Request new field: Table of Contents

I'm sure this has come up a few times before, but I don't remember why it hasn't been added.
Based on the conversation in this thread:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/332954

It is requested that we create a field specifically for the Table of Contents.
This would allow people to move it out of Comments, Book Description, Disambiguation Notice, or Reviews.

Plus it would add more details to nonfiction books where the subject headers of each chapter matter.

Other places it's been recommended
https://www.librarything.com/topic/74745
https://www.librarything.com/topic/108796
https://www.librarything.com/topic/273766
https://www.librarything.com/topic/240813
https://www.librarything.com/topic/32996
https://www.librarything.com/topic/51753
https://www.librarything.com/topic/24015

Yes, please. I use it for compilations of essays, short story collections and such, so these are distinct pieces of writing, not just chapter titles. I currently put them in summary field and it works fine on a personal level, but it's actually very useful information for people who do not have the book yet and are checking out description, reviews and such, so making it a site-wide piece of data makes perfect sense.

And as mentioned in the first thread gilroy mentions (https://www.librarything.com/topic/332954)
the new feature would need to include a way to identify potentially differing TOCs in different editions of the same title.

>2 SandraArdnas:

Yes, what SandraArdnas said. Not so much chapter titles but more for titles of essays, and stories.

I'd like a dedicated TOC section, but how would it work for contents not necessarily part of all editions, like forewords or afterwords? Maybe something like the other authors section, where we could mark things as belonging to only some editions?

>5 amanda4242: I would prefer the TOC to contain only what's available in all editions. Different intros, afterwords and such are already indicated under 'other authors', so a note to that effect is enough until the unicorn in the form of editions layer arrives.

>3 Crypto-Willobie:, >5 amanda4242: "the new feature would need to include a way to identify potentially differing TOCs in different editions of the same title."

For it to work, I would envision using one field for the CK "Table of Contents" for each edition, using separate lines for separate chapters and a note of which edition this describes. Then "+Add item" for each new extra edition.

Much the same as "Dedication" or "First words" for Beowulf, my "go to" work record for best practice.

>6 SandraArdnas:
Except some intros have titles and are fairly length essays in themselves - which I can see people wanting to catalogue.

>8 andyl: It's not an issue of people wanting to catalogue it. The issue is that there is currently no way to make it edition specific, so to me a basic TOC is preferable to no TOC field or to a huge giant mess with dozens of editions just because I want the CK field to include the intro I have too

I envision TOC could be entered like what we see in the "other authors" section, even if it had to be entered manually.

Foreword (some editions)
Introduction
Chapter One: If It Quacks Like A Duck....

I'd support this request. You might also consider something easier like in OpenLibrary, they have some simple markup in the field for TOCs that end up in a table, see e.g. https://openlibrary.org/works/OL17369940W/Jahrbuch_der_rheinischen_Denkmalpflege...

Yes please. I would love a Table of Contents field for non-fiction (eg cookery) books, especially.

And if there were some way to link short stories that appear in different anthologies to a series (rather than linking the whole anthology as we have to at present) that would be brilliant.

>12 humouress: And if there were some way to link short stories that appear in different anthologies to a series (rather than linking the whole anthology as we have to at present) that would be brilliant.

There is a way to do this: add the story to your library and then add it to the series. Adding anthologies full of unrelated stories really screws up related series and CK.

>13 amanda4242: Exactly. Currently you can't add stories from anthologies without messing up series.

>14 humouress: Yes, you can. You add the story by itself.

>15 amanda4242: Well, but that would mess up my library :0)

>16 humouress: Well, better than messing up series pages. :)

And that is the point.

If we could have a Table of Contents field and link individual stories from anthologies into their series that would not then mess up series. But it would enable people who wanted to read those short stories which are listed in the series to know what anthologies to look in to find them.

>18 humouress: A table of contents is just a text field -- it would not automatically create works for the individual items in the contents.

The only way to add short stories to series is if someone has added them as an individual work. For popular and frequently anthologized stories, this is often, though not always, the case.

Individual stories -- once entered -- can also be linked to anthologies using the work relationships feature. Again, many people do this, but mainly for fiction and not systematically enough across LT that the work relationships field can reliably serve as a table of contents. (Work relationships also cannot be structured or ordered within the individual relationships categories, which is another reason this function is unsatisfactory as a TOC.)

