Introduced 9/27/2007.

What are they?

Book Tags allow you to mark books any way you like. 

• You can tag a book as "great" or "why would anyone read this?"
• You can apply any number of tags to the same book.
• You can view all the items in the database bearing a particular tag by clicking on the hyperlinked tag wherever it appears on a book listing.
• Others can see your tags.
• When you view a book you will see ALL of the tags you have applied to it, as well as the most commonly-applied tags for the whole club.  Less-commonly applied tags will not necessarily show, especially if a book has had many different tags applied to it.

Why do I want to use them?

• You can tag books for yourself if you like: "ordered for aunt martha" or "I hated this author"
• You will see the tag when you view the book on your Bookshelf, in the database etc.
• We will soon have a way to view tags on the site so that you can use them as another way to "search" for books you might be interested in reading.

Will others be able to see my tags?

• Maybe.  Others will see your tag on a book listing if it is one of the top-15 tags applied to the book or if they have also applied that tag to the book; otherwise others will not see your tag.
• You will always see your tags in the tag list on a book, even if you are the only one who has tagged the book that way.

How do I use the Tags?

To add a tag to a book:

• Look for the button on the book listing (in a search result, on your bookshelf, Wish List, TBR PIle, BIR list, Reminder List, etc.)
• Click the button and type in your tag.
  • To apply multiple tags at once, you can type them all in at once, separated by commas. Example: funny book, good beach read! 

To remove a tag you have placed on a book:

• Just click the icon next to that tag name (on the Book Details page, your bookshelf, etc.)
• This will remove YOUR TAG from the book.  If others have tagged the book with that tag, it will NOT remove the tag entirely.
• A tag will disappear from a book only if there are 0 of those tags on the book, OR if there are many tags applied to the book and that tag is not among the most-commonly applied tags.

To see the tags that have been applied to a book:

• Look at the book on your bookshelf, on the Book Details page, etc.  The tags that have been applied will appear below the cover image of the book.
  • The tags with the beside them in a list are YOUR tags.
• Click on a tag to see all of the items in the system that have been tagged with that tag.  Example: If you see a tag "great bedtime book for children!" click that tag where it appears on the book listing to see all the items that have been tagged as great bedtime books for children.

You can also view the Tag Cloud for the site.

The Tag Cloud is a page of the 250 most commonly-used tags in the club.  The number of times a tag has been used appears as superscript to the right of the tag name.

• The font size on the tag cloud corresponds to the number of times that tag has been used.
• Clicking any tag will take you to the list of all books bearing that tag.

You can get to the Tag Cloud page under Community in the top menu of any page on the site.  Click here to go directly to the Tag Cloud.

Is there anything else I should know about the Tags?

Just a few things we can think of right now:

• Remember that when you view an item in the database (ie, after you search for a book), you will see many tags that have been applied to that item, by any member. 
  • Those tags may be completely irrelevant to the particular copy of the book YOU will be requesting if you click "Order This Book"
• If tags appear on the books on one of your private lists (eg, your TBR Pile), that does not mean that YOU tagged them. 
  • It means someone else did, if you didn't.
  • That does not mean that someone can see your TBR Pile.  It means that someone saw the book in the database (maybe on their own bookshelf, or on their own TBR Pile, or after doing a Search), and applied that tag.
• You can't remove other people's tags from an item in the database.  You can remove only your OWN tags.
• You can turn off Tags completely in your Account Settings.