Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

This thread is for discussion of what items should be added to the manual, and how to word them.

Those who prefer (especially if they suspect a particular issue could require a fair bit of discussion) are of course welcome to start separate threads in this folder.

Cait said:

When you have a duplicate and you know which edition it was meant to be, this is how to merge that duplicate with the actual edition:

1) Separate the duplicate and its actual edition from any other editions of that book.

2) Combine them just with each other.

3) Delete the duplicate. It will merge with its actual edition because this is the most popular (only!) other edition available in that combination.

4) Re-combine the actual edition with the other editions of the book.

I might change the third word to "find"; other than that, I think it's pretty good. Anyone else have any additions or edits they'd like to suggest?

Maybe about how to separate out 2 authors that have the same name (i.e. adding a space between first and last name).

Also maybe a part about how adding a Librarian's Note in the summary when there is some sort of ISBN conflict or some other thing that needs explaining is helpful.

Both of those sound good. Want to suggest phrasing?

Gotta think for a minute. But a question first...for the Librarian's Note...adding it to the top or the bottom of the summary? The first couple of times I added them to the top because they can be more easily seen, but I didn't like the way it look, so I've been adding them to the bottom. Which is better to suggest?

Please do not delete an edition of a book that has even one rating just because it does not have an ISBN. Some older books that GR members manually add will not have ISBNs. Please check carefully and err on the side of not deleting a book edition.

(this might be too wordy...if it is I can try to squish it down)

Separating authors with the same name:

Occasionally you may come across an author profile that encompasses 2 or more authors of the same name. In order to separate these authors and their respective books you will need to identify which books belong to which author. Once you have, leave one author alone and for the second, go into the edit page of each of their books and add an additional space between their first and last name.

This will create a new author profile for the second author. You MUST edit each book by that second author and add a space to their name for their books to appear in their profile.

If by chance their is a third author of the same name (which has happened), simply add a third space between the author's first and last name.

Example:
Catherine^Anderson
Catherine^^Anderson
Catherine^^^Anderson

NOTE: The ^ = 1 space and is just used to demonstrate the number of spaces because otherwise they would not show up in the example (technical issue). The ^ would NOT be used in the actual author field, only an actual space

Also please note that any new books by the authors of that name will be entered into the main profile by default. They will have to be edited once they are added to Goodreads to shift them to the right profile.

html does not, under normal conditions display multiple consecutive spaces. This is why you can get away with the multiple spaces in the author names but have them all appear normal.

I'd use a different character to indicate the spaces in the example, e.g.,

Catherine^Anderson
Catherine^^Anderson
Catherine^^^Anderson

Yeah, I figured that. I'll edit my example. Thanks for the suggestion :)

I also added a note about the fact that future books would have to be edited as they came.

Re what Isis said: Also maybe a part about how adding a Librarian's Note in the summary when there is some sort of ISBN conflict or some other thing that needs explaining is helpful.

I vote for some sort of ability to add librarians' notes, and in a place where they'd be easily found by those looking at a book.

I just combined editions of the book, and while not a mistake, the results will be confusing to some who might have had editions that were deleted. Ugh. It's too late to notify everyone who's rated that book, but, if I could write a note explaining, it would make it easy for all those affected to change editions for their shelves if they wanted to do that. But I find no way to write a note. I did write one thing at the top of the description field that might help somewhat, and that's appropriate too, but being able to do that might not always be a good thing to do.

Here are 2 more suggestions:

Combining editions with multiple authors:
In order to combine editions that have multiple authors listed the editions must have the same author listed in the first author field. Once that is done, you can then combine from the first listed author's combine page, and ONLY the first author's combine page.

The NOT-A-BOOK category
---an explanation of what this category is, why it is used, how to use it, and what qualifies as NOT A BOOK.

(p.s. I just noticed that there is already a section in the existing manual for multiple authors of the same name - one of my other suggestions. Oops.)

Iris, there is, but I think adding your directions will make it clearer.


for the Librarian's Note...adding it to the top or the bottom of the summary?

The bottom is virtually invisible for any book whose description is more than a line or two. So I think the top is best, but keep it short. And maybe italicized?

If you manually add a book to the Goodreads database that has more than one author, please put each author is a separate field. You can enter up to three authors. Please do not put multiple authors in the first author field as though they are a single author.


Edit; Actually, I guess that this should go on the "manually add book" page for the benefit of all GR members.

