What Would You Like to See in a Books Index?

Seafra

rwcarter said:
Seafra, that's an interesting point and one I've been struggling with. There are books that are specifically about reversals, and it makes sense to have a separate category for those books. But a lot of books include information on reversals (and a lot don't), so I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other about whether thosee type of books should be included.

I was thinking more of an asterisk if reversals are addressed. I used to catalogue books years ago. I hated it! lol

tarotgimp

rwcarter said:
TG, I guess it's really a question of what this forum wants the index to be. (FTR, I'm not really the final arbiter of what the index is so much as the grunt who's going to put in all the work to make it happen. I see absolutely no reason for me to invest many hours of my time to create something that few people are interested in....) My original thought was that the index would be about tarot books. But lark's suggestion about symbolism books made me realize that limiting the boundaries of the index to just tarot books might not be a good thing. Does the forum wish to include books that are about some other subject but include a section on tarot? If so, I have no objection.

in your original post you had listed kabbalah...kabbalism isn't specific to tarot either, the only relationship tarot has to the kabbalah is numerology and otz chim(ETS HA-HAYYIM) aka "the tree of life. I've seen many wicca books include sections on tarot and other forms of divination such as norse and saxon runes, but you're right it is up to the people. Also if you need any help let me know I would be more than happy to work a lil MS access magic for the cause.

tarotgimp

-blessed be

P.S. If my knowledge seems grossly ignorant, I appologize. I've not studied much in this area as it relates to tarot. Jewish mysticism isn't really my thing

tigerlily

Widening the scope to allow for books on symbolism could be a brilliant idea - or an opening to include all kinds of subjects on the basis that they are transferable skills that can somehow benefit your tarot studies...

Mind you, I'm all for a symbolism section! Symbols are what the cards are made of. But then I've been playing with the idea of how dream interpretation methods can be transferred to tarot interpretation - after all, they are pictorial symbols of the subconscious, so learning how to interpret the symbols and the flow of your dream story just screams for utilisation for tarot readings...

But where do you draw the line?

Strange2

rwcarter said:
I'm not saying no, but at this point I don't see the benefit of adding # Pages into the index. My vision of the index is to provide just enough information for folks to be able to find books on whatever topic(s) they might be interested in. Can you explain what benefit you see in adding number of pages? If it's to differentiate editions of books, wouldn't the publisher, date and ISBN give that same info? I'd be happy to add that field if someone can point out to me what it adds to the index.

The # of Pages info might be helpful to gauge the "depth" of a book, although that is not always an accurate indicator. Sometimes you may be looking for a concise book, for a quick read or while traveling, and other times you may want a more in-depth analysis on a topic.

Having the ISBN would certainly allow you to look up all the details of a book, so # of Pages would not be critical info.

Thanks again for taking this project on!

thorhammer

How about illustrated/not and colour/b&w?

Great job, Rodney! Ra-ra!!! *waves pompoms*

\m/ Kat

ETA: Also, if possible, it might be helpful to include what deck/s is/are used to illustrate, eg. Robin Wood for the Tarot Shadow Work by Christine Jette. But not if it's too much trouble.

\m/ Kat

floracove

I haven't any ideas to share, but did want to thank you for doing this for us.
I think it is a really good idea and that it will make a great resource for us to tap into.

Thanks!

rwcarter

Seafra said:
I was thinking more of an asterisk if reversals are addressed. I used to catalogue books years ago. I hated it! lol

Seafra, the asterisk idea just might work! And I may hate this project by the time it sees the light of day....

tarotgimp said:
in your original post you had listed kabbalah...kabbalism isn't specific to tarot either, the only relationship tarot has to the kabbalah is numerology and otz chim(ETS HA-HAYYIM) aka "the tree of life. I've seen many wicca books include sections on tarot and other forms of divination such as norse and saxon runes, but you're right it is up to the people. Also if you need any help let me know I would be more than happy to work a lil MS access magic for the cause.

TG, Kaballah isn't specific to tarot, but there are books about the link between Tarot and Kaballah. (Off the top of my head, I can think of two or three that I have.) Those were the tarot books to which the Kaballah category would apply. So I wasn't originally thinking about including a section of Kaballah (or other subject) books that might be of use or interest to tarot readers, but now that the point has been raised, it is something to consider.

tigerlily said:
Widening the scope to allow for books on symbolism could be a brilliant idea - or an opening to include all kinds of subjects on the basis that they are transferable skills that can somehow benefit your tarot studies...

