Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

The author Heather Amery

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

has many children's books designed to teach words in foreign languages. Many are titled the 'First 100 Words' or the 'First 1000 Words.'

I found almost all of the languages combined together in the 'First 100 Words."

I have been separating and then recombining to keep each language separate in this case. I know that the guidelines say to combine editions in different languages, but in this case, the intent is not to translate a book to a different language - it's to try to expose children to different languages.

So in my opinion, the versions for each language should be considered a separate edition - thus the French and German should not be combined.

Obviously, another librarian did not think like I do about this, as they were all combined initially. (And I don't think it was a parenthesis/auto combine issue).

Does anyone have any opinion on this?

Amy, I completely agree with you.

If the titles are all the same, it could be an auto-combine issue.

The couple that I could find excerpts of seemed to have the same 100 words (or it seemed likely from what I could see). To me, that made them the same as any other translated book.

Hmm. But if I want to learn Spanish and someone else wants to learn German, they're different books. I see your point Rivka, except I don't agree in this particular type of instance because these books are specifically designed to help readers learn a foreign language/different foreign languages. To me, that's not the same as identical books that just happen to be translated to various foreign languages. Just my opinion and I realize having a different policy for these types of books could be confusing.

I'm not especially emotionally invested either way; I was just explaining my reasoning.

Rivka,
I can see your point, too - that's partly why I started the discussion topic. I don't like to work against other librarians -
If you don't mind too much, I will leave them separate for now.
Not many of the books are reviewed or shelved, but the few that are usually refer to a specific language.

If you don't mind too much

Not at all. :)


Not many of the books are reviewed or shelved, but the few that are usually refer to a specific language.

Good point.