Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

I've been working on several books today, which come up through the search function as "unknown". It usually works like a charm and the saved details show up properly. But several books won't show up with the newly added details when refreshing the "unknown books page". Even a second try including saving for the second time don't let the details show up (and they don't show up on the book's page itself either but are back to "unknown" without any of the added details). Any ideas what's happening there and why?

I still have several unknown books where I just can't figure out which book it is. E.g. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13... is listed only on my shelves. And it is on my wish list, which means I do not (yet) own the book. How can I ever find out which title it was? It was said a backup was unnecessary, but I get a feeling it would have been really helpful in cases like this where no other information like reviews is available...hmpf...

Cornelia wrote: "I've been working on several books today, which come up through the search function as "unknown". It usually works like a charm and the saved details show up properly. But several books won't show ..."


Can you post links to an example please

Several examples, at least five from the books I worked on today. But in the meanwhile I found out, that adding just one information and saving immediately works and then add the rest of the information in a second go. So no links for now, but I'll post one, when it occurs again.

Found one: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61...

I already added the author's name, the German title, the field for language - although the information was saved (as viewable from the "success field" afterwards"), it's not viewable.

*Edit: Well now it's even more interesting: I checked the link, and it shows even another version of the same book, this one in English. It seems, the database - or whatever - is somehow out of order.*

Have you worked on a number of editions of this book?

The log shows you as changing title, author, original publication date

Unknown Book 13384824 to 'Schloss aus Glas'

http://www.goodreads.com/book/edits/7445

The book you link to is

Unknown Book 6123158 which is another edition.

Can you post the correct information for the edition, and I'll have a go see if it saves for me

I suspect what's happening (if I'm correct about how you're searching) is that there are two editions of the book that are unknown. When you search for "unknown" in the title, only one from each work (or combine) shows up.

You fixed the German edition of the book and it saved on that books page. When you refreshed the search the second unknown edition (which is the English one you linked) caused the book to remain on the page, only with a different edition showing.

Yes, I've seen that the German version was saved (after I checked the link), but that's not what I experienced several times today. For example exactly one edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and exactly one of Dumas' The count of Monte Cristo didn't save their information at all until I just added the author first and then the rest of the information. I guess it has to do with the amount of information added, because adding just the author for example always works.

Elke wrote: "I still have several unknown books where I just can't figure out which book it is. E.g. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13... is listed only on my shelves. And it is on..."

I think this is a case where looking at a backup of your shelves is necessary. No one has shelved this book, and all the data is empty. Do you have a backup?

There are still 4 editions of Frankenstein and 3 editions of The Count of Monte Cristo labeled Unknown.

It could just be a fluke that your book came up twice in a row in the search and you may find the others later?

I've been rescuing books by filling out the full information and haven't come across this issue.

How do you rescue a book like this?

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61...

It's obviously Glass Castle, so do I just find the Worldcat for any edition, and just give this particular edition title and author (filling in just the required fields?)

And, I wonder if some of the problems you might be seeing are just due to the time it takes for the database to be updated. It's supposed to take 10 minutes?

I would think if it's already combined, it would safe to "extract" the title/author from another edition. No real reason to go to WorldCat.

Great! I'm at the bottom of another learning curve this week. :)

"And, I wonder if some of the problems you might be seeing are just due to the time it takes for the database to be updated. It's supposed to take 10 minutes?"

No, that's not the case - I already back-checked that with just waiting.

Unlucky guess, this time. ;(

Jeannette wrote: "Elke wrote: "I still have several unknown books where I just can't figure out which book it is. E.g. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13... is listed only on my shelves...."

Gladly, yes I have a backup - though GR assured us it wouldn't be necessary, I didn't rely on that statement ;)

Necessary, no. But I did the 'export to a csv' myself and wish my husband had done so. I think I'd have made a good boy scout (be prepared).

So, yeah, my husband listened to a lot of stories from librivox, and reviewed the kindle editions thereof. And a lot of his reviews don't really say anything to help us figure out the stories. So, now he's adding librivox editions for all his new stories.... but meanwhile, going back to all those Unknowns will be interesting.

But hey, guess what?! In this http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11... example, there's an ASIN. Searching google just using that string of characters leads to the book - and now he'll be able to create the librivox edition for it.

So, lesson learned - even without a backup, all is indeed not necessarily lost. :)

There are, unfortunately, plenty of empty records; no author, title, ISBN/ASIN, no reviews, zip. The only identifier points back to the user record. Whether goodreads will be able to restore from that, who knows?

True. In those cases, I see more support for me mouthing off 'write a review people!' I mean, too late now, but if more folks had, then there would be more reviews to jog more memories... :)

hahaha! I should not laugh, because I'm sure some/most of them were just on the to-read shelf, and I never think to add any sort of note to most of mine.

