Sorting by Author then Series then by volume in series

I am migrating from Book Crawler and it allowed me to sort my books by the author first, then the series and then by the volume in the series. Of course, they had separate fields for each of these so it is easier. I can't seem to sort by the Series at all. It has a series column, but the volume is just tacked on to the end of the series name and you can't sort by it.

Is there any consideration to making these separate fields and allowing the sort that I have requested. I keep the books sorted like this in my physical library and would like LibraryThing to help me when I add new books.

>1 wperume: You have to use the existing sortable fields to make this work. I'm personally not sorting in that way, but I know many people put series as the first tag to be able to sort by series, for instance. Perhaps someone with more experience will chime in with more detailed tips.

Series is a multifield - a book can be in more than one series. And herein lies the issue - if there is more that one, which one do you want to sort based on?

The workaround is to use a field you do not use for something else (“other call number” is perfect for that if you do not use it for something else; comments, private comments, publication or even the first tag for every book (will need to make sure it is always first). Then Come up with your own ids (Simenon-Maigret-001 for example if you want both the author and the series or just Maigret-001 for just a series). That also ensures that someone removing the book from the series won’t mess up your series order (as anyone can edit series, some people remove books because they don’t want to see it in their catalog or simply because they are in a bad mood. The books will get added again when discovered but it can be a pain).

You can show the field in your catalog view if you want to or just sort by it. It is a bit more work but it gives you better control. :)

PS: Another option is to add the series name and the number at the start of the title and sort by title. As this is your book’s title and won’t change everyone’s data (it may shift the overall work title but you need to have a lot of people doing it or very little copies and even if it happens, we have ways to deal with it), some people do that. I prefer the naked title in my catalog personally but if that works better for you, you have the option. Your catalog, your decisions. As long as it is on the book edit page (after you click on the pencil next to the book in the catalog), it is your own data to play with (of editable). :)

I add the series to the title: series_name nr / title. It works fine for me. :)

>5 Ennas: Right, like >4 AnnieMod: said.

If you do that, you should avoid using : as the auto combiner ignores everything after the colon, so things will get combined into the wrong works.

I put that information into Comments and use a custom script to sort the export file as wanted.

I use 'other call number' which is sortable and customisable. I list by author, then series and then volume number. Please note that it sorts by the first digit so if your series goes above 9, I recommend putting a 0 before the single digits (01, 02, 03 ...), otherwise you'll get 1, 10, 11, 2, 3 etc.

I use the tag field.

I use !AuthName, /series0number always as my first two tags on all books.

The advantage of the !/ is that these sort to the end of the tags page so you can always see your other tags. You do have to be diligent at filling them in correctly! And it's a massive pain if you ever decide to change the system. Bu tit does mean I can view my catalog by author and then see all the books in series order. The hardest bit is remembering exactly how I've decided to name a given series after a few years between titles.

No need for author in the tag field. I use series name and number as the first two tags, and sort by author then by tags. If you have any series with 10 books or more, make sure to use 01, 02, etc since the field sorts alphabetically (10 comes before 2).