Instuctions please on adding new Edition

[[deleted user]]

I'm sorry if I'm just being dense here. I'm a relatively new librarian, and I'm not understanding how a different "edition" is created (or sometimes when it's appropriate.) I don't see a "Create another edition" button. So, do I understand correctly that the way to do this is to "Manually add a book" and then go back and "combine" that book with its other existing edition(s)? If that's the case, is there a shortcut that will transfer or merge all the descriptions/author list/details from the existing book edition to the new edition I'm adding? Or, have I just missed something incredibly obvious, simple and direct?

Specific case 1: I have a Kindle edition of a book with an existing Goodreads page for the printed edition (that happens to lack an ISBN.) I do have the Amazon ASIN. This seems a straightforward case of just adding a new edition (hence the above questions.)

Specific case 2: I recently pulled an old paperback copy of Great Science Fiction by Scientists from my bookshelf. It's an anthology, and the table of contents & page count matches what's on the Goodreads entry. However, the cover doesn't. The original publication date was 1962, in paperback, but my copy is from 1968 (also paperback, colophon says 5th printing.) Presumably because it's so old, it does not have an ISBN. I don't know what the cover of the original printing was (I'm assuming the Goodreads current entry is a generic placeholder and not an actual cover.) The current Goodreads page does list an ISBN. (A web search by that ISBN finds some offers to sell the book used, all without cover images. Can a book be assigned an ISBN retroactively without re-publication?)

I can think of two alternative courses of action: I could assume the current Goodreads entry is simply incomplete (lacks a cover image, publisher & publication date) and add those details to the existing entry (I scanned the cover of my book), despite the fact that my edition lacks the ISBN. Or, I could create a new edition (however) with the information I can confirm from my personal copy. (I presume that would be what Goodreads describes as an "alternate cover edition"?) What would Goodreads prefer in this case?

(Sorry for the long-winded complexity. I started out thinking, "this book doesn't have a cover picture; I could add that!", and then I overthought it.)

[vicki_girl]

G33z3r wrote: "I'm sorry if I'm just being dense here. I'm a relatively new librarian, and I'm not understanding how a different "edition" is created (or sometimes when it's appropriate.) I don't see a "Create another edition" button."

Go to the list of "other editions". On the right there are links to "combine editions" "separate" and "add new edition". You want the last one. This will take you to the page to manually add a new edition.

"So, do I understand correctly that the way to do this is to "Manually add a book" and then go back and "combine" that book with its other existing edition(s)? If that's the case, is there a shortcut that will transfer or merge all the descriptions/author list/details from the existing book edition to the new edition I'm adding? Or, have I just missed something incredibly obvious, simple and direct?"

That's the process. There are no shortcuts unfortunately.

"Specific case 1: I have a Kindle edition of a book with an existing Goodreads page (that happens to lack an ISBN.) I do have the Amazon ASIN. This seems a straightforward case of just adding a new edition (hence the above questions.)"

Yes, you would manually add it, putting in all the details you have and then manually combining it with the other editions.

"Specific case 2: I recently pulled an old paperback copy of Great Science Fiction by Scientists from my bookshelf. It's an anthology, and the table of contents & page count matches what's on the Goodreads entry. However, the cover doesn't. The original publication date was 1962, in paperback, but my copy is from 1968 (also paperback, colophon says 5th printing.) Presumably because it's so old, it does not have an ISBN. I don't know what the cover of the original printing was (I'm assuming the Goodreads current entry is a generic placeholder and not an actual cover.)"

There is one edition with a cover and one with the brown generic Goodreads cover.

"The current Goodreads page does list an ISBN. (A web search by that ISBN finds some offers to sell the book used, all without cover images. Can a book be assigned an ISBN retroactively without re-publication?)"

Yes, sort of. Old book numbering systems can be converted to modern ISBNs in some cases. I have detailed info about it here.

Also, I looked up the book on isfdb.org (a great resource for pre-ISBN speculative fiction books). It looks like the ISBN was assigned to the tenth printing.

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cg...
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?3...

Previous printings only had a book number of #01903.

"I can think of two alternative courses of action: I could assume the current Goodreads entry is simply incomplete (lacks a cover image, publisher & publication date) and add those details to the existing entry (I scanned the cover of my book), despite the fact that my edition lacks the ISBN. Or, I could create a new edition (however) with the information I can confirm from my personal copy. (I presume that would be what Goodreads describes as an "alternate cover edition"?) What would Goodreads prefer in this case?"

Goodreads does not track individual printings. Therefore, if your book has the number #01903 (check the spine), it is the same edition as 0020190301 in the Goodreads database. If that is the case, you can correct the info to match your book. The publication date should match that of the first printing of that edition, in this case 1966. Editions prior to 1966 had a different book number, AS 218.

[[deleted user]]

Vicki,
Thank you very much for your very clear and patient explanation, as well as so many useful links! (The ID number on the spine of my copy did indeed match the ISBN - I can now see that it's actually embedded in there - so I went ahead and updated the existing Goodreads entry with what additional information I had.)

[Debbie's Spurts (D.A.)]

Actually, you can also click "other editions" at upper right of book page and get an "add new edition" menu choice. You still have to combine the editions when finished creating the book; and does not copy a lot of information over for you (basically just title and author) — but in the case of oddly disambig'd author names, useful to have exact same author spelling since cannot combine the editions unless exact same author plus if title field was a longish entry gets exact same title, subtitle, transliteration, series-to-search-on-phrase.

So long as correctly created and combined, I don't think the "order" you enter info or if done manually or via new edition matters.

Personally, I "add new edition" put in the format and isbn/asin/bnid, save and combine. That puts it there for anyone searching that isbn or looking for that specific information. Prevents someone adding duplicate while I'm still typing. Then I edit my combined edition and see if default description pulled in so I don't have to type or cut-and-paste (as soon as combined, that pulls over as well as any existing series, awards, or character information), and add any other information I have like page number, publisher, publication date, official url, bookcover image, language, etc.

Not a rule or official how to. Just personal preference.

Sometimes an edition is there but is very incomplete. So, useful between clicking "other editions" and "add new" to "expand details" and look for editions like an edition that says is for the kindle but lacks an asin, an edition with isbn10/13/asin forced into wrong field that just needs correcting, or an edition with nothing but badly spelled title with correct author, etc.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Debbie wrote: "Actually, you can also click "other editions" at upper right of book page and get an "add new edition" menu choice."

As vicki said.