Linking Libraries without being public to the world?

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Linking Libraries without being public to the world?

1bradkemp
Nov 23, 2020, 1:02 pm

The Group Thing says, "Couples can keep their libraries under separate accounts, linked through a group."

How does that work? My wife and I joined LT hoping to share our library while having separate accounts. I can't find how to do that. Can we link (share) our libraries without going "PUBLIC" with the whole world?

2gilroy
Nov 23, 2020, 1:27 pm

You create a private group. You both join said group. Your libraries are now linked.
That's the only way that works. It's not really a true link. It's just what do you share when in your group.

3MarthaJeanne
Nov 23, 2020, 2:29 pm

But if you have private catalogues, you won't be able to see the combined group catalogue.

4Opteryx
Nov 23, 2020, 4:35 pm

>1 bradkemp: I don't know about your wife's account, but your own account's library is currently public, so if she's willing to do likewise you can use the private-group approach.

To clarify about the group thing, people can search the combined public libraries of all the accounts that are members of a particular group ("Search members' books" in a group's sidebar). You make a private group so that only the two of you can join it and search in it, and you both join with your accounts in public mode so that their inventories can appear in the group's shared catalog, and then you can each search that shared catalog.

Alternatively, if your wife hasn't already done much cataloging on her separate account yet (there isn't a very good way to transfer books from one account to another), you two could just enter all your household's books into your bradkemp account, giving your wife's books a special tag or collection.

5bradkemp
Modificato: Nov 23, 2020, 6:25 pm

>4 Opteryx:
Thanks for the info Opteryx. That's what I was afraid of. My wife doesn't want to put her books "public." We were hoping that a "Private" group could share "Private" libraries. Apparently that isn't the case.

On the other side, a "Public" library is open for ANYONE to see, so there doesn't seem to be any value to creating a "private group" to share public libraries. Why even have the group?

What am I missing here?

6AnnieMod
Nov 23, 2020, 6:26 pm

>5 bradkemp:

Allows you to search in multiple libraries at the same time -- while stopping people you do not know from posting threads in the group for example.

7Opteryx
Modificato: Nov 23, 2020, 6:55 pm

>5 bradkemp: I mentioned "You make a private group so that only the two of you can join it and search in it" :)

The only way to have both people's books searchable in a single search and one person's books private, will be to put them all in your bradkemp account and make that account's library private. If you go that route, use a collection and not a tag to designate your wife's books, to be extra-sure nobody else can identify her books (I think tags are somewhat public even with a private library).

People have been asking/hoping for more fine-grained privacy options for many years, to little avail (due to programming/database complications); this is all we've got for the foreseeable future.

8bradkemp
Nov 24, 2020, 9:50 am

>7 Opteryx:
Thank you for the information. I guess we will have to find ways to deal with the current Public option

9lorax
Nov 24, 2020, 9:58 am

bradkemp (#8):

The best option with the existing structure would probably be for you to create a single, private account and use Collections to distinguish between your books and hers.

Opteryx (#7):

Tags appear but cannot be linked to an account. So unless the tag is uniquely identifying, like her full name, it can't be used to link to her. So something like "his" and "hers", or even "Brad's" and "Jane's" would be sufficient for bradkemp's purposes.