Mind you, I'm all for a symbolism section! Symbols are what the cards are made of. But then I've been playing with the idea of how dream interpretation methods can be transferred to tarot interpretation - after all, they are pictorial symbols of the subconscious, so learning how to interpret the symbols and the flow of your dream story just screams for utilisation for tarot readings...

But where do you draw the line?

tigerlily, where do we draw the line, indeed.... I think most people would agree that symbolism is an integral part of studying tarot. You can't really begin to understand a card unless you understand the symbols from which it is composed and also determine what those symbols mean to you. So a symbols section is something of a no-brainer to me. (And since I didn't think of it, I guess that tells everyone what kind of brain I have, huh?

)

I think there's less consensus about the correlation or connection between tarot and kaballah or astrology or chakras or crystals, etc. Some people feel strongly about the connection between tarot and other disciplines, while other people feel just as strongly that there is no connection between them.

So while symbology appears to be a yes and kaballah et. al. appears to be a maybe/maybe not, I'm not sure where numerology, as a separate discipline, fits in. Is it a yes since the cards are numbered and by doing so they inherently have numerological associations whether they were intended to or not? Or does it fall into the maybe/maybe not category like other disciplines?

Indexing and categorizing all the tarot books will be a big enough job by itself that this question doesn't need to be answered any time soon. So, with the exception of symbols and possibly numerology, my focus for the initial launch of the index will only be books that specifically deal with tarot or with tarot and a related discipline. I'm not going to include books on related disciplines or books on related disciplines that include a section on tarot. The initial index will be only for books that are wholly or primarily about tarot. Now, if someone else wants to take on the project of indexing books on related disciplines, I say go for it!

thorhammer said:
How about illustrated/not and colour/b&w?

Define "illustrated".... Are you talking about charts? graphics? spread layouts? some or all of the above? I can see how this info might be useful to some people, but would it be useful to enough folks to warrant inclusion in an index that's geared to be concise?

thorhammer said:
ETA: Also, if possible, it might be helpful to include what deck/s is/are used to illustrate, eg. Robin Wood for the Tarot Shadow Work by Christine Jette. But not if it's too much trouble.

You're evil, you know that?

The thought crossed my mind, but from the point of entering all this stuff into a spreadsheet that's sortable so that I can group books together to create the individual indexes, that's going to be a nightmare. Tarot Shadow Work is easy cause it's only illustrated with the one deck. But how about Pollack's Tarot Wisdom that's illustrated with 7(?) decks?

Part of me wants to say, "I'll do that after I get the initial index done" but the other part of me doesn't relish the thought of having to go through every book in my library twice to collect different info. So I don't know what I'm going to do yet.

Rodney

thorhammer

rwcarter said:
Define "illustrated".... Are you talking about charts? graphics? spread layouts? some or all of the above? I can see how this info might be useful to some people, but would it be useful to enough folks to warrant inclusion in an index that's geared to be concise?

Ah sorry. I meant ones that include pictures of cards. Any other illustrations would be irrelevant, to my mind. And it was just a thought . . . not necessary, I guess

You're evil, you know that? The thought crossed my mind, but from the point of entering all this stuff into a spreadsheet that's sortable so that I can group books together to create the individual indexes, that's going to be a nightmare. Tarot Shadow Work is easy cause it's only illustrated with the one deck. But how about Pollack's Tarot Wisdom that's illustrated with 7(?) decks?

Part of me wants to say, "I'll do that after I get the initial index done" but the other part of me doesn't relish the thought of having to go through every book in my library twice to collect different info. So I don't know what I'm going to do yet.

Rodney

Yeah, I know

I only have a few, so it wasn't a bad thought to me. But you could use the title/credit pages, no? I wish I was there, with a couple of months free. I'd gladly give you a hand. I'm one of those really strange people who like that sort of methodical, paralytically boring task . . . when I was at University, I think I was the only one in my year who enjoyed Scientific Nomenclature

go figure.

\m/ Kat

rwcarter

Last call for thoughts and suggestions. I'll probably start working on this on Sunday.

Rodney

nicky

Ok, if this was mentioned before I apologize... how about if the books deals with tarot in on tarot ways... such as game playing or spell working.. like some additional ways to use your cards?

FWIW.. Astrology is no different than Kaballah or Numerology in that they are all separate systems... tarot just works well with them in some ways...that is why I mentioned it. They are all truly stand alone.

anyway thanks for whatever you decide Rodney ...this will truly be a labor ...of love hopefully

Nicky

What Would You Like to See in a Books Index?

Seafra

tarotgimp

tigerlily

Strange2

thorhammer

floracove

rwcarter

thorhammer

rwcarter

nicky