Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

I've had a search to see if this has come up before but I couldn't find anything that quite matched. I apologise in advance if I missed something obvious!

The Hardy Boys mysteries were released in the UK by Collins Publishers in the seventies in a completely new order. This isn't an issue of chronology within the fiction vs. original publication date (some changes to the order actually disrupt the chronology in small ways) so it doesn't seem like it would merit an additional series to list this chronology, however the different numbers are printed on the Collins books, both back cover and prominently on the spine, so it seems strange to add the editions with the usual numbering in their titles.

Is it acceptable to, for instance, add The Melted Coins (Hardy Boys, #23) with a title of The Melted Coins (Hardy Boys, #7) as another edition and combine it, with a librarian's note to tell people why the numbering is different? Or do I have to put #23 in the title of this edition even though the book has #7 printed on it twice? These editions don't seem to exist on goodreads for any of the titles I own and have cover photos for, so I wanted to make sure before I went around adding them in all wrong.

Why do publishers have to make things so complicated? :P

I would think your example with a librarian note would be acceptable given the circumstances. Keep in mind, however, that because the book is numbered as #23 in the Goodreads Series that number will still over write your #7 on the book page. Good for record keeping though, IMO.

Thank you, that's what I thought. :D

Yes, the book record itself should say #7 even if it's combined with the other editions which are #23. You can, if you want, create another series listing for the alternate order if you want as long as it's a secondary series on all of the combined books (which it would be, if you created it after the existing series) -- but that might be more trouble than it's worth if you're not interested in the Collins series order per se, just in having each of the Collins editions cataloged correctly.