Probably. :)

Editors, Translators, Illustrators, and Others

Currently, GoodReads only has fields for authors. While it is sometimes necessary to enter editor(s) in those fields (as when there are many authors, such as in a collection of short stories), all others should be added to the book's description field instead. (When an editor is listed in the author field, please only list their name. GR thinks "John James (editor)" is an entirely different person from "John James".)

"Jim Smith (translator)" or "translated by Jim Smith" are both fine, and should be added to the beginning of the description field.

Any suggestions to make that clearer? It scans rather awkwardly to me, but I'm not sure how to fix it.

Rivka, All the needed info is there. The only thing I can think of is to either divide it up into more paragraphs and/or put in more bold, such as the book's description field, but I don't think any changes are necessary.

I would like to see clarification on what should be in the original publication date - I believe I remember seeing a discussion thread on that, but I think it should have a permanent place in the library guide.
And I would like to see also clarification on authors with two published spellings of their names. (More clarification of the pseudonym discussion already included.)

An example of a book combining both difficulties:

Khalil Gibran, 'A Tear and a Smile'

On my copy, the author's name is printed as Kahlil Gibran. Two author pages existed in the Goodreads database. I combined them to the Khalil Gibran spelling. If you look for a book by searching the title or author, this was not a problem, as the most popular author showed up. The variation in spelling only showed up because I manually entered my version from Amazon (No ISBN). When I tried to combine editions, I found only one edition, and I knew that wasn't right from my previous search.

For the manual entry, I was trying to find the original publication date. I settled on 1914 (from Wikipedia) as that was the Arabic publication date listed on Wikipedia. (Also, some links to other good sources of publication dates would be helpful..)

My feeling is - I'm not a librarian in real life, just a book-lover. As soon as you get into multiple spellings and no ISBN books, I'm way beyond my realm of expertise. I made this author and book pages a little better than they were. My fear is that I might make mistakes that someone else will have to clean up -

Isn't the multiple spelling issue already spelled out? We usually use the LoC as an arbiter; when both are legit, I guess there's nothing to do but wait for the long-awaited-aka feature.

And the LoC prefers the Kahlil spelling. [edit: but does not support hotlinking to search results]

Original publication dates are often ambiguous. I'm not sure specific guidelines would be all that helpful. But I'd be perfectly happy to be outvoted. ;)

I am trying to add an older book. "The Phantom of Crestwood". I believe it was written around 1932, but I cannot find it in the search. It was set in Crestwood, Kentucky.

thanks

Deborah,

You can manually enter a book:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/new

Please put in as much information as you have. Fill the fields as best as you can.

Once you've added the book, you can rate and review it, and it will be in the Goodreads database for other members to do the same.

Edit:

It seems to have been a 1932 movie???:

http://books.google.com/books?as_q=&a...

If you don't have the title and author, please do a search on the web for the book so you can get as much information as possible.

Edit again: Please make sure you enter only books into the database. Thank you!

Yes, I know how to add books and have dones so several times. I just don't have the author's names.

It was a movie in 1932, but it was also a book. I was in a drugstore in Crestwood where they had a whole shelf of the book and a big sign that the movie was based on it.

thanks

Canonical forms for initials in author names:

* There should be a period after the initial.

* There should be no spaces between consecutive initials.

* There should be one space (excepting disambiguation) between an initial and a non-initial.

Examples:

* J.K. Rowling
* J.R.R. Tolkien
* Philip K. Dick
* F. Scott Fitzgerald
* George R.R. Martin

Good suggestions.

Hey, Otis . . .

Aren't we already doing this?

Yes, but whereever it was that we decided to do it like that has scrolled off into the mists of old posts. I'm suggesting here that we add this to the librarian manual so we don't lose it again. :)

Ah, Good idea Cait. I agree.

Right. These things were supposed to get added to the manual, but I don't think they ever did.

I'm new at this so apologize if this has already been asked and answered, but ...

What is the canonical form for suffixes, like Jr. & III?

I haven't been a librarian for long and have lots to learn, so please bare with me if I bring up items that have already been discussed.

Although the Librarian's Manual indicates what a librarian can do it does not address what is the best method to post what they cannot do, like fix or remove quotes, etc.

There are topics or folders here for most things, and feel free to start new topics.

I saw the additions to the Librarian Manual. Nice!

I thought of something else though. We seem to get asked about combining volumes fairly often. Can we add something like:

If one work gets split into two or more volumes later, those volumes should not be combined with the original, one-volume work. However, a "volume 1 of 2" can be combined with a different "volume 1 of 2."

