What is the Your Library collection for?

1) What is the "Your Library" collection for? And why do suddenly new books I add not get added to it anymore?

Maybe the best is to get rid of the "Your Library" collection? And just use the "All collections" collection instead?

Thanks heaps for details!

I use it for works I actually have on my shelves, excluding anything in "wishlist", "discarded" and "read but unowned" (etc.)

You not getting newly added ones in that collection anymore indicates the collection checkmark (when entering them) got turned off.

>1 halloleo: I use Your Library for all books I've ever read, that I can remember, and books in my house. It doesn't include a collection I have containing books that are parts of omnibuses I have because otherwise the recommendation algorithm will only connect me to other users who have the omnibuses and not the individual works.

You're not getting new books added to Your Library because Add Books defaults to the last collection you added a book to and to get Add Books to change the collection you need to select the collection before clicking the Search button.

People use "My Library" differently.

Like >2 Nicole_VanK:, I use it for books I own. I have separate collections for books that I have owned but have deaccessioned, and books that I've read but never owned (e.g. library books).

"All Collections" is not a Collection. Each item in your catalog needs to be in at least one Collection.

You're free to use Your Library as you choose, including not using it at all, but suggesting eliminating it for everyone - many of whom rely on it as their "all the books I own" Collection, as I do - is a grotesque overreaction.

Technically, 'all collections' is not a collection, but you telling the database to show you (or search in) all of them. I'm emphasizing this because I remember it being mentioned a book must be in at least one collection, otherwise problems ensue with tracking it.

On the 'add books' page, there's a section on the left 'add to collections'. It remembers the last one/s you chose. You must have unticked 'Your library' there at some point. Turn on the checkmark again BEFORE doing the search and it will add that and future additions to 'your library' automatically. You can also add to one or more collections manually after adding the book.

People use collections differently, but a useful hint for both default and user created colections is that they enable you to easily display or search only that section of your catalogue. I normally put all books I own to 'your library', but also to one of broad category collections I created. The latter enables me to search, for example, for books I tagged Franz Kafka only in literature, or only in biographies, or only in lit criticism.

You'll find out what works best for your needs as you go along. It usually takes some mulling over what you want to use tags for and what is better suited to be a collection for you. Feel free to ask further about either technical details or advice. In the beginning, it can be overwhelming to find your way among all the possibilities, but you'll get the hang of it soon.

Anything that's in the "Your Library" collection gets a green checkmark next to it when viewing lists of books on author or series pages, intended to indicate that you own that book; "Wishlist" gets purple checkmarks; "Read But Unowned" gets blue checkmarks; and other collections get grey checkmarks.
https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/Checkmarks