is there a way to search for books by subject rather than title?

I was trying to find a thread of mine with a list of woodworking books that I had begun to do summaries of and happened to run across a question I had last year in another thread....

I wonder if there would be a way to make it easier to find books by subject?  I've tried doing a search in the woodworking forum for 'books' and in other forums for the same and it would be helpful if the list of books for that subject would pop up without the word having to be in the title.  Maybe I need to search differently?

If I know the title it's usually easy to find but if I'm just looking for a book on a certain subject I can't get a list of books to show without them being mixed with every thread that has the word 'woodworking' and if I look just in the 'book' forum with just the subject I have no luck either.

Maybe the book list could have options for appearance like the 'recent topics' page does?  Like choices of alphabetical, or by subject, etc?  

...maybe this is a whole separate topic from this thread?

Without searching through all of the 'book' or 'woodworking' forums is there a way to call up just books related to wood? or any particular subject if you don't know or remember the title?

Maybe there's a way to search with the forums  'books' and 'woodworking' combined, as all of the wood working books are also in the woodworking forum?

I think all of the summaries are in their subject forum also, so rather than doing a search for 'woodworking' in the book forum or one for books in the woodworking forum, a search combining the book and woodworking forums might be more accurate?  

Maybe I'm making this more complicated than it needs to be and someone can explain an easy way to call up all of the books for a certain subject without a lot of extras to wade through

Don't know if this would help here, but it's good to know:

Google has a "site:" parameter which can be used to confine their search to a specific website (or several). Sometimes using google to find stuff on a site works better than using the site search feature.


FWIW
Rufus

Sometimes using google to find stuff on a site works better than using the site search feature.

thanks Rufus...I think that's true.

I wonder if there is someway to further categorize the books here as they are summarized, to 'shelve' them in a way that makes them more accessable by subject matter...like a library?  ...so that a category is retrievable under 'cook books', 'art books', 'woodworking books' , etc.  

It's interesting to see which ones have the most reviews on the grid although that's rarely my reason for searching them and the grid itself is huge to just try to browse

Now, searching several different ways, brings up a clutter of things along with some of the books I'm looking for...never a complete list.

Judith

I hesitate to ask because it's pretty basic, but have you talked with the webmaster and techs on the site? Or are you in the beginning phases of your quest?  I know there are ways to provide various features as part of most forum software, but I _don't_ know how often or easily this site is maintained. For example, many sites have a "wiki" section which tries to allow users to create and organize and provide easy (!) access to the bits and pieces of knowledge flowing through the site. There are also "knowledge base" features which allow much less user input but provide a more codified and formal organization which often translates to easier access. What's proper or possible would depend on the philosophy and resources we have here and I'm afraid I'm not immediately familiar with either.

Your idea sounds like a very reasonable, even no-brainer, capability and I have certainly seen other info that kinda cries for some kind of organized access. Restaurant comments, list of past and future visiting "guest speakers" and instructors, all Paul's podcasts (I _think_ there's a way to find those...), a "shopping list" of what the physical plant needs in way of donations in tools, materials and such (including a date last updated)... I could add a few more, but the point is that the forums here are in some ways a work in progress and also dependent on available time, interest and external "encouragement". This is as far as we've made it. <g>

Maybe if you keep questing about, you'll trigger a new feature.

Regards,
Rufus

Rufus Laggren wrote:Judith

I hesitate to ask because it's pretty basic, but have you talked with the webmaster and techs on the site? Or are you in the beginning phases of your quest?  I know there are ways to provide various features as part of most forum software, but I _don't_ know how often or easily this site is maintained. For example, many sites have a "wiki" section which tries to allow users to create and organize and provide easy (!) access to the bits and pieces of knowledge flowing through the site. There are also "knowledge base" features which allow much less user input but provide a more codified and formal organization which often translates to easier access. What's proper or possible would depend on the philosophy and resources we have here and I'm afraid I'm not immediately familiar with either.

Your idea sounds like a very reasonable, even no-brainer, capability and I have certainly seen other info that kinda cries for some kind of organized access. Restaurant comments, list of past and future visiting "guest speakers" and instructors, all Paul's podcasts (I _think_ there's a way to find those...), a "shopping list" of what the physical plant needs in way of donations in tools, materials and such (including a date last updated)... I could add a few more, but the point is that the forums here are in some ways a work in progress and also dependent on available time, interest and external "encouragement". This is as far as we've made it. <g>

Maybe if you keep questing about, you'll trigger a new feature.

Regards,
Rufus

thanks again for your input Rufus...Posting in this forum, 'tinkering with this site', is where questions of this sort get answered.  

I think the tech folks probably have their hands full with higher priority stuff.  Maybe this is a case of 'working well enough' and likely something that has been discussed behind the scenes at some point.

I'm glad you understood what I was thinking though because I wasn't sure I was explaining well enough.  Your ideas are ones I had not thought of.

Judith Browning wrote: I wonder if there is someway to further categorize the books here as they are summarized, to 'shelve' them in a way that makes them more accessable by subject matter...like a library?  ...so that a category is retrievable under 'cook books', 'art books', 'woodworking books' , etc.  

I feel that is a great idea.  I do a lot of searches by using the authors name.

Now, searching several different ways, brings up a clutter of things along with some of the books I'm looking for...never a complete list.

I referred someone yesterday to the Book Review Grid for Herbal books then I thought he might be overwhelmed since it has books on so many different topics.

I referred someone yesterday to the book review Grid for Herbal books then I thought he might be overwhelmed since it has books on so many different topics.

Hi Anne
Other than browsing the book review grid, (which has gotten HUGE!), as it stands now, he can either go to the Medicinal Herb forum and do a search for 'books' or the Book forum and do a search for 'medicinal herbs'. In both cases it pulls up some books, but also anything that mentions either 'books' or 'medicinal herbs', not just a list of 'medicinal herb books'.

My search in the book forum for 'medicinal herbs' brought up eight books.  I count at least twice that many on the grid that would fit.