Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

I really like it how when you edit a book to correct the originally published date that it "drops-down" to all other editions of the book...

However...it does create a bit of a problem. I'd thought of it before - that it could be a problem - but just now when I was fixing something I actually saw it happen.

The problem being that say you had a group of combined editions and you do all the editing on the books, fixing dates and all that so everything is correct. Then a new edition pops-up and some other librarian sees it, combines, then decides to edit something on that new book (maybe add series info to the title or whatever). But they don't notice that the originally published date on that new edition is not correct...and as soon as they hit save, whatever incorrect date was listed on that new edition drops down to all the others - negating whatever work a previous librarian had done.

(hopefully that made sense....)

It's a really easy mistake to make and it kinda sucks for any librarian who takes the time to go through and add originally published dates.

At the same time, I'd hate for the "drop-down" feature to go away. It really simplifies correcting originally published dates.

I'm not sure if there is a way to fix this other than to tell librarians to be careful. Maybe there could be a way that when a new edition is combined, it checks originally published dates and takes the oldest date?

Thoughts, anyone?

Maybe there could be a way that when a new edition is combined, it checks originally published dates and takes the oldest date?

I had actually thought it already worked that way, but a quick test showed that it does not. Ouch.

Maybe there could be a way that when a new edition is combined, it checks originally published dates and takes the oldest date?

That would be really handy!

Ouch is right, Rivka. This morning I killed one of my own originally-published-date edits from a while back when I combined then edited a new edition. Luckily I noticed it right away.

I think this might be why there are some of those odd entries where it'll say "date published: 1991" and "originally published: 2004"

Yes, Isis, Unfortunately, several of the originally published dates that I've changed I've needed to change again, back from 2008. Ugh. So, I agree with you that if there's a way to avoid having our work undone, it would be very helpful.

Isis, Re the latter, I think it's because individual editions are now arriving with their correction publication dates, whenever they were published. If the originally published date hasn't been fixed by a librarian it's often later than the individual editions.

Also, the meaning of publication date and originally published has been sometimes confused and there are clear cases of the dates being backwards (presumably due to a confused librarian).

I've also noticed that a *lot* of Amazon years tend to be off by one...that is, a book published in 2006 is listed as 2007, a book published in 1982 is listed as 1983, etc. Not sure why, but I've found book after book with the original publication year off by exactly 1. I think maybe it's mixing up the original date and the paperback date.

Michael - re: dates off by 1...some of those might be because of the month published. Amazon seems to have issues with books published in Jan & Dec when it comes to years. I noticed that when I was doing all the Nora Roberts editing and I had month and year dates...whenever the month was Jan or Dec, the year would be off by 1. Not the case all the time, but I think that's part of the problem.

re: confusion on the date thing...yeah, I've seen that too, although I'm not sure why it's confusing....

Lisa - True, the reason you gave is also part of the problem, but I'm guessing the thing I posted about is causing a few mix-ups as well.

Should I post about this over in feedback? I'm not sure it'll get noticed here...

I'll move it to the Look at Me! folder, Isis. ;)

I've always been under the impression that Amazon's confusion (as Michael says, usually by one year) has to do with printing date v. copyright date.

Thanks for bumping it over, Rivka!

Who knows about Amazon's confusion. I don't think they would know themselves.

Hmmm...printing vs. copyright could be part of it. But in which way? Generally, one would think the copyright would come before the printing, but I know of at least one book which was definitely printed in October/November but was copyrighted the following year.

However, in some cases I have the book in my hand and it clearly lists both the copyright and 1st printing as earlier than the year coming off of Amazon. Who knows with them...they can't even get the author right half the time, why should we trust their chronology?

Hmmm...printing vs. copyright could be part of it. But in which way? Generally, one would think the copyright would come before the printing, but I know of at least one book which was definitely printed in October/November but was copyrighted the following year.

Actually, the printing date is (almost) always before the copyright date. It takes time to print books -- months and months, even now, for a large printing run -- so the print date (which I believe is the date printing of a particular edition started) is almost always a good 6 months or more before the release/copyright date. For textbooks, it can be as much as 18 months (although teachers' editions and preview editions for teachers/schools are usually available early).

But hey, Amazon has frequently listed (imminent or already passed) dates for books whose authors have not yet finished writing them!

The Libary of Congress generally takes the date that the manuscript was submitted as the copyright date, but it can take 9 months or more for the certificate to be issued.

A publisher usually prints "copyright" as the year of release, regardless of what is on the certificate from the LOC.

I'm guessing if you've got a book that was initially released as an e-book (and that may have not been formally copyrighted or even had an individual ISBN ascribed to it), and is subsequently released as a print book, you could have some confusion as you describe.

I can't speak for Michael, but many of the books I'm talking about are from more than 10 years ago -- ebook releases are extremely unlikely.