Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

Every year, Reader's Digest comes out with several volumes containing a few "condensed" versions of popular literature. My boyfriend recently (and incorrectly) tried to add one such edition and not only did he incorrectly enter the authors, but I believe the title is incorrect as well (in terms of format, not information). With such a collection, what is the best way to format the collection title with the title of the included works?

For example: Title 1/Title 2/Title 3/Title 4 (Reader's Digest Select Editions Vol #, Year)
-or-
Reader's Digest Select Editions: Title 1/Title 2/Title 3/Title 4 (Volume #, Year)

I've been doing a little research and I've seen it both ways on Amazon. The Library of Congress offers very little information on any appropriate titles, etc. The Reader's Digest website is also rather useless for gathering the information.

Here's his mangled creation in case you're able to edit it, delete it, leave it be, etc.

Thank you in advance for any assistance!

I'd go with a variant of the first approach.

Do they start the numbering over every year, or is the number consecutive from the beginning? If the latter, I would leave the year out completely "(Reader's Digest Select Editions, #129)". If they do restart the numbering, I'd put the year first, after a colon, then the volume number "(Reader's Digest Select Editions: 2009, #4)"

Thus either:

Title 1/Title 2/Title 3/Title 4 (Reader's Digest Select Edition: 2004, #1)

or

Title 1/Title 2/Title 3/Title 4 (Reader's Digest Select Edition, #150)

For the authors, I'd start with the editor (if there is one), since they presumably did the abridgment. Then the authors should be in the same order as the titles. I would not give the authors "roles" the way we do a normal edited anthology but would just leave them as role-less authors.

Wikipedia has a complete listing for the Condensed Books as well as the renamed-and-continued Select Editions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reader&#...
That way, one can find a series number as well as the year-and-number which is included with the books.

I'd like a clarification on the style for the RDCB somewhere official. My grandmother left me an almost-complete set, and I'm slowly going through them.

It looks like someone changed the main author on the RDCBs I had entered to "Reader's Digest" which makes finding them much easier, and then the second choice (prefacing the title(s) with "Reader's Digest Select Editions:") not as useful.

Should "Reader's Digest" be considered an author? One could make an argument that they are an editor and given them the editor role (since the true editor is probably not listed or may vary from condensed book to condensed book).

They have to be listed as author (editor) on some books, because there is no other author of record.

For books like these, listing them secondarily as editor makes sense.

Recently we had a car boot sale (garage sale) and the only books we had left were the RD condensed books we had to leave them on the door step of a charity shop.