Someone else may have a better way to say it, but I think that's the clearest, most concise answer I've ever given.

Sounds like a good one. I'll give it a couple days for folks to comment or suggest alternate phrasings.

The newly posted manual looks very good. Thanks to everyone!

Can you add information about suffixes as well (Jr., MD) etc?

I am now clear from reading the threads as what to do, but this was something that I had questions about when I started being a GR librarian. I'm guessing others might have this question as well.

Thanks.

Good idea. Would someone like to suggest a phrasing?

rivka wrote: "Good idea. Would someone like to suggest a phrasing?"

But you do it so well......

rivka wrote: "Good idea. Would someone like to suggest a phrasing?"

I haven't paid enough attention to the rules for this one (suffixes), or I'd write something up.

Are there any other things that need to be written up for the manual? I'm happy to help if I can.

Sherry wrote: "rivka wrote: "Good idea. Would someone like to suggest a phrasing?"

But you do it so well......"

Brain dead. If no one else has suggested something by next week, I'll try.

rivka wrote: "Sherry wrote: "rivka wrote: "Good idea. Would someone like to suggest a phrasing?"

But you do it so well......"

Brain dead. If no one else has suggested something by next week, I'll try.

"
Here's a first pass ...

Suffixes and prefixes for authors names

Only social suffixes are used. This includes Jr., Sr., and Roman numerals. There is no punctuation between the name and the suffix.

Examples:
Frank B. Gilbreth Jr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Andre Dubus III

Other suffixes and prefixes are not included with authors names
*Academic degrees (BS, MS, PhD, MD, DDS, Prof, Dr. etc.) should not be used
*Honorary degrees (KBE, LLD, Sir etc.) should not be used
*Professional (Esq, CPA, CFA etc.) should not be used
Examples:
Diana Derval (not Prof. Diana Derval)
Robert C. Atkins (not Dr. Robert C. Atkins)

The only exceptions are those where the author is known primarily by a name that includes the honorific:
Example:
Mahatma Ghandi (not Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi)

Sounds good to me. Very thorough.

Agreed. That's very good!

I'll give it until Monday for anyone to suggest additions/changes. (And if someone could remind me if I forget then, I'd appreciate it. I'm getting ready for a move, and even more scattered than usual. ;) )

Sherry, That's very clear. Thanks for writing that.

Actually, I've always wondered if "Sr." should be considered a proper part of a name. "Jr.", "III", etc. are sort of obvious, but someone is not John Smith Sr. until after they've had a child which they named John Smith Jr. and they may have published dozens of books before Sr. ever had any application. Even after the child is born, they may never start to use the Sr. unless the Jr. actually becomes well known...

Michael wrote: "Actually, I've always wondered if "Sr." should be considered a proper part of a name. "Jr.", "III", etc. are sort of obvious, but someone is not John Smith Sr. until after they've had a child which..."

It makes you want to use the AKA feature, that way you could list them without the Sr. for publications when they were 'juniorless' and then just link to them to the AKA of the Sr.

(Seems to me that the alias/pen name feature may well solve almost all the problems in the world ... Smile!)

Rivka or Otis - here's the nudge about adding the suffix prefix description to the manual.

Is there way to pass this through to Otis as well? Am I supposed to cross-post this?

Not sure what to do next.

Thanks for the reminder.

All done -- see last item.

It's been a while since I've tried to add book to the site. I added books in the past. Can we still add books? I don't remember how to do that.

I have a book I'd like added to the site. The information about the book (below) is from Amazon.


Product Description
Take a New Look at Raven!
. BIOLOGY is an authoritative majors textbook focusing on evolution as a unifying theme. In revising the text, McGraw-Hill consulted with numerous users, noted experts and professors in the field. Biology is distinguished from other texts by its strong emphasis on natural selection and the evolutionary process that explains biodiversity. The new 8th edition continues that tradition and advances into modern biology by featuring the latest in cutting edge content reflective of the rapid advances in biology. That same modern perspective was brought into the completely new art program offering readers a dynamic, realistic, and accurate, visual program...

Hardcover: 1259 pages
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math; 8 edition (January 18, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0073227390
ISBN-13: 978-0073227399

Ellis,

Any member can add a book.

The direct link is

http://www.goodreads.com/book/new

When you search for a book/author a link to the above page is on the search results page.