And of course you're right again. I know I'll be adding & completing records for some of the weird old books I own as I read them, but if they were known to me only digitally as 'to-reads' - well, I guess they're gone now unless someone else reads and re-adds them.

I was doing some "random" rescuing, but I've decided to concentrate on books that have more than one rating attached to it. That way I feel like my effort makes a difference.

With 800+ books on my tbr list (that's low compared to some people I know), if I lose a few, it won't be a big deal. I'll never read all those books, especially as I keep adding new books all the time! This is forcing me to re-evaluate my bookshelves.

I did some re-evaluating and sorting, too. :)

I deleted all of the Dr. Seuss books I had rated (all 4 of them), because I have never liked Dr. Suess! His books always scared me when I was a kid....

hahaha!

My mom doesn't like Dr. Seuss, either, so I never read them growing up. And I gotta say... they must be for KIDS, because the ones I've read are... *shakes her head*

I never gave them to my daughter, either!

My daughter has one board book I got at my baby shower, but I let my husband read it to her. The (ridiculous) made-up words drive me crazy!

Cheryl in CC NV wrote: ""

Seconded.

My secret is out -- I feel so much lighter. ;)

rivka wrote: "Cheryl in CC NV wrote: ""

Seconded."

Third-ed. I hated Cat in the Hat as a kid, but I can't imagine my childhood without Fox in Sox (although my mother probably wishes she could) and so many others...

Is there a way to find these books or do you guys just come across them?

The books to be rescued? I've just been watching the posts here on the Librarian group to respond to specific requests for help. I've also been going through my friends' booksheleves. Sometimes it's serendipitous, where rescuing one book leads me to finding others.

I don't know of any "official" list at this point.

*sorry we hijacked the thread for a bit*

You'll find enough of those books if you just go through your own bookshelves, for example adding covers which got missing. I always click "combine", when ready with one of those books, and then you'll most likely see several books, which need to be worked on. That's at least what I've been doing the last two days. Managed to work through the books of three or four authors so far.

I've found that if you do a search for "unknown author" followed by a number, you'll be able to get whole lists of books needing rescuing. For example:

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

Huh! Okay, so that author (#83)... I can't imagine all those books were written by the same person! Any idea how the numbers were assigned? It'd be nice it each unknown author got a number, then you could just change "Author 83" to "John Doe", you know?

Unfortunately those numbers definitely refer to different authors.

My guess is that they correspond to the numbers that link each member's bookshelf data to the corresponding item on their shelf. I looked at a copy of my saved data, and each record starts with a book id number. So, I believe that Author 83 is a whole bunch of different people. Same thing with Unknown Title, too.

Jeannette wrote: "So, I believe that Author 83 is a whole bunch of different people. Same thing with Unknown Title, too."

Correct.

sorry if this has been answered soemwhere, but how can I rescue a book with unknown title and author? am I missing something here? if anyone can explain why the information needed to rescue these books is not showing up, please do so.

If there are no other hints at all, you can't rescue it. Probably only the one, who added it back then is still able to assign the book to the missing information.

Did you check for reviews or other readers having the book shelved who may also have a backup to consult?

Sometimes the amazon (or other) link still works and may give you a hint at the book's data - of course you then have to find another source where to actually get the data from.

i exported my old list and will compare them now, this should give some hints, but still no way of knowoíng which book is which. this just doesnt make sense, i could easily restore the data if they just told what the old info was...

David, you can compare the book ids... That should give you the correct information.

thnx a lot! i thought those numbers were just random, that works!

Wait a minute - the numbers in parentheses attached to the word 'unknown' - ? We were told those *were* effectively random and not useful! Please clarify, Jan!

David, are you saying that the books you're trying to fix don't have even ASINs or ISBNs?

I too have a book that turned unknown at some point:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10...

It is supposed to be in Russian, but its language is set to Korean for some reason. Other "Books by Unknown Author 39" show some random collection of irrelevant known and unknown books. Is there any way to figure out what book it was? Thanks!

The Unknown Book number corresponds to the book id in your saved data file (the export to the Excel spreadsheet). So, if you have a saved file from before the transition, you can rescue your own books that way.

All of those Author 39 entries are different authors.
*I edited my post to remove incorrect information*

Many books come up Unknown Author/Title and have no other data -- true orphans, unless the member has identified the book in a review. Any and all amazon data was deleted, including ISBNs, titles, descriptions...

Alexander wrote: "I too have a book that turned unknown at some point:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10...

It is supposed to be in Russian, but its language is set to Korean for some ..."

I looked at Community Reviews for this book. One of your friends (another Alexander) just read it in January 2012, and gave it 4 stars. And, he doesn't have many books shelved, so maybe he can remember which book this is.