Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

I understand we're deleting the generic subtitle "A Novel" from the title. Are we also deleting other generic subtitles, such as

Poems
Stories
A Biography

Others?

Stories definitely, I got that straight from rivka's mouth. Therefore I suppose Poems as well.

A Biography - don't know. To me, it seems to give more info than the other examples.

Usually, yes. If they have additional information (Stories About Puppies, Poems from the Heart, etc.), then no. And there are occasional other cases where it may not be appropriate to remove such information, although none come to mind at the moment.

Thanks, Lethe and Rivka.

So, "A Biography" is deletable? What about "A History" - are these also generic?

For both of those, the context matters more. There have definitely been some I have removed, and some I would not.

rivka wrote: "For both of those, the context matters more. There have definitely been some I have removed, and some I would not."

Ok, thanks. My path to the librarian's group is well worn, I'll just keep using it. ;-)

I have my doubts that deleting "poems" and "stories" is a good idea.

could i just get a clarification on why 'a novel' is not recognized/ preferred to not be used as a subtitle by GR, per the librarian manual? for whatever reasons the publisher, or author, has chosen to include this a part of the title. so why omit it in the database here?

i did not realize that this was preferred practice, excluding 'a novel' from titles. is this a recent change?

It has been in the manual for a while (don't know how long), but the wording was ambiguous, so a few months ago it was changed for clarity.

I think it is omitted because it is not always mentioned on the cover but only on the title page, and it does not really add anything that isn't made clear in the description. Most novels do not even have this subtitle at all.

It's also GR policy to exclude non-generic subtitles that are not on the cover, and those would give more info than 'a novel'.

rivka wrote: "Usually, yes. If they have additional information (Stories About Puppies, Poems from the Heart, etc.), then no. And there are occasional other cases where it may not be appropriate to remove such information, although none come to mind at the moment. "

What about subtitles that are not part of the title or the series name such as : "A Billionaire gay romance novel"

should be removed

thank you, lethe. i guess i am still curious about why, though -- particularly if the subtitle ('a novel') is specifically noted on the cover. (i can't think of a book where 'a novel' isn't noted on the cover, but is on the title page. you've got me curious and now i will be on the lookout for such examples.) :)

i am with lobstergirl in having concerns about omitting 'stories' or 'poems' as subtitles. again, i feel these have been chosen by the author or publisher for a reason, so should keep the matching information in the database.

A novel is rarely really part of the title, I read a blog post by Neil Gaiman once about how he never knows if it will be on his books until he gets sent a copy, and there seemed no rhyme or reason to when or which publishers like to use it, resulting in it being on the us editions but not the uk or vice versa for various books.

Poems or Stories on the other hand, seems more often to be a conscious choice of title by the author, and when used tends to be consistently on all editions. I do think there is a difference in many cases.

ETA: Could we in fact use that as the denominator? Something like the "series vs imprint": If "poems" or "stories" is used consistently on all editions, it can stay, if not, use your best judgement?

Jennifer wrote: "(i can't think of a book where 'a novel' isn't noted on the cover, but is on the title page. you've got me curious and now i will be on the lookout for such examples.) :) "

It took me only a few minutes to find two such books on my shelves, both Dutch:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
No mention on the cover, on the title page 'roman' (=novel)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
This one does have 'roman' on the cover, but on the title page it says instead 'een hedendaagse tragedie' (=a contemporary tragedy), which I like much better :)

It's also probably worth noting specifically that "Roman" == A novel in... well tons of languages. I remove that probably more often than I do the actual English "A novel".

(Swedish, and probably the other scandinavian languages, is particularly cute in that novell actually means short story, and roman means novel. But it's pretty much safe to remove
": Roman" off the end of any title you see it on. Unless you suspect it's a book about Romans of course.)

Krazykiwi wrote: "(Swedish, and probably the other scandinavian languages, is particularly cute in that novell actually means short story, and roman means novel. But it's pretty much safe to remove
": Roman" off the end of any title you see it on. Unless you suspect it's a book about Romans of course.)"

Or a biography of Roman Polanski :P

In Dutch we have 'novelle', which means short novel (novelette in English?).

lethe wrote: "In Dutch we have 'novelle', which means short novel (novelette in English?). "

Sometimes novelette, but usually novella.

lethe wrote: "In Dutch we have 'novelle', which means short novel (novelette in English?)."
I think it is novella in English.

Poems and (short) stories is valuable information to me. Usually I add it to the description.

Novella, of course. The heatwave has not even started and already my brain is melting.

What about in this case? I used to leave those as they were on the cover, should I remove? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Ellie [The Empress] wrote: "What about in this case? I used to leave those as they were on the cover, should I remove? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2..."

Bump

I don't think this is different from the 'novel' subtitle, i.e. I think it should be removed according to GR.

lethe wrote: "I don't think this is different from the 'novel' subtitle, i.e. I think it should be removed according to GR."

The difference is that is it on the cover.

No, 'a novel' should never be added as a subtitle, whether it appears on the cover or not.

lethe wrote: "No, 'a novel' should never be added as a subtitle, whether it appears on the cover or not."

Okay that is what I wanted confirmed. Thank you.

What about this: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Can this be renamed from "Share with Me: A Clean Contemporary Christian Romance Novel Celebrating Faith, Family, and Friends" to the title as on the cover?
I keep seeing authors doing that.

I rename those with prejudice. Also the ones who do it in series tags "Book name (keyword keyword keyword keyword #1)" when it's not a series.

If it's on the cover, I'm a little more circumspect, but I figure it's essentially the same as "A novel of..." which is specifically addressed in the manual: Goes to series tags if it's really a series name, goes altogether if it's not.

Krazykiwi wrote: "I rename those with prejudice."

I also do it. But figured I should ask in case I've been doing it wrong. Usually I would move the whole sentence in the description unless it makes the description repetitive.

Thanks :)

Just to complicate things, that seems to be the copyrighted title even though the only place it appears is in the copyright listing: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Y...
Even on her own website it's only called Share with Me.

Oh, well - I don't intend to use it but to remove it :D

Yes, move it to the description. It has no place in the title field.

There was another book a while ago that had as a subtitle an ad for the film, and that "subtitle" appeared on the cover, the spine, the title page. Rivka agreed with me that it didn't belong in the title field.

Sounds sensible to me. :-)

Just adding my two cents. As an actual cataloging librarian for nearly 15 years, we would never omit anything that is on the title page of a book. It is mandated by cataloging rules (that are laid forth by LoC to name just one entity) that if "a novel," "stories," or "poems" is on the title page, it goes in the title field of the book's record. I personally couldn't bring myself to delete these subtitles! "A novel" does somewhat seem redundant, but stories and poems I find extremely helpful.

GR doesn't follow the international cataloguing rules in that it looks at the cover, not the title page (it also has different rules for counting pages).

It's also important to note that GR librarians do not always have access to the title page. Most books in the catalog come from digital imports, which may or may not have generic subtitles.