Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

Hi all!

This is my first time posting in this group and I have a question. For a while now I've been noticing some of the books I've added get deleted and replaced by the same edition in English. It recently happened to this edition:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...

I added the book, filled in most of the details, even mentioned the language was Portuguese, I just hadn't had time to add the cover. But now I notice someone deleted my book and I have an English edition in my bookshelf. Why does someone do that? And it's not the first time either, I have several books that have to be readded in Portuguese.

The one you linked has an ISBN that corresponds to the English edition. Did you add the ISBN of the Portuguese edition, or might you have used that ISBN?

I added the Portuguese edition, with a Portuguese title, ISBN (nothing like the English one) and other details, then I went and combined it with the English edition. Everything was alright until today I notice that my edition is missing and has been replaced by the English one, I can only suppose it was deleted because it doesn't even show on the author's page like it did before.

That IS weird. No one should be deleting books with distinct ISBNs!

What is even odder is that the deletion is not showing up in the change log . . .

The ISBN of the Portuguese edition is 9789722516389, so nothing like the one showing.
And it has happened before, I added my entire book collection and some of my books are in Portuguese so I had to manually add them. I didn't have time to add all details when I did it but I always wrote the Portuguese title and ISBN so that later on I could complete the information, but some of them just disappeared and were replaced with English editions. :-s

Which change log would show the edits? As far as I can tell the change log for the author only shows changes to the authors profile, not to the books themselves (I went and confirmed this by looking at the change log of an author I was working on last night; none of the changes are listed under that author's name, just under the change log of the book). If a book is deleted there would be no change log recording since the book itself was deleted, correct?

On the other hand, I just looked at another author I was working on last night. It lists changes I made to some of their books a few weeks ago, but none of the changes made last night. It appears that perhaps when the change log was added for each book it became separated from the change log of the author (could be on purpose could be accidental)? If this is the case, then there is no way to track deletions?

On a related note, I changed a typo in an author's name last night (on the author profile page) and it is not listed in the change log, probably because it is viewed as a different author.

I'm going to re-add the book with all the details, including the cover and hope this time it stays there. I just thought it was weird!

Well, I can confirm that at this moment, at least, the book you added is still there :)

What is odd is that the average rating is -0.00(-1 reviews). How does something have a negative rating and # of reviews?

If a book is deleted there would be no change log recording since the book itself was deleted, correct?

Except it was deleted after being combined. I would think that deletion would be reflected in the log of the remaining book versions. Maybe not.


It appears that perhaps when the change log was added for each book it became separated from the change log of the author (could be on purpose could be accidental)?

I noticed that too.


How does something have a negative rating and # of reviews?

It's temporary; a caching issue. Some of the numbers update instantly and some take until the next update, so any figure depending on calculations involving some of each will give an odd number for a day or so after a new rating is added. (It's less noticeable on books with hundreds or thousands of ratings.)

Ann, please do mention if this book -- or any others -- disappears again! Also, I fixed the ISBN-10. It's NOT just the last 10 digits of an ISBN-13; the last digit will be different.

This converter is useful.

Rivka, Thanks! Very useful converter!

Except it was deleted after being combined. I would think that deletion would be reflected in the log of the remaining book versions. Maybe not.

I guess the only way to know for sure what be to do a test. It might also depend on how it is being deleted. If someone separates it, then deletes it, the record might be quite different than deleting it out of a combined record.

I happened to delete a book without an ISBN yesterday (it was combined); I can't quite recall which one it was, unfortunately, but I just went through the change log of all of the books I think it could have been and none of them list any deletion. Perhaps deletions are not stored.

Ack! Michael, Why did you delete a combined edition? Was it absolutely identical to another one? (Because I manually add some of my own editions that I deem sufficiently different from editions already present, and I really would prefer the ones I've entered to not be deleted, even if I'm the only one who's rated them.)

There were about 5 editions. This one had a single user, unrated, with only the author and title (no other info at all). It appeared that someone just blind added the book without bothering to see that it already existed in GoodReads. The book was published within the last decade or so (I believe it was one of the books from the Kushiel series by Jacqueline Carey, but I don't recall which one), so it is not an issue of predating the common use of ISBN (as is the case with any number of books which I own). I have to believe that if someone cared enough about a unique edition to add it on their own, they would have actually entered something about the book which explained why it was unique (isnn, publisher, style, description, a cover image, something...). Perhaps I was wrong, but I think this was a legitimate case of cleaning up unnecessary redundancy.

It sounds like it to me.

Michael, Well that makes perfect sense then. Carry on. :-)

Rivka, thanks for the converter, I had no idea the ISBN-10 would be different, the book only has the ISBN-13. It will come in useful! :-)
And I'll be sure to let you know if something like this happens again.

The last digit on an ISBN is called the check digit, and it is calculated from the other digits. It's a way of verifying that an ISBN is valid, rather than just a random 10-digit (or 13-) string.

Some books are staring to show just the ISBN-13, since the transition to that format is well underway. Most are still showing both, I think.