?q=Christmas%20Short%20Works&search_form=advanced

It would just add an unnecessary extra stage to the search process. I can certainly see some on your list that would benefit from grouping, but all of them? No, in me 'umble opinion.

The current display of groups in the search is, to put it kindly, less than ideal. But there are many other fixes that come higher on my list when that yearned-for moment arrives when we have amassed sufficient spondulicks to have some more work done.

Ruth
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TriciaG
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Post by TriciaG »

I personally wouldn't group things together that were 3 or fewer volumes. 4? Maybe - depends on what they are and how many other works that particular author has.

Groups are manual - meaning, the admins decide when to make a group.
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BellonaTimes
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Post by BellonaTimes »

TriciaG wrote:I personally wouldn't group things together that were 3 or fewer volumes. 4? Maybe - depends on what they are and how many other works that particular author has.

Groups are manual - meaning, the admins decide when to make a group.
Even though I came up with this idea, Cocoa Break Collection, I don't think there's enough for a group. I also originated the Coffee Break Collection concept -- that one took off well and there are several available with different themes, enough for a group listing. 8-)
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ScottLawton
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Post by ScottLawton »

Given the caveat of how groups are displayed in the result list plus reasonable differences of opinion on what makes a good group, I'm also not sure it's worth adding many groups right now. But, I had the data so thought I would share in case anyone found it useful.

BTW, the existing database has 154 groups covering 1430 cataloged books (as of ~2 weeks ago when I grabbed the data).

Cheers,

Scott
Cheers,

Scott
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TriciaG
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Post by TriciaG »

That's an average of 9+ books per group. 8-)
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Lucy_k_p
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Post by Lucy_k_p »

I will say, it would be helpful, if a work has more than one volume available on LV, if the summary could contain a link to the next/previous volume. It is an easy way of seeing if more volumes are available (Since sometimes we haven't recorded them, or later volumes are not PD) that is slightly quicker than searching, and is also easier for the less tech savvy, who may have been linked to the catalogue page and not be sure how to work the search engine.

That said, I understand that doing this would be a tedious and time-consuming job, for only a tiny real benefit, so I shan't harp on about it further.
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TriciaG
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Post by TriciaG »

A lot of the summaries do contain a link to the next and previous volume. It's done by hand by the admin. If you have a specific project you'd like linked that isn't, you could ask the MC of that project to do it.
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annise
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Post by annise »

TriciaG wrote:That's an average of 9+ books per group. 8-)
Not surprising when the bible groups have so many Macaulay has 25 , and the "OZ" group has many

Anne
ScottLawton
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Post by ScottLawton »

Lucy_k_p wrote:I will say, it would be helpful, if a work has more than one volume available on LV, if the summary could contain a link to the next/previous volume.
I agree, and updated my copy of the data with a new 'number within the group' field (though only partially filled in). I'm happy to share the data in the magical future where LibriVox has the tech resources to update the site.

Meanwhile, I will also make the data available as an alternate Web catalog. LibriVox is doing great work, and I hope to increase the audience in some measure.

Scott
Cheers,

Scott
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annise
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Post by annise »

Some of the groups it is either obvious (Bible, vol 1-6 or part 1-6) or doesn't matter as they are not necessarily even written in the timeline order - like (Allan Quartermain stories) or (Beatrix Potter, Oz books etc). For ones like Allan Quartermain do you put them in order written or chronological order ? Tis not always as easy as it sounds

Anne
ScottLawton
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Post by ScottLawton »

annise wrote:Some of the groups it is either obvious (Bible, vol 1-6 or part 1-6) or doesn't matter as they are not necessarily even written in the timeline order - like (Allan Quartermain stories) or (Beatrix Potter, Oz books etc). For ones like Allan Quartermain do you put them in order written or chronological order ? Tis not always as easy as it sounds
Having entered 750 so far, I quite agree that it's not easy and requires judgement calls!!!

I just find the data sufficiently useful that it's worth approximations as needed.

Scott
Cheers,

Scott
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