Edit: Ursula Le Guin's Hainish Cycle is a good example of how this works -- when people have done the work of adding and linking up stories and anthologies/collections. It would be nice if the process could be streamlined in some way and possibly integrated with a table of contents feature, but realistically I doubt there is a lot that can be done, given the fundamental way that LT is structured (around aggregated individual data representing items in people's libraries).

>19 spiphany:

Also there are limitations (I wouldn't call them bugs) that make relationships less than ideal.

For example look at Beyond The Heliopause a short story written by Keith Brooke and Eric Brown. Brooke is the primary author and Brown listed as a main author, all editions. In the touchstones here, and on the relationships page of Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 68 only Keith Brooke shows as the author. Maybe that ought to be raised as a separate RSI though.

>19 spiphany: So I'm looking at the Hainish Cycle and I can see a list of omnibus and a list of short stories (etc). If, say, I had the core books and I wanted to read the short stories, how would I know where to find them? I'm sorry but I don't see the links to the anthologies.

I fully admit I'm no techie, so I'm only assuming that if a new field is created (and it probably then wouldn't fall under 'Table of Contents') it could be set up to link individual works without dragging the whole anthology into a series, but they would be linked back to the anthology themselves. If you see what I mean.

>21 humouress: You find them by clicking on the short story name and looking at the relationships linked to each story.

>13 amanda4242:

add the story to your library and then add it to the series.

Please don't do that, unless the story has been published alone.

As stated for work-to-work relationships: Connect only existing works; do not create works in order to connect to them. I see no reason for a different procedure for series.

>23 lilithcat:
Of course, it is perfectly acceptable to create short story works in order track what you have read, or want to read, and then to create the appropriate relationships for them.

Just don't create the works solely for the purpose of creating the relationship.

>22 gilroy: Ah; I see it now, thanks.

>Series and works relationships
>> Is contained in:

humoress (#16):

Now that accounts are free for any number of entries, you can always do what I did and create a separate account for your short stories.

We already *have* Work Relationships for exactly this sort of thing. It can tell you what short stories are in an anthology, and which anthologies a short story is in.

Trouble is, work-to-work relationships only work if the anthologised work exists in it's own right; which is not always the case. Some of Tanya Huff's anthologies are thematic - they are collections of short stories and are effectively self-contained chapters of that anthology.

In many cases, these have not been published elsewhere as far as I know - and unless they exist as a stand-alone work elsewhere or are contained within another anthology, they really ought not be created as a stand-alone work.

It's a difficult one; and not something that has an easy solution until we get a proper editions layer.

>23 lilithcat: & >27 Maddz: There is absolutely no rule against adding a short story that has not been independently published. Heck, there is no rule saying a work even has to have been published at all for it to be catalogued and added to a series--see the last couple of books in A Song of Ice and Fire as an example. I add stories to my library because I want to know I own them; I then connect them to their anthologies with work-to-work relationships and add them to any relevant series.

>23 lilithcat:
"As stated for work-to-work relationships: Connect only existing works; do not create works in order to connect to them. I see no reason for a different procedure for series."

All one really has to do is stand on one foot, touch your eye and say three times "The reason I am giving this story its own work page is for tracking my reading and NOT in order to connect to them". Then do what thou wilt.

How would anyone know the reason the story/work was created?

>29 Crypto-Willobie: Exactly. It is an unenforceable prohibition, but I don't believe there are many people who would go to the trouble of adding a work to their library (usually manually in the case of short stories) just so they can create work-to-work relationships. I add stories because I want them listed in my library, and then I do all the other stuff that I would do when adding any other type of work: look for works to be combined, fill in CK, create work-to-work relationships, add to series, etc.

And to get back to the topic of the thread, I would love a dedicated TOC section. Whether it's a simple section like the description field or more complex, I think it would be beneficial.

Maddz (#27):

A short story does not have to have been published independently to "exist in it's (sic) own right". I don't know why so many people have the idea that they do.

Bump, for dedicated TOC field.

Bump, for dedicated TOC field.

Bump, for dedicated TOC field.