Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

I found what is definitely two separate entries for the same book. I would just delete the one with the least amount of info, but one person has it on their to-read list, and I don't want to leave them out. I looked at the librarian instructions, but I don't understand them.

Separate? I'm not sure what that means. And how do I recombine?

Well, kind of nevermind, I thought you would combine in the edit page, I see where it is now.

But after I deleted it, the person who had it on their "to-read" list got kicked off. Is that always going to happen?

Jessica wrote: "I found what is definitely two separate entries for the same book. I would just delete the one with the least amount of info..."

Jessica, librarians have two different options here: one we call combining and the other we call merging. Many books are published multiple times, sometimes by different publishers, in different languages, with different cover art, with different ISBNs, etc. This means that books have multiple editions, and all of those editions are valid. When you find two separate entries for different editions of the same book, you combine those editions with the "combine editions" link from the author's or the book's page. Occasionally there will be a separate entry which is not a separate edition but a mistake either entered by a GR user or imported from a mistaken Amazon listing. When that happens, first you combine the two entries as if they were both valid editions and then you can merge them by deleting the one which is a mistake. When you merge entries, all of the shelves and reviews from the deleted entry are merged onto the entry which is not deleted -- this is why it's very important that the entries be combined before they are merged! In general, you should not try to merge entries unless you are very sure of what you're doing.

Jessica wrote: "Well, kind of nevermind, I thought you would combine in the edit page, I see where it is now.

But after I deleted it, the person who had it on their "to-read" list got kicked off."

That should not happen if you have combined the entries before deleting the mistaken one! Can you send a message to the user in question to let them know that they should re-shelve that book?

I would send them a message, but now I can't see their name anymore. I absolutely combined both editions before deleting them. The book in question is this: The Sacred Well A Novel. There were two duplicate entries - same pub date on both, one with no ISBN or other info than title and author. I combined both editions, then deleted the funky one.

I'm guessing I did something wrong, just not sure what.

If they were combined (showing up under "other editions"), then you did nothing wrong and there's a bug.

The log definitely shows that you combined the editions of that book . . . and it shows one merged review. Link

Jessica, that does sound like a candidate for merging. Are you certain that they were combined? The other edition should have shown under "other editions" in the top of the sidebar before you deleted this bad record.

I know I combined them, that's weird. Well, for the next one I'll post it here instead of doing it myself. I feel like such a bad librarian :(

Don't! First of all, you didn't do anything wrong. The log is quite clear.

And even if you had, every librarian makes mistakes. We're human, right?

Well here's another one, I'm not deleting it :P But I did combine them.

Discretion

Jessica, Well THAT edition should not be deleted because it has ISBNs, etc. There was another, third "empty" edition that I did delete and it merged with its correct edition of the two remaining.

Is the book edition link above the one you meant to post?

It was the empty edition, sorry, I posted the main book on accident.

Jessica, Oh, ok. Well, the main thing is that all editions were combined so it was ok to delete the empty edition and it belonged (by looking at publication date) with the most popular edition so simply deleting it merged it with the correct edition.

Maybe what I'll do is make a new version of some other book myself, and then combine and delete to see if it does it again. That way no one gets hurt :)

Sounds like a good test case.

Alright call to help - I added a "test" edition (twice) of this book, but since I've actually read it (I created the original) I think it'll be better if someone else adds it. Could someone please go to this book and add it to their to-read list?

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63...

Thanks in advance!

Done.

Thanks rivka! I'll delete it now and we'll see what happens...

Well it looks like it worked! Maybe it was just a fluke?

Likely so. (And I just deleted the book from my shelf, so that's why it's gone now.)

Thanks for all your help!