Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

Since it's a long list, you might want to move this post to the projects folder.

I would like to suggest you don't add more books to that list. Practically speaking, the way the list works makes it hard for a librarian to keep track which works they have looked at or communicate that with others, especially if books are constantly removed from the list.

The usual way is to use a thread like this and make requests for a few books at a time. Also, it is more useful to limit it to books for which covers are available at accepted sources. I saw on list both books that are not yet published and quite old books. For older books, if there is no cover on Amazon or Abebooks, the options are limited. Publisher or author website become generally quite unlikely to have a book from the 70s/80s/90s listed if the edition is out of print.

I'm seeing books that are actually duplicates that need to be merged. If a record has no cover and no publication data (and there is a more complete edition attached to it), it probably falls into that category.

There are also a couple "untitled" books by Olivia Cunning, projected books in an ongoing series. It would be impossible to add covers to these, as they don't exist yet.

You can start a thread in Book Issues. If the book has more than 5 user shelf adds the request should go in the Superlibrarian section.

Mavis wrote: "But if I were to do it that way, I'd have to already have a picture of the cover already, which is too much to ask, i don't have the time or the technical ability to find them for this;"

No, you don't have to already have the cover, but we may not be able to find one either for the really old ones.

For us to be able to provide help in the best way, a thread with "needing covers" and then list them is the best way for us to work. You can add only 100 titles to a list, but here you could add many more - as many as you need!

Please consider a thread. And, if you do, please number the books as you list them. That way we can communicate with other librarians, which ones we were able to complete.

Yet-to-be published books removed

Not yet published books should not be on that list.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Not yet published books should not be on that list."

I see, I didn't know that. I'll remove them later tonight if they are still there by then.

Mavis wrote: "There hasn't been a lot of activity on the list for a while, so Im commenting to bring this back to the top."

And please continue to do so, Mavis.

I think the change to the adding new books policy is taking up librarian time.

Mavis, I have been working on trying to find a cover image for this book from your list: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.
Paperback Published January 1, 1968 by Minster Classics London. So far the closest thing I have found is this:
It has the same publishing date & publisher, but the title is not exactly the same, "The Turn of the Screw & Daisy Miller". Do you think this could be the same book? Neither of them have ISBN numbers.

I'll let you know if I find anything else!

Donna wrote: "Mavis, I have been working on trying to find a cover image for this book from your list: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.
Paperback Published January 1, 1968 by Minster Classics London. So f..."

No, they are not the same book. The image is for a book that has 2 titles.

Mavis,
I have been working on this list. Since I am a new librarian, I don't know a lot about how things work yet. But I have found quite a few covers for some of the books on this list. Do you know, Am I supposed to delete those from this list after I add the cover image? If so, how do I do that? I see the link to add a book, but I don't see how to delete one! Thanks for sharing this project! I am getting a lot of practice while working on it. : )

Ok, thanks! That's exactly what I was thinking, but I don't know if I know how to remove them from the list. Since I am a new Librarian, I have never done that before.

*Can one of the more experienced librarians reply & let me know how & if I can do that? (Remove books from the list)
TIA!

At the bottom of the list description is an edit button. One of the options on the edit page (bottom) is "remove particular books". You will get a warning to make sure the book you are removing doesn't belong on the list.

Although not 100% necessary, it is often helpful to state in the list comments which books have been removed.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "At the bottom of the list description is an edit button. One of the options on the edit page (bottom) is "remove particular books". You will get a warning to make sure the book you are removing doe..."

*Thanks! I'll give it a try!

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "At the bottom of the list description is an edit button. One of the options on the edit page (bottom) is "remove particular books". You will get a warning to make sure the book you are removing doe..."

Elizabeth, I have looked but I cannot see anything that looks like an edit button. Here is what I see at the bottom:
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← previous 1 2 3 4 next →
342 books · 17 voters · list created July 22nd, 2019 by Reader (votes) .
Tags: books, cover, cover-images, covers
3 likes · LikeLists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes.

PEOPLE WHO VOTED ON THIS LIST (17)
Reader 3027 books
512 friendsSophie 52296 books
2856 friendsSally 3358 books
1 friendSaturday's 1642 books
71 friends[on hiatus] The rockabilly werewolf from Mars 6263 books
13 friendsFiona 1207 books
173 friendsMavis 66395 books
0 friendsJulie 2742 books
176 friends
More voters…

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Then a long list of comments. There is nothing else after the comments except a place to post a comment.
What am I missing??? Maybe I don't have access to that feature?
Sorry to be such a pest!

Donna wrote: "Elizabeth, I have looked but I cannot see anything that looks like an edit button. Here is what I see at the bottom:"

Look at the end of the description for the edit button, not the bottom of the page.

