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The Best of Isaac Asimov
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Book & Author Page Issues > Two books have incorrect covers and metadata - are the wrong way around

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message 1: by John (last edited Jan 24, 2013 04:31PM) (new) - rated it 5 stars

John (johncoxon) | 16 comments There are two books which appear to be the 'wrong way around' in the Goodreads database. The first is the copy my father has loaned me of The Best Of Isaac Asimov (ISBN 0722112548) and the second is Best Of Isaac Asimov (0722112564).

My copy of the book contains multiple stories from after 1949, which made me suspicious about the cover. I have searched the British Library's catalogue and Worldcat and confirmed that the ISBN for my book is for The Best of Isaac Asimov. My copy runs to 336 pages.

Searching Worldcat for the second ISBN above yields the information that the ISBN is associated with a book entitled The Best of Isaac Asimov 1939-1952 (Worldcat notes in their entry that the cover says 1949). The second book runs to 184 pages instead of 336 pages.

The covers on these novels need to be swapped, so that the cover with Angus Wells on the front belongs to the second book and the plainer cover belongs to the first book.. The first book should be 336 pages long and the second should be 184 pages long. Both books were published by Sphere and the second one should list Angus Wells as a co-author; I am not sure that the first one should.

Since the second book is actually a distinct and separate book from the first, so the two should not come up as editions of one another (they should be uncombined, I don't know what the proper Goodreads term is for that).

Thanks for reading, this is a pretty complex request for a change! :)

(I am hoping to become a librarian soon so I've brushed up on my acceptable metadata sources and appropriate sections of the manual, hopefully I've got it all right.)


message 2: by Sandra (new)

Sandra | 31525 comments I agree John, I've separated 39-49 from the rest and am just about to swap the covers ;)


John (johncoxon) | 16 comments Thank you!


message 4: by vicki_girl (new)

vicki_girl | 2764 comments I double checked isfdb.org for this book, and they also confirm that the 1939-1949 cover was a misprint. They had the cover without the misprint, which I added as an alternate cover edition.


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