Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

Hi all, new librarian and I apologize beforehand if questions have been asked a bunch of times! Did search the manual (which is quite good) and forum, but it's sometimes hard to tell the finer points of polices, since comments differ some and things may change from when the answer was originally given.

My general question regards what the correct procedure is if I want to correct mistakes in book data. Is justifying the change in the "change comment" field enough, or should the question/intention be raised (here in the forum?) first?

Second question, with a specific example, concerns covers - as far as I can tell, covers are by principle not replaced (if not by a better scan e.g.), but what about incorrect ones? The plume edition of Final cut has the cover of the Final cut (FF) Faber&Faber edition (as seen on the logo in lower left corner. I own the Plume first edition and made a scan of the cover; is it ok for me to replace the current one?

Thanks in advance and nice to meet you all, this is a very nice site to be part of!

Most everything you do here can be easily reverted to a previous version with a single click. So it's ok to be a little bold, particularly if you actually have the physical copy of the book in front of you.

And if you're not sure, ask here what to do, until you're confident with the guidelines.

As for the covers: You have to use your own judgement on these cases.

For this specific book cover, they are more or less identical other than the branding, so I would just change it to the correct one. It's entirely likely whoever put that cover on that edition, didn't notice the logo on the cover of the image (it's not that good of an image anyway, since it's not a flat cover scan).

When it's less obvious that changing it is ok, the changelog is very useful here. Press edit on the book, click the changelog link right at the top above the data fields, and then click the "this edition" (the default is to show all edits to all editions, which can be really confusing.) You should be able to see where the cover came from, and when. If there's a note on the changelog entry, you might well have your explanation right there what happened, and can decide then. Flipping back to the all editions might show that someone put the same cover image on several editions, in which case they probably just didn't notice the publisher logo on that specific one. Either way you know who to pm for more info.

And if you're uncomfortable pm'ing other librarians (I am, if I don't know them), or they have a private profile, or the changelog doesn't clear up for you what happened, you can still just post here for opinions.

Krazykiwi...

Thanks much for answering! Just the orientation I needed. I had actually missed how to view the changelog for an edition, so that was very helpful also.

I fooled you a bit with my links - actually the cover for the Plume edition is nothing like the FF one. (I linked to the FF edition and to the incorrect Plume edition, i.e. both images are from FF editions).

No worries - now I know I dare change it without getting kicked out on my bum!

Thomas wrote: "...Is justifying the change in the "change comment" field enough..."

I don't think it hurts to have too much information in a comment rather than too little. But for edits that are going to be very clear in the changelogs why something was done (like changing book title "Teh Darkest Hour" to "The Darkest Hour" or author "Doe, John" to "John Doe," adding missing pieces of information ...), I wouldn't worry about "justifying" or making a lot of detailed comments. Many common librarian edits get made without comments or detailed comments; you'll get a better feel for it once you are more familiar with the changelogs and can judge what will,be clear there and what needs more explanation.

Anytime you encounter a librarian note (not just a comment) from staff or librarian saying "don't" to a change you think does need to be made or vice versa, I would have definitely discussed here and even waited for Rivka or other staff to weigh in before touching the book record.

If there is something you expect might be confusing or really needs to be justified (like reverting another librarians changes, wanting to change existing isbn information, series info or order, etc.), a good idea to discuss here, make detailed comments explaining and even to add an actual librarian note rather than just noting in comments. You have to wade through changelog to find the comments or track down what changes have been made: librarian note shows clearly when editing or combining books. Mostly the librarian note isn't needed and shouldn't be overused; should be just for really unusual things or if the book record keeps being changed incorrectly. If odd enough to need a librarian note added, might be odd enough to just ask a more experienced librarian to do for you or to doublecheck your changes.

I would also add that you MUST check the changelog if you suspect there's something wrong with a cover image. Nine times out of ten, someone before you has made a change against policy. Don't change a cover without checking the log first, or you're likely to make the situation worse. I know, because I've made that mistake :P