Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

Hello,

I was wondering if it's possible to add a feature that allow us to add a particular edition to a series.

For example, today I was trying to collect a series of books together, this series contains some translated books. When I added an Arabic edition of one of the books into the series. This change affected all other non-Arabic ones, combined translation, while one edition only should belong to that series.

*The book series that I've mentioned in the example; is a collection of books grouped together by the same publisher not written, necessarily, by the same author.

Thank you.

Right now that's not possible, so a series applies to all editions of a book.

We've been handling this by considering a collection to be a series only if it applies to all of the editions of a book, with the only exceptions being series in translation which are renumbered for the translation.

I see, thanks!

I'm a new librarian and ran into a question on series. I have a book series that is particular to a publisher. There are other editions of these books, but they are NOT part of the numbered series. They are all by the same author and are often looked for by that particular publisher when they are bought or read. What should I do?

Normally they are added to the end of the numbered section of the series. The same thing for book collections (also called 'omnibus') and short stories set in a series. You add all the numbered ones in order, then add the others to the end of the list, without numbers.

Example with an Omnibus: Dexter

Example with short stories and collections in between: Sookie Stackhouse

Fatma wrote: "Hello,

I was wondering if it's possible to add a feature that allow us to add a particular edition to a series.

For example, today I was trying to collect a series of books together, this se..."

If you're essentially making a "list" of all the Arabic editions of one or more authors, you can perhaps use the Listopia feature instead.

I'm trying to create a series based on Cemetery Dance's (CD) Novella series, which you can see that I've started here. CD's novella series are always new publications, in a highly limited print run, some of which are occasionally reprinted later by other publishers. One such example is BONNIE WINTER by Graham Masterton. It was originally published by CD, then again by Signet later on in life as TRAUMA.

This book is giving me some grief, however, and I'm not entirely sure why. First, there was a non-ISBN copy at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10..., which had been created in January 2011 - I've since merged that in to the existing edition (above) and deleted it (I feel 99% confident about this, as there's been no other publications of BONNIE WINTER; TRAUMA is the non-CD title). Then, the original record for the "good" BONNIE WINTER edition (again, linked above) said that it was originally named TRAUMA (incorrect), so I've since removed that data, edited the TRAUMA edition, and noted that *it* was originally named BONNIE WINTER).

So, from a data-standpoint, I feel good about where things currently stand. But, I can't get the "right" edition into the CD Novella series - anytime I edit the series and search for "Bonnie Winter", the only result I get is TRAUMA, which was never a part of the CD Novella series.

What do I do?

What defines which is the "primary" edition of a book?

Morbus, a series still applies to all editions of a book, so unless a collection applies to all editions of a book then it shouldn't be a series; is Trauma still considered a Cemetery Dance Novella? Trauma is showing up as the "primary" edition because that's the one most people have shelved.

@Cait: no, TRAUMA is not part of the Cemetery Dance Novella Series - only the particular Cemetery Dance publication / edition / manifestation is. So you're saying that "series" should only be … … "in-world" (ala Harry Potter, Narnia, Hardy Boys, Dr. Who, etc.) and not publisher-driven? The Librarian Manual suggests that "His Only Obsession (The Protectors, #28) (Silhouette Intimate Moments, #1455)" is a valid series, and that's what I was basing this on: SIM #1455 is a publisher-driven series (like the CD Novella Series), whereas Protectors #28 is an "in-world" series. If HIS ONLY OBSESSION is suddenly published by someone else, that does suddenly invalidate the usefulness for the SIM publisher-driven series?

EDIT 1: It seems the alternative suggestion has been, in the past, to create a Listopia list for something like this, but that's not entirely ideal either - those lists don't allow me to sort items per their numbered placement.

EDIT 2: Based on When is a series not a series?, it seems I should a) remove the GR series I've made, b) include the publisher-driven series in the title of the relevant edition (per the Librarian Manual) and c) include the publisher-driven series in the edition of the relevant edition.

Morbus, that's basically correct, yes. The Librarian Manual is out of date on this feature -- all series and collections used to be listed in the title field, but series have recently been made into their own area and the manual hasn't been updated yet to show that. Publisher collections are best listed in the "edition" field now (if you put them in the title field they'll be hidden by the series display). There isn't an ideal way of handling publisher collections yet....

@Cait: "they'll be hidden by the series display"? What's this mean? (For what it's worth, I've gone ahead and edited the three books I've been testing against with the EDIT 2 changes, above): Bonnie Winter • Spree • The Wilds

EDIT: Oh! You must mean if a work has a GR series AND a "title (series)", then the GR series will take precedence and remove the "title (series)" display. Fine with me - I've deleted the GR series/publisher collection of "Cemetery Dance Novella Series".

Is there away that we can add particular book to a particular series from the book page, not from the series edit page?

I run across a book that belongs to a series, but when I search the book from "add book" button on the series page, the book never showed up.
What I did was re-create a "new series" starting from that book and adding the other books, and delete the "old series" later.

If the effort is not too big, it will be easier if we have "add this book to a series" button somewhere on the book page.

If you just added the new book, there is probably a caching delay before you can access it fully.

I wouldn't re-create a series like that. You'll break any links people have made to that series.

Nenangs wrote: "I run across a book that belongs to a series, but when I search the book from "add book" button on the series page, the book never showed up."

If the book has an ISBN, searching on the ISBN will almost always find it through "add books".

Nenangs wrote: "Is there away that we can add particular book to a particular series from the book page, not from the series edit page?

I run across a book that belongs to a series, but when I search the book f..."

No, you can only add from the series page. Did you try searching by ISBN? Sometimes that's the only search that works.