Kernos wrote: "The Goodreads system worked perfectly. "

Indeed. Including the part where someone appealed and an exception was made.

Kernos wrote: "It is not a book. It is a desk calendar, sold as such and advertised as such.

The Goodreads system worked perfectly. "

Have you seen it, Kernos? Are you certain that something can't be both a desk calendar AND a book?

It is not a book. It is a desk calendar, sold as such and advertised as such.

The Goodreads system worked perfectly.

You could try posting a "Librarian Note" that states you feel this qualifies as a book. That may slow or stop someone in the future. I would have changed it, too, but a note from someone who felt differently would have stopped me.

Do you know how to post a "Librarian Note," John? In the edit page, directly above the book title, is a link, "add a librarian note."

Good luck to you getting your book database on Grs. A very time consuming project, but so neat when you have it finished. :-) Now, if we could just find a similar way to log our blasted DVDs....

I used to put NOT A BOOK: in front of the title. Now, I usually just change the author to NOT A BOOK and change the type of media (drop down box) to not a book. Occasionally, I'll also change the format to NOT A BOOK: (whatever type of item it is). I've never just put NOT A BOOK for the whole title.

It varies. With the new(-ish) Original title field, I haven't been bothering to do that. The original title is preserved in the new field.

Jessica, that makes sense to me.

John, usually we put NOT A BOOK in the front of the title and leave the rest of the title at the end, not delete it entirely. At least, that's how I do it.

OK, I can see how doing that in the author makes sense. I wonder about the title though: couldn't someone just append "(NOT A BOOK)" at the end of the title, instead of replacing the entire title?

John wrote: "Is there a way I can sign up to get notified when anything I have shelved is deleted or edited?"

No, there isn't, but that would be an interesting feature!

"I am also trying to figure out how flagging things as "NOT A BOOK" helps with the user experience."

The important part is changing the author to NOT A BOOK; this removes the non-book from an author's page. For example, this art calendar of yours is now showing on the list of Mary Engelbreit's books; when its author was NOT A BOOK, it did not show up there, and so people interested in Mary Engelbreit would not see it.

Placing "NOT A BOOK" in the title is a courtesy indicator -- so that if the item were to turn up in a search, it would be immediately obvious that it wasn't what the user was looking for. I know that there are plans to explicitly exclude anything flagged that way from searches, but I don't know the current state of that.

Thank you everyone for your help. I have added a description there.

I am still concerned that this may happen to something else that I have added to Goodreads, though at the moment I can't think of anything. Is there a way I can sign up to get notified when anything I have shelved is deleted or edited?

I am also trying to figure out how flagging things as "NOT A BOOK" helps with the user experience. Surely something that isn't a book wouldn't be turning up when people do searches in the usual course of using the site?

John wrote: "I can understand the policy for not wanting things like DVDs in here -- but if something's got an ISBN, isn't that a pretty good indication that at least somebody considers it to be a book or book-like?"

Unfortunately, no. We see a lot of things imported from Amazon (and perhaps now from B&N as well) with ISBNs: wall calendars, promotional materials for bookstores, tie-in toys, playing cards, and a great deal more. One of the functions of the volunteer GR librarians is exactly this, to find those things which are not books and mark them "NOT A BOOK" (there's often discussion of the details of this in the librarians' group, where the shorthand term is NABbing an item). This isn't vandalism but a well-meant attempt to keep the GR catalog clean.

How can I prevent this from happening, and when it does happen, how can I reliably get back the original information?

If you find a mistakenly NABbed item that you know is a book, please do post a link to it in the librarians' group! Even if you correct the book's information yourself, it can be useful to let other librarians know that this item has been classified as a book so that it (and other items like it) stay books in the future.

Desk calendars are an iffy item, but if you are keeping a 2001 calendar for the collection of artwork, it sounds like it qualifies as a book! The best way to keep a book from being mistakenly NABbed is to provide text in the description field which makes it clear that this is a book. (This is good advice for any book which you manually enter, but it's especially important for things whose titles suggest at first glance that they might not be books. "Calendar" in the title is one of those red flags that librarians actually run searches on periodically.)

John, that is not considered vandalization, but rather an effort to keep the database clean. In this specific case, you may quite possibly be correct in that this item should be considered book-like and returned to its original state, but this was an honest mistake and not a form of vandalism.

Unfortunately, ISBN's are not restricted to books; sellers and distributors use them to catalog anything that might appear in a bookstore, including bookmarks, cardboard display pieces, posters, calendars, t-shirts, stuffed animals, stickers, DVDs, CDs, VHS tapes, software, giftwrap, etc. It is an unfortunate an extremely irritating reality of the way the ISBN system is used.

You should count yourself lucky: the only reason the entry wasn't deleted completely (which would be preferred for legitimate non-books) is that anything with an ISBN automatically reloads from Amazon and can never be permanently deleted unless it is removed from the Amazon database.

I guess part of my point is that if I'm going to use Goodreads to help organize my collection, I certainly don't mind the collaborative editing model, because it usually would lead to increasing quality of metadata about my books. But if vandalizing entries like this is going to be officially sanctioned, that will pose more than a small problem for me. At least nobody just went out and deleted the entry entirely!

Lisa,

Amazon doesn't have that year's info, but you can look at this year's desk calendar there:

http://www.amazon.com/Mary-Engelbreits-Y...

It's 120 pages, and full of original artwork. It's got more pages than some coffee table-style books full of photos or artwork, just with planning/calendar pages instead of narrative.

It is very different than a wall calendar, for instance.

I can understand the policy for not wanting things like DVDs in here -- but if something's got an ISBN, isn't that a pretty good indication that at least somebody considers it to be a book or book-like?

John,

You can see edit history here:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/edits/6348...

From a book's page click edit then click to view the librarian change log.

I was able to figure out what this was supposed to be (a desk calendar)

Calendars are not considered books here at Goodreads. What kind/amount of content does this one have that makes it a book?

Ah, so I have found the librarian changelog link with undo options. That will help. Is there some Goodreads policy on this sort of thing?

So I have, over the last several months, been carefully cataloging my (and my wife's) books on Goodreads.

It appears that someone has been "improving" (I might say "vandalizing") at least one of the books -- this one:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63485...

So someone changed the title and author to "NOT A BOOK". Where's the edit history on Goodreads, so I can see what it used to be?

Fortunately, the ISBN is still intact, so I was able to figure out what this was supposed to be (a desk calendar). I find it very much a stretch to claim that it's not a book. It looks like a book, acts like a book, and has an ISBN.

But the real problem is: if I put something on my to-sell shelf, that means that I intend to eventually pull it to either sell or donate to the local non-profit used books store. If I'm suddenly confronted with "NOT A BOOK by NOT A BOOK", that COMPLETELY ruins the utility of Goodreads for me.

How can I prevent this from happening, and when it does happen, how can I reliably get back the original information?