Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

Originally Livy's "History of Rome" series contained 142 books, but most have been lost. The remaining books are usually published grouped together—for example, Penguin publishes them in 4 volumes, though not all publishers group them in the same way, and there are of course standalone volumes available.

The books (at least, those that are currently grouped into a series on Goodreads) are currently numbered on Goodreads based the number of published volumes in a given publisher's set, rather than by the number of the books themselves. The result is that the numbering is arbitrary and does not reflect the original authorial intent, the book titles are incorrect and confusing, and there there are already several different "series" of this work on Goodreads (with many other "series" missing).

For example, here is the numbering of the popular Penguin series (https://www.goodreads.com/series/2127...
- "Book 1" is actually "Books 1-5"
- "Book 2" is actually "Books 6-10"
- "Book 3" is actually "Books 21-30"
- "Book 4" is actually "Books 31-45"

So how should this be handled per Goodreads policy?

Should the books be grouped into separate series by publisher and numbered according to the number of volumes produced by the publisher? The problem is that there would be many, many, many separate series for the same series.

Or should all series be combined, with the volumes renumbered according to the actual books within? The problem is that there would be many different entries in the series.

Please advise.

Bump.

For the series pages, I agree with the issues for both options. A single series page would be very chaotic, but a series page for each and every version of numbering also sounds unrealistic.
So maybe we should accept that only the most popular versions have a series page?

Renske wrote: "For the series pages, I agree with the issues for both options. A single series page would be very chaotic, but a series page for each and every version of numbering also sounds unrealistic.
So may..."

Thanks, Renske. Is that acceptable under the Librarian Manual?

There are more works with multiple series. I know more than one fantasy series where (some of) the translations are split editions. Those got a separate series page as it would be quite cluttered with that number of books.
Deciding to not make a series page is not against the rules.