Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

Lately I was trying to add settings to different books and was wondering how much detail to put into the settings.

I'll illustrate my problem with an example:
If for example a book was set in London, there would be several options I see:

1) "London, England" as the only setting, which would result in the book being linked to London, but not as a book set in the UK (the country selected doesn't seem to populate the categories for the places).

2) Adding both "London, England" and "England", to ensure that the book could be found under both categories. To be even more precise (but also overcrowding the details page of the book) one could also add a specific location in London, if it was of enough importance to the book, or regions etc.

Similar problems arise with the date in which the book is set. Often a book covers a timespan or the only information is known that the book is set, for example, in the 13th century. How do I add this? Do I only add the first date? The first and last date? With the century only the beginning (in my example 1200) or the middle of it?


On a practical note: Two of the books listed as set in "Alexandria" seem to be set in the Egyptian Alexandria, one isn't clear from the description. All three do have "United States" set as country, though. Having not read those books myself, I was just wondering if it would be OK to change the setting of the two books set in Egypt according to their description to "Alexandria, Egypt" (including the country designation) for more consistency.

This is what I've been using for settings, but I don't think there is a policy on it.

I try to put two ... layers (can't really think of a good word for this) in the Place name, and then the country.

Examples:

Place Name: City, State -- Country: United States
Place Name: London, England -- Country: United Kingdom

Anything more than that I think is overkill. I'm reading Gods Behaving Badly, in which the Greek Gods are living in a house in Hampstead Heath (a London park). But I wouldn't change the setting to "Hampstead Heath, London, England (United Kingdom)," who would look for it under that?

With dates, I think the starting date is fine, unless there is a HUGE difference. For a time travel book that has the characters in London in 1700 and then again in 2000, I would add both. For you example of a book set in the 13th century, I would put 1200. Unless you know that it takes place in the latter half of the 13th century, in which case I would put 1250. Think of it like The Price is Right, as close as you can get without going over. :)

On Alexandria... I would go ahead and change them to Egypt. I've noticed there is a funny auto-complete with the drop down box. If you type in Alexandria you get:

Alexandria (United States)
Alexandria, Egypt (Egypt)
Alexandria, Virginia (United States)

From what I can gather, these are all user entries and an attempt to keep people from adding 500 Alexandrias into the database. Without adding something after Alexandria, it automatically assumes you want to use the Alexandria (United States) profile because it's an exact match for the "Place" and changing the country does not override this, so people can easily add a book to the "wrong" location. I would change the two to Egypt. :)

Vicky wrote: "Think of it like The Price is Right, as close as you can get without going over. :)"

LOL!

;)

Thanks for your input, Vicky. I've handled the settings fields similar to the way you described, so I feel much more secure about them now.

By the way, would you add another setting signifying the country even though you already added a city within that country? I'm thinking of the fact, that only the city is cross-linked in the places, countries are not. So a person searching for books set in Egypt wouln't get those books only assigned "Alexandria, Egypt" in the category they are looking for.

I've never done it, but I can see why it might be helpful.

To be honest, I think there are too few people who really make use of the setting feature to really worry about making it perfect. :)

I never really even paid attention to that till this discussion. Honestly I don't look for books to read based on where they take place. I find story quality, and the type of story much more appropriate for finding another good book to read. (of course peer reviews don't hurt either)

Chuck wrote: "I never really even paid attention to that till this discussion. Honestly I don't look for books to read based on where they take place. I find story quality, and the type of story much more approp..."

I don't always, but there are some challenges on Goodreads that require you to read a book set in a certain place or time period.

There are also a ton of people that do "Read Around the World" Challenges where they have to read books set in or written by a person from a certain number of different countries in a year.

have to admit, i kind of wish more people put this data in and I try to, but there are a few groups here and website that I use when i'm looking for books set in certain countries/states

I agree and also try to add this in, mostly after I finish reading a book so I'm sure it's correct :)

I wish there was a better way to access places - something like the way genres are organized where you could pull up a country and then see "sub-genres" or states/cities/etc. But I'm sure that's not a priority ;)

yeah - that would be nice ;) its like searching for names of characters...shelfari has it set up pretty decent, but here its very hit or miss

Vicky wrote: "To be honest, I think there are too few people who really make use of the setting feature to really worry about making it perfect. :)"

TBH, I wondered for awhile how to search for this data (never really found out) and then decided to forget about it. Although, every now and then, when I'm bored I may enter a place.