Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

What do you do with multiple books that have the same ISBN? I have a bunch of books that were purchased at Wal-Mart years ago (early to mid 90s, I believe). They are all "classics" and all have the same ISBN (or at least the same number on the back of the book that is labeled as an ISBN - 1559029838). Before I realized that they all shared one ISBN, I searched for the ISBN off one (The Time Machine). The book was listed by that title but with the wrong author and picture. Since I didn't realize the ISBN problem, I corrected all the information for The Time Machine but now I can't enter any of the other books and anyone else searching for any of these books by ISBN is going to be very confused.

In general please do NOT alter existing ISBNs with double- and triple-checking. Many times a single ISBN corresponds to multiple covers, so "correcting" it to yours un-corrects it for someone else. Instead, please manually create a new edition, as described in post 8 of this thread.

And that's what you'll have to do with the rest of these as well, it sounds like. (Or shelve existing editions with other ISBNs and covers, if you prefer.)

I didn't alter any ISBN. The single ISBN doesn't correspond to multiple covers, it corresponds to multiple BOOKS (different titles, authors, and contents in addition to covers). This is much more complicated than just a picture.

I apologize for my lack of clarity. When I said "exiting ISBNs", I meant existing book records, each of which usually corresponds to a single ISBN. I realize that is not the case in this instance, but it is ~95% of the time.

And regardless, it is not possible to list multiple books with one ISBN. So if you want individually list each of these books, you would have to create no-ISBN records for all (but one) of them. Making a note in the book description field of the one with the ISBN might also be a good idea.

I understand all that about creating new ones with empty ISBNs. The will let me list my books, but it does nothing to fix the actual problem. When I first visited the current record for this ISBN, it was wrong for every single person who has added it to a shelf. It will continue to be wrong for everyone because users will continue to try to fix it to match the book they have, which is what I'm assuming happened to result in the original listing I found with title, author, and cover image for three different books.

Obviously Goodreads can't make it so that the books that everyone has in their hands suddenly have different ISBNs, but something needs to be done to the record that has that ISBN listed to try to prevent this kind of confusion. Making a note in the book description as you suggested in your most recent message might help some, but there should be something more that can be done. Is there some way, for example, to turn the one with the ISBN in the ISBN field into, for lack of a better word, a portal for the books without being a regular book listing? By which I mean give it a fake title and author (Not a book, Wal-Mart classics, whatever), make it so it isn't combined with any book, and make the description nothing more than a explanation of the multiple books/one ISBN problem and recommend that people just use a different edition for their book or find/create an edition of the book with a blank ISBN and a listing for the ISBN in the notes.

Sure. Go ahead and call it WalMart Classics (Not a Book means something else the way we usually use it) and create the description you think would be most helpful to other people in your situation.

Hi, I am a 'goodreads' liberian that is still working on entering my own collection of books (not feeling bold enough to work on anyone elses yet).
And, I have come across a book w/a title, author, and cover information that I don't believe to be correct, due to the fact that as I entered my book's ISBN, a message poped up to the effect of it belonging to a book already listed by amazon. The ISBN is 156014629x. If one takes a close look at the cover, one can tell that it doesn't match the information entered.
My question is, should I alter the book's profile info. to match the picture, should I just delete the ISBN that was entered into the book's profile, or what option would I have in order to enter my book's information which would correctly go w/the cover image?
Thanks, and keep up the good work out there, it's appreciated.

The book you listed seems to match Amazon in both ISBN and picture.

Either way, you shouldn't change a valid entry. Some books are re-issued with different covers, but the same ISBN. If you wish to add your cover, create a new entry skipping the ISBN field. List the ISBN number in the description.

Okey, dokey! Thanks... that was a lightning fast reply. Happy New Year w/many new blessings!

mlady_rebecca wrote: "The book you listed seems to match Amazon in both ISBN and picture.

Either way, you shouldn't change a valid entry. Some books are re-issued with different covers, but the same ISBN. If you wish t..."

If you look that book up on B&N, though, it has a different cover that actually matches the information (title, etc). The title on the cover pic from Amazon seems to translate to a sort of text book for "Reading & Communication 7"...which doesn't go at all with the title here on GR and Amazon...El Desayuno de Tomas (which according to the my Firefox translation add-on has something to do with Tomas's Breakfast).

So I think there's something fishy with that book entry...

Yes ma'am.
The title translation is "Tomas' Breakfast" which does not match the image cover's title.
Also, the book "Lectura y Comunicacion 7" is the one from Santillana but has various authors because Santillana is an Editorial group here in Puerto Rico.
I understand the reasoning behind your, and mlady_rebecca's advice. Taken and put to practice.
Nontheless, I am trying to communicate w/the amazon entity who is able to check and make any changes, if they deem it necessary.
Meanwhile, I entered my book's information as 'message #9' "mlady_rebecca' wrote me to do so, and I'll just keep checking back in case any changes are made by the authorized entity. Then, I'll add the isbn to my entry. If and when any changes happen.
Thank you for your attention and explination on this matter.
Happy New Year and blessings to you and yours as well.
miriam

Isis, looks like you're right. I was only looking at the cover image and the ISBN. Guess I skimmed over that one too quickly. I ignored the title since it wasn't English.

