Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

Whenever I try to edit book data, I get a message that there was an error because the sort by field is too short and requires at least one letter. I then just retype the book title in the sort by field (unless the title begins A, The, etc.). Why is it now requiring that I add something to the sort by field? Is this on purpose or a bug?

It's a new field, and the auto-populate is slow. It's sort of a bug that ends up being a feature -- it forces us to help populate the new field.

I hate this. I know that with a title beginning with "A" or "The" you move that to the end, but why is that? And are there any other little words that are moved to the end, or just those two? I think it is a pain having it, and hope they remove it.

I would think that if the book is being edited, it would already have that info there for the sort title field.

I know it is new and I'm glad we have it, I don't understand where there has to be data in the field though. If the title doesn't need to be altered for sorting purposes, why do you have to re-enter it? Why can't the field just be left blank and the system continue to sort by the title?

Kristy, Sometimes it's there and sometimes it's not. When it's not we have to enter it manually. It's a pain and time consuming, but the edit won't work otherwise.

Kristy, AFAIK, the only words that jump to the end are "a", "an", and "the". This is specifically because many GR members requested the ability to sort book titles this way, so The Black House would be with the B's, not the T's.

Rachael, because GR's sorts can sort by only one field, not by one-field-unless-it's-blank-and-then-another-field. I think. Ask one of the GR programmers -- I'm guessing. ;)

Oh, and now that I've gotten used to it, it really doesn't add much time. I copy-and-paste (and edit if necessary) the title first thing now when editing a book. It just means changing a habit, which I know is a pain.

I did some messing around to see if I could figure out if it was sorting by title if the sort by field was empty. I usually have my books sorted by author but I switched to title to see what would happen. The first book listed was 1984. Numbers should go first, so this is correct. I checked it and it has nothing listed in the sort by field. Clearly it is still sorting by the regular title. The same thing holds true for several of my books selected at random: they are all in their correct places with nothing listed in the sort by field.

I then checked several of my books that begin with the word "A" and were all still incorrectly sorted as "A ..." They all had information listed in the sort by field and for most of them that information was wrong. And it was always wrong in the same way, namely that the first two letters of the word after "A" had been deleted (for example: "A Gladiator Dies Only Once" was listed as sorting by "adiator dies..."). I corrected all the ones that I checked and resorted my books and every one of the books still sorted as "A ..." It seems like everything is sorting by the regular title and nothing is sorting by the sort by field. Does this mean sorting by the sort by field isn't live at all yet? Is there something wrong in the auto populate program that is causing the first two letters (excluding "A") of the title to disappear or are people entering the title in the sort field without the first two letters?

I posted my original message here because there was just something that bugged me in terms of editing book info as a librarian but it is looking more like I should have posted in the more general Goodreads group because either there is something wrong with the sorting thing in general or I fundamentally don't understand how it is supposed to work and need someone to explain it to me.

I believe the sort-by field is indeed not live yet for sorting purposes. And yes, sometimes GR's auto-fill of the sort-by field is incorrect. Which is I guess why they have us. ;)

Rivka, I copy & paste the title too but when I'm working on multiple items, that ruins my continual copy & paste of my NOT A BOOK copy & paste. It does slow me down, which is not horrible but it does interfere with the rhythm. Ah well.

There are other sort rules that would take effect for foreign language books, although I don't know them off the top of me head. Presumably a book called something like "Las Casas de la Muerta" would be sorted as "Casas de la Muerta, Las" (that is a complete guess and I just made up the title).

Also, it is not entirely clear to me how books which start with a number are supposed to be sorted (e.g., should "10 Birds" be changed to "Ten Birds" or visa versa?)

My biggest problem with the new field is that when I try to tab from the title field to the sort title field there's an extra tab required because of the link to the sort explanation; I'm sure I'll eventually get conditioned to it but it keeps throwing me off.

Michael: Also, it is not entirely clear to me how books which start with a number are supposed to be sorted (e.g., should "10 Birds" be changed to "Ten Birds" or visa versa?)

Hmm. My first instinct was to say that we should take a catalog-canonical form and stick to it, but thinking it over: if I have an edition of a book that says "10 Birds" on the cover, I'm going to go looking for it in the 1s, not the Ts, and vice versa for an edition with "Ten Birds". (I have a very visual memory, and "10" and "Ten" sort very differently for me.)

On the gripping hand, if I'm skimming a most-popular-edition list, as one usually does on Goodreads, that's two places I'll need to check for the book, whereas if it's always one way or the other at least I'll know....

My biggest problem with the new field is that when I try to tab from the title field to the sort title field there's an extra tab required because of the link to the sort explanation; I'm sure I'll eventually get conditioned to it but it keeps throwing me off.

Oh man, me too! *rueful grin*

(And, yeah, as far as I know the sort rule is no-definite-or-indefinite-articles in any language, so "Las" drops off the front of Spanish titles.)

Me three! I've given up on tabbing and mouse over to it instead.

I've been using the mouse too!

. . . and I just edited and forgot about the field. Hubris-and-or-karma-will-getcha, habits-are-hard-to-break, etc. ;)

I just tab twice. I started doing data entry long, long ago, on terminals for mainframes that didn't have mouses, so it's automatic to remember different numbers of tabs between fields :-)

I do a lot of data entry on a mainframe-accessing terminal-emulation program which is definitely not GUI-friendly. So yeah, tab-tab-tabbing along is part of my daily routine. I prefer to have options. ;)

I don't have a problem with the double tab in principle, it's just that after editing a couple thousand entries I've become used to being able to single tab from title to author and now that there is not only an extra field in between but an extra tab stop as well, it's just taking my fingers longer to relearn the pattern.

I like the feature and I'm slowly getting used to entering the data in the sort by field. But it's driving me crazy that I have to re-enter my edits when I forget to put anything in the sort by field before I click save! I guess that'll make me remember more quickly.

GR's version of an electric shock for librarian-gerbils. ;)

'I like the feature and I'm slowly getting used to entering the data in the sort by field. But it's driving me crazy that I have to re-enter my edits when I forget to put anything in the sort by field before I click save! I guess that'll make me remember more quickly. '


same here.

I have several books that are alphabetized by the word "The" instead of the 2nd word in the title. I went in and added information in the "Sort by" field but they still aren't sorting correctly. Any ideas on how to fix this? Is this a known issue?

It's not live yet, Terri.

Sara, Rivka and JG, try using you back button on your browser - it will take you back to the point before you clicked save, ie - with you edits but without the sort field entered.

Thanks. :)

I actually figured that out at some point, but I had forgotten -- filling the sort field has become fairly ingrained as a habit.

Melody, I have had trouble with this too. I don't think I understand what you are trying to say.

If you forget to enter information in the "sort by title" field after having made some other corrections and click the "save changes" button - you will get an error message "There were problems with the following fields:
Sort by title is too short (minimum is 1 characters)" AND all your other changes will disappear. So to at least save the other changes you made use your back arrow of your browser to return to the previous url and you will have the other changes still in the blanks. You will still, however have to enter at least 1 character in the "sort by title" field in order to be able to save your changes.

Thanks, Melody! I've (mostly) gotten used to filling in the sort-by field now, but this will be useful for those times when I do forget.

Oh good suggestion!!