Okay I already said this but I just started my Library and Information Science Masters and I actually coincidentally started a fanfiction database around April when I was first accepted into the program. Now I have been in classes for like a month and a half and have been working out the bugs adding stuff for easier use on this database for 5 months. I’ve been using my current set up for the past week and I think it’s what I’ll be sticking with. I might go more in depth in what each record has and I have a separate Fandom Creators database but I think that the records for those are honestly more interesting than the views.
On to what I want to shout into the void about: The views!
I know there’s a good chance no one cares so here’s a break off point to avoid clogging up your feed.
Each of these are set up for different purposes- overview is for completed works. These are the Read Statues I use in this overview (please ignore how crazy the numbers are)
Reading, Read Next and To Read all seem self explanatory to me and have been there since I started this spreadsheet/database ages ago. Priority Creators are writers who I have read almost if not all of their published work and I want to keep up with them as they write more. But... It's not necessarily my ONLY favorite writers- Prolific Priority (dumb name everything else I came up with was too long. I wanted it to be at most two words) are for people who have an EXTENSIVE back catalog of fics creators I trust who I've read and loved their work but it's not keeping up like Priority Creators-- it's catching up. Fandom Firsts a bit self explanatory- this is a creators first and only work (for now) in the fandom I'm currently hyperfixating on. I don't necessarily prioritize them but I like knowing in case they end up becoming a favorite writer! Basically it's a fancy system to break up my TBR from being in the thousands lol. Off The Presses— Was this work released in the last month essentially? These will filter back into the other categories if I don’t get to them it’s just something I like to be aware of.
Podfics overview (self explanatory (I record podfics so I like sorting by those separately because if there's a podic I'm listening to it!)) it looks practically identical to the regular overview just filters for if there is a contributor listed or podfic box checked.
WIP Overview- one of my most useful views imo-
It has extra read status' of Up to Date and Updated- Up to Date being fics I'm subscribed to and hoping for updates and Updated being recently updated fics I wanna catch up on! It’s also just nice to keep track of when things were last updated before I start them. Off the Presses actually means something slightly different here than traditional overview— that’s work I haven’t started reading but have checked and it has updated within the last month— I’m not completely against reading abandoned work (I even have a separate fic status for it) but wanna be aware of it before I start.
By Title and Format I don't really use Title is fics I'd consider making into podfics personally but it's gotten out of hand and I don't record nearly enough to ever actually catch up on it, format was an attempt at having the Completed and WIP overviews in one place- it was cluttered and I didn't use it. Now it breaks down by one shot or multi chapters and then length but I rarely actually use it because it has to be a uniform division of word count and it's just a lot of scrolling when set to 10,000 but anything more than that would have 500 word drabbles with like 20,000 word oneshots.
Missing Information? Like I mentioned I will add sections, recently I wanted to track where in the canon timeline I read most fics and this is a view where I've been trying to go back and update that most easily.
Bulk Addition- despite my excessive fic TBR I will still browse for new and old fics that clog up my tabs just as bad as the next person and I will just put the info in here it's set up most like a spreadsheet with a WIP, One Shot, Multi Chapter breakdown because One Shot is the default so it's easiest to be quick and accurate this way.
Skipping Chart for a sec-- checking is just a big list where I can search without it being broken up by any status or filters so I can try avoiding duplicate entries or find something specific by name, tag or creator. It’s basically my simplest version of a retrieval tool.
Chart is my designated 1 chart Notion will let me have for free I can and do change it relatively often if I am interested in something- here are a few options I go back to:
How many words am I reading each month?
How many words are the fics I’m recording each month overall?
Is there a month that more works I recorded were published?
And most recently— Where in the canon am I most likely to read a fic for? (I have Ambiguous, Multi Season or True AU options if it is truly too hard to tell but clearly since I just joined the 9-1-1 fandom a lot of the fics I’ve been reading take place post s7.)
Like I said I might make another post looking at what is recorded in each record, I think it would be funny to look at it as if it’s an actual cataloging schema so I might try to use LIS vocab for this as if it’s serious lol.
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