The rest of the advice was meant to be general advice. I know a lot of people get upset when you change the cover image on their copy of a book.

mlady_rebecca wrote: "Isis, looks like you're right. I was only looking at the cover image and the ISBN. Guess I skimmed over that one too quickly. I ignored the title since it wasn't English.

The rest of the advice wa..."

I agree, it's never good to make a major change like that. With the way cover images are being switched around these days for reprintings, it's best to just make a new entry. People tend to get annoyed if you start changing cover images on them.

I wasn't sure that was the case with this one, so I poked around a bit. Either there are two books floating around with the same ISBN (which is a total annoyance) or Amazon has a mistake in there system (completely possible). I have no idea which it is, so for now, probably best to not make any major changes to the GR entry

I searched for the ISBN of an old children's book I have, The Unbouncing of Tigger and got a book about Dragon Tales. I thought the ISBN might have been recycled, but I checked Worldcat and the LOC just in case. Worldcat showed the title of my book and the cover of the Dragon Tales book. LOC just had my book. Do I leave the Dragon Tales alone and create a no-isbn entry for my book or change the info from Dragon Tales to mine?

Here's the link to the Dragon Tales book:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/84...

JG wrote: "I searched for the ISBN of an old children's book I have, The Unbouncing of Tigger and got a book about Dragon Tales. I thought the ISBN might have been recycled, but I checked Worldcat and the LO..."

My guess on this one is a recycled ISBN. If you look the ISBN up on Google, you get a lot of results that vary between the two books. Abebooks supposedly has both books for sale under the same ISBN. So it seems like both books exist with that ISBN. But that's my take.

OK, that's kind of what I was thinking. I'll add my book without an isbn. Thanks, Isis.

I've noticed that ISBNs have been re-used, which is incredibly annoying. I was looking at some old harlequin romances I found, trying to decide if they were worth anything to try to sell, discovered harlequin had reused the ISBNs on different books (different author,different title) published years later. Quite confusing and annoying.

Jenna wrote: "I've noticed that ISBNs have been re-used, which is incredibly annoying. I was looking at some old harlequin romances I found, trying to decide if they were worth anything to try to sell, discover..."

I've encountered that problem with HQ books...and actually did some research on it. The problem there occurred when Harlequin bought Silhouette from their previous publisher (I wanna say Penguin?) and THAT publisher decided to reuse ISBNs it had originally used to publish Silhouette books. (if that made any sense...)

mlady_rebecca wrote: "Isis, looks like you're right. I was only looking at the cover image and the ISBN. Guess I skimmed over that one too quickly. I ignored the title since it wasn't English.

The rest of the advice wa..."

mlady_rebecca wrote: "Isis, looks like you're right. I was only looking at the cover image and the ISBN. Guess I skimmed over that one too quickly. I ignored the title since it wasn't English.

The rest of the advice wa..."


I found the information for the book "El Desayuno de Tomas" is the following:

El Desayuno De Tomas/Meal One (Spanish Edition)
ISBN 560141629X
Authors: Ivor Cutter, Miguel Azaola, Helen Oxenbury
I found the image cover in a list in our site goodreads under the above author names.
But I'm still not sure if I should do anything to correct the book image and isbn.

Isis wrote: "I've encountered that problem with HQ books...and actually did some research on it. The problem there occurred when Harlequin bought Silhouette from their previous publisher (I wanna say Penguin?) and THAT publisher decided to reuse ISBNs it had originally used to publish Silhouette books. (if that made any sense...)"

Thanks, yeah, that makes sense...but not! Isn't the whole point of ISBN supposed to be unique???? Grrr...

They are, but sometimes publishers screw up, and other times they apparently don't care. I think they just like to screw with us ;)

Isis_FG wrote: "They are, but sometimes publishers screw up, and other times they apparently don't care. I think they just like to screw with us ;)"

I think so too because the ISBN being used for El Desayuno de Tomas(156014629X) is very similar to the correct one for El Desayuno de Tomas is (560141629X).
ISBN 1-5601-4629X should go to Lectura y Comunicacion,
and ISBN 56014-1629X should go to El Desayuno de Tomas.

Interesting enough they are both by "Santillana", except that one is from USA and the other is from PR.
But, I won't make any changes untill you all think it's OK for me to do so.

Question: If I were to make a change to a book's information on a book entered by a 3rd party (like amazon), will that change their information also, or does it just effect the listing here in 'goodreads'?

It just changes things here on GR. From what I've heard, getting something fixed on Amazon requires jumping through hoops while wearing stilettos and a blindfold ;)

Miriam, I think it's fine to make those corrections.

Thank you Isis and I love your sense of Humor.
And to rivka, I thank your go ahead. I am 99.9% sure that it was a typo, but if any complaints were to accure I'll take full responsibility.
And thanks to all the staff that's responded, not only to my question but to all others that come in.
I love this site, and I hope to give as good a service as you all do.
miriam

This is a just-so-you-know comment:
I received a response from [email protected] letting me know that they will remove and try to find the correct image for "El Desayuno de Tomas".
So, that should avoid any possible repeated problem on this one.