This particular list only has a title and no description, so it is just beneath the title. Sorry for misleadng you.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Donna wrote: "Elizabeth, I have looked but I cannot see anything that looks like an edit button. Here is what I see at the bottom:"

Look at the end of the description for the edit button, not the ..."

*Thanks! I finally found it.

People are adding generic covers. Those aren't real covers and shouldn't be added.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "People are adding generic covers. Those aren't real covers and shouldn't be added."

OK Thanks!

I think librarians would be very willing to add covers for these. Please let us know where they are so we can add them.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "I think librarians would be very willing to add covers for these. Please let us know where they are so we can add them."

The link to the list is in the first post of this thread. Just scroll up & you should find it easily!

Donna wrote: "Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "I think librarians would be very willing to add covers for these. Please let us know where they are so we can add them."

The link to the list is in the first post of thi..."

What is needed is a link to the covers.

Most if not all of those placeholder covers are being added by the bots, so even if we removed them, they may be added again in the future. Of course, that won't happen if we replace them with the proper cover.
Feel free to provide links or your own scan/photos so we can update the entries accordingly.

Mavis wrote: "Bringing this up again"

Mavis, if you would like to research and find the appropriate covers, we will be happy to add them.

Have you looked for any covers yourself? You can do that and report them here.

removing placeholders won't make much sense.
the placeholders will get reimported by bot with high likelihood if you don't link us actual covers we can upload (and even then ... I would not be sure if the current bots won't remove them to be honest)

Mavis wrote: "Bringing this up again."

Why?!!! It's been 2 days. Librarians are really busy and you're doing absolutely nothing to help identify these covers.

Mavis wrote: "Because no covers have been added in ages. I didn't know that there was a limit to when things could be brought up."

There isn't a limit, but 2 days isn't very long to wait. Further, we're really not interested in going out and doing the research. We'll be happy to add covers if you want to go find them.

Mavis wrote: "I'm not looking to argue, but could you please stop commenting to tell me to find the covers myself every time? "

In the meantime, Goodreads has placed a huge burden on librarians. It's unlikely anyone else is going to take the considerable time and effort to go looking for older covers. If you want covers added, any one of us will be happy to add them, but we need to know where they are.

Mavis,
I do look at this list frequently and when I have time, I look for the covers and update the ones I can find. Some of them are not easy to find, but I have located quite a few, so whoever is adding the titles, thanks!

The covers that are on the titles on the list are all generic, placeholder covers. None of them is the actual book cover.

I have tried several today. Missing Book Covers based on Amazon ISBN search:
# 2 - Comic Relief: Drawings from Cartoons: Out of Print--Limited Availability.
# 2 - Return to the Labyrinth: Out of Print--Limited Availability.
# 2 - Travelling the Incense Route: No Results
# 2 - The House That Was: No ISBN, No Results
# 2 - Vulpes: An English Fox: No ISBN, No Results
# 2 - Welcome Death: No Results
# 2 - Emperor of the Moon: No ISBN, No Results
# 2 - Complete Home Gardening: No ISBN, No Results

Mavis wrote: "I'm not looking to argue, but could you please stop commenting to tell me to find the covers myself every time? I won't bring it up again quite so soon next time, but finding the covers myself isn't really the reason I made the thread.."

I think the reasoning was because there was no reply to the questions/suggestions in the previous posts.

Librarians are more likely to help someone find a cover if it is something that the person is having trouble with themselves, and if it is something for their own Goodreads use.

The millions of books with placeholder or no covers are just not a high priority for us right now unless there is a specific user requesting them for their own books in the group. Obviously there are some librarians working on this project so hopefully the list will get shorter.

I just wanted to let you know the reasoning why most people are not addressing this thread, to add on to what Elizabeth mentioned in message 68.

Mavis wrote: "Bringing this up again, since it's been buried under a bunch of other requests."

Mavis, Please see my post and from Emily from 10 days ago. The titles out of print aren't likely to get covers because no images are available. The others have NO ISBN's and cannot be found on Amazon (the primary source of images besides the publisher).

If you have found images for these books at Amazon or the publisher, please provide. (If you can't find them, how are we supposed to find them?)

With all the requests we volunteer librarians get, having to do hours of searches for nothing is not a priority. You can't beat a stone and get water.

Kind regards, Christy

As an alternative, some of the readers adding books to the list might want to post in the group instead for faster work.

Christy wrote: "Mavis, Please stop. Your question has been looked at many times and answered - you just don't like the answer.
Many of these covers are NOT available."

It's better to just not reply to a thread you are not interested in, or turn off notifications. I believe the OP understands and is just hoping for someone else to address the list.

Added some more covers

Mavis wrote: "bringing this up again (also, is there any chance a librarian could remove some of the books with covers?)"

If you are asking that names of books be removed from previous posts librarians cannot do that. Only the person who created the post can edit it.

OK, there were only a few, now removed.