Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

This book with ISBN 9789163853692 is marked as a paperback. However, all the details - including the ISBN and cover image - belong to the hardback edition. I've done extensive research in Swedish libraries, the Swedish libris database and Worldcat, and this ISBN is always connected to the hardback edition.

There is a paperback edition as well, with ISBN 9789170015427 and those details are correct according to all databases I've researched.

So, would it be safe for me to change the first one from paperback to hardback, since this looks to me like just a simple error? (I do own the hardcover edition by the way and checked it against both editions.)

It is ok to change it as you have verified with multiple sources that the ISBN is connected to the hardcover edition and not the paperback. And it is always ok to change/add information from any book you have a physical copy of, as you said mistakes happen when adding information.

Okay, thank you!

In this case, the format was entered by a user back in 2011. Tracking down their original source is likely impossible, and since multiple sources -- including but not limited to book in hand -- have confirmed that it the format listed is incorrect, it probably is.


Annika wrote: "And it is always ok to change/add information from any book you have a physical copy of"

No, not always, because sometimes ISBNs are re-used -- occasionally even from one format to another.

There are books with multiple editions under the same ISBN, and if every librarian follows the suggested guideline you propose, some of them will have edit wars back and forth. So it doesn't work as a general rule.

You may be thinking of the fact that for page counts we do go by book in hand over any online source. But that's mostly for that one type of data, not all of them.