Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

Librarians, how do you pick what to work on next?

My favorite methods are using the search results for random words and trying to validate closed sets of co-authors.

* Authors mentioned in various topics here.
* Stuff I find when doing searches for something else.
* The Sisyphus list. ;)

It depends on what sort of mood I'm in.

* Errors I just happen to stumble across by accident while doing something else...this sometimes chains into a lot more corrections

* Trolling through authors I'm very familiar with to see if anything new needs fixing

* Going through books I physically own to update all the little trivial bits of info that may not be correct, e.g., page numbers, publication dates, etc. At one point I was systematically working through my shelf but haven't gotten back to it lately.

* The Sisyphus and other similar lists

* A search for random letter pairs to find authors with initials still separated by spaces (can lead to a lot of combining)

* Searching for famous authors at random and then looking for name variants (e.g., last first or initials)

* Searching through a list of not-a-book keywords to look for recent additions

Errors I just happen to stumble across by accident while doing something else...this sometimes chains into a lot more corrections.

Often, yeah.

The lists here when I'm in the mood. Otherwise, errors I stumble upon and then I'll do that author. Also, books I"m reading with an illustrator left off or some other error or omission. Also, some authors seem to have new editions needing combining added regularly so I check those. Usually one edit leads to others if I have the time.

Also, sometimes I cruise my friends' recently added books looking for errors (like uncombined two-initial authors).

Any of the above, as the mood strikes me.

Also, if I'm feeling particularly ambitious, I'll search for a title and then click on each author's name and work on combining all of his or her titles, then go back to the original search and go to the next author and so on... I seem to find a lot of obscure authors this way who sometimes have lots of uncombined editions.

I do *exactly* the same things that Michael said except for the not-a-book stuff.

I also try to target foreign authors where there are umlauts or the n-ya (like manana-too lazy to go get one to show you, but you know what Im talking about). Ive been slowly working on the Bronte sisters (with an umlaut) whenever I can and I recall spending about 5 straight hours getting all the Dostoevsky stuff in line one night a few weeks back...

Btw, not sure if anyone knows this, but when Im searching for duplicate authors, my favorite thing is to use the 'add book/author' function from any random thread. Its SO much better than using the normal search function. Anyone else use this?

I've noticed it and fixed a few that way, but I haven't actively thought about using it. Good suggestion!

Also, sometimes I cruise my friends' recently added books looking for errors (like uncombined two-initial authors).

Oh good. ;-) Anybody feel free to look at my shelves. I need many covers and I'm sure many other edits. Ha ha. Any help appreciated!!! (I should go through my own books/authors!)

Sometimes the lists, that was how I started with librarian work and if something I have knowledge of pops up I like to have a go at it . But mostly I am checking out books I want to buy for the bookshop or for myself and I see some that need fixing and go for it.

Btw, not sure if anyone knows this, but when Im searching for duplicate authors, my favorite thing is to use the 'add book/author' function from any random thread. Its SO much better than using the normal search function...

I don't know how to do this, can you send me a url with the add book/author link, please?

I don't know how to do that kind of search either, but I'll see if I can figure it out. The regular searches are fraught with results that often aren't useful.

So far - most of my work has been cleaning up things I find as I am inventoring my personal library - I guess kind of what Michael said but I'm in the first go-round of mine. I'm using a piece of software called "readerworks". You enter the ISBN (manually or with barcode reader) and then the software goes out and populates the database with all the information. What I have found so far is that if a record comes in incorrectly in "readerworks" there is a good chance that it has an error in Goodreads (since both pull from Amazon). Missing authors, author name missspelled, missing description, worng series or nor series mentioned etc.

When I don't feel like working on my inventory but want to putter, I come to the author needs help list and randomly pick something to work on.

And talk about things you can get yourself into - when I started Johnson, I though okay no biggy but I'm up to something like 16 different Johnsons now and find I am dealing with all of those book list as well as the original one name Johnson list. Oh well - better and more affordable than getting drunk on Sat night.

At first, I found most of my corrections on books I added to my library.
Now, I most often correct errors that I find when reading friend updates or reading the recent updates from everyone.
And as Michael noted, this sometimes leads to a chain of corrections....

Recently, I've been going through the quote list. I've found several author issues that way. Especially the cases where there are multiple versions of an author's name - misspellings, not pseudonyms.

Just tried the "add book/author" feature. Brilliant.
The "add book/author" link it will be a great way to search for titles like PhD of MD, especially if they are the lead-in to the author's name.

Exactly, you can type in one letter at a time and see what comes up. There are tons that start with the word "other" for example. And you can take care of like 10 different name possibilities in one shot. I should have mentioned it earlier, but I figured most librarians would have already been using it.

I tried the "add book/author" feature now and I must say: Ubik, you are a genius! It is much easier to find books which need to be edited.

*blush* thank you for the kind words, vitalinew

Brenda (natesmomb) wrote: "Petra X wrote: "I don't know how to do this, can you send me a url with the add book/author link, please?"

Petra X, the "add book/author" can be found just above the top of the comment box in an..."
This link for me only works on some of my computers. Does anyone know how I trouble shoot this and which forum/group I ask?
Basically what happens is I can activate the option and type in a name, but when I press the "Search" button, nothing happens.
Thoughts???

Probably a Javascript issue. Firefox or IE?

I start with my own physical library. If it doesn't exist in the GR collection, I manually add it. Amazon and others are not always dependable.

Errors I come across.

Author names.

Books that I know have more than one edition.

I also like adding the appropriate cover images. :)