Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
Questions (not edit requests)
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Ampersand in a title?
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I think that a quick fix would be to change one edition's title to the 'and' instead of the ampersand. This would ensure that the search engine would 'see' it with that title.Are you ok with doing this?
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If I put Eleanor AND Park in the search box at the top of this page I get Eleanor & Park as the first result.
(Search, nevermind ampersand, isn't working for me right now. I'm not finding any librarian notes on any of the editions.)I cannot search back thru topic threads or much of anything on goodreads; if working for anyone else, I was trying to check for an older thread to see if using the html code for ampersand character (without the quotes or spaces that code is " & a m p ; ") worked or was policy or not; if putting a sort of transliteration of title was permitted or even worked ("Eleanor & Park [Eleanor and Park]"), ... as far as I got in thinking of things to try or locate.
Librarians, of course, cannot change the search feature itself (that is a site feature staff/programmers handle and take suggestions for in the feedback group)—so the fix librarian note requested would have to be an edit of book data.
I don't see any librarian notes at all (I looked in edit details and on the combine page both); but, did the note say what was needed to be done? (Reaching; I really don't see how someone able to create a librarian note requesting something be done could not just go ahead and do it.)
Sorry not being helpful. I just wanted to jot down things I thought to try in case anyone else had better luck, could see the librarian note mentioned or could search past threads for solution or policies.
rivka wrote: "That might work. I'm actually not sure how the search engine deals with small words (and, in, etc.)"I don't know about the regular search engine, but I do know that the search box in the 'add book/author' link is specific to the 'and' or the '&'. At least it was when I was trying to add a book to a post the other day. In that case, at least, having one title have 'and' instead of the ampersand works. Since there are many editions of the book, I think it's a good option, if the author wants to do it.
So am I the only person for whom 'Eleanor AND Park' actually gives the correct answer?
Banjomike wrote: "So am I the only person for whom 'Eleanor AND Park' actually gives the correct answer?"If you put AND in all caps it works. If and is lowercase (or mixed) then it doesn't.
All caps tells the search engine to look for things including "Eleanor" and "Park" without actually looking for the word and. Using lowercase, it tries to search for all 3 words. Case matters because it treats the all caps as search operators rather than part of the search term. The ampersand is probably ruled out in the search, making the actual search just 'eleanor park'.
Amanda wrote: "All caps tells the search engine to look for things including "Eleanor" and "Park" without actually looking for the word and"Yes, true boolean searches. I'm shocked that it works. "Eleanor NOT Park" also works. "Eleanor OR Park" sort-of works.
Banjomike wrote: "Amanda wrote: "All caps tells the search engine to look for things including "Eleanor" and "Park" without actually looking for the word and"Yes, true boolean searches. I'm shocked that it works...."
Not surprising that OR works, both words are there.
GR's search engine uses a minus sign before the word to denote NOT, so it probably just ignores NOT. Eleanor -Park does not work.
Amanda wrote: "Not surprising that OR works, both words are there.GR's search engine uses a minus sign before the word to denote NOT, so it probably just ignores NOT. Eleanor -Park does not work. "
"Eleanor -Park" works for me. I get thousands of Eleanors and no Parks (that I can see) which is correct. I'm just surprised that booleans are working at all. I'm sure they didn't used to work reliably but it is ages since I gave them a try.
Banjomike wrote: "Amanda wrote: "Not surprising that OR works, both words are there.GR's search engine uses a minus sign before the word to denote NOT, so it probably just ignores NOT. Eleanor -Park does not work. ..."
Sorry I meant it wouldn't find the book in question, not that the search didn't work the way it was designed.
My computer must have cached a search because the first time I tried Eleanor NOT Park I got the same as Eleanor Park. Now I'm not getting any responses.
I never noticed Boolean doesn't/didn't work, but then again I probably use it automatically now...
Rainbow wrote: "My book, Eleanor & Park, has an ampersand in the title. A librarian helped me out last year, to make sure that it would be searchable. (Thank you!)
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15......"
I just tried a search for your highly rated book Eleanor & Park.
It is currently searchable as Eleanor & Park or simply eleanor park as of 1:00 am GMT on February 2, 2013. (8:00 pm February 1, 2013 US Eastern Time)
At the moment the Goodreads search is removing the ampersand from the search so that if someone enters eleanor & park it actually searches for eleanor park and returns results with your book.(However an hour ago that wasn't the case; I couldn't find it at all unless using all caps.)
Since I'm just a Goodreads member, not a worker, I have no idea if this will continue to be the case. But at the moment you book can be found with the ampersand.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15......"
I just tried a search for your highly rated book Eleanor & Park.
It is currently searchable as Eleanor & Park or simply eleanor park as of 1:00 am GMT on February 2, 2013. (8:00 pm February 1, 2013 US Eastern Time)
At the moment the Goodreads search is removing the ampersand from the search so that if someone enters eleanor & park it actually searches for eleanor park and returns results with your book.(However an hour ago that wasn't the case; I couldn't find it at all unless using all caps.)
Since I'm just a Goodreads member, not a worker, I have no idea if this will continue to be the case. But at the moment you book can be found with the ampersand.
Hi, everyone!Here is the librarian comment that I see when I click on "edit details":
message 1: by Melissa Rochelle - rated it 4 stars Jan 02, 2013 07:07pm
Question: I tried to find this book by doing a search. (Aside -- Out of habit I always use "and" in replace of "&" when searching.)
I got zero results for "Eleanor and Park". Does anyone know if there's a way to create an alternate title for searching purposes without changing the main title that uses the "&"?
If this doesn't make sense, that's OK, too. :)
Thanks,
Melissa
I admit, that I'm not sure what it would mean to change one edition to "Eleanor and Park." Does that mean, change the audiobook? Would that mean that people who found the audiobook wouldn't be able to find the edition that they had read?
Rainbow wrote: "I admit, that I'm not sure what it would mean to change one edition to "Eleanor and Park." Does that mean, change the audiobook? Would that mean that people who found the audiobook wouldn't be able..."Change any edition you'd like - any user finding any edition can select that edition, or use the 'other editions' section on the top right of the book page to select the exact edition they would like. Personally, I would change one of the dead tree editions, since there are quite a few of those.
Honestly it shouldn't make any difference whatsoever. Usually when full boolean is working then & and AND react the same way and also be stop words. If they are stop words, it means that the word AND is not searched for, but used as a command. In practice this seems to be working fitfully. This is interesting though - thanks! :)
Emy, that is nice to hear, but I am saying that it does matter in the search engine that works in the 'add book/author' field, so it is still worth considering.
Carolyn wrote: "Emy, that is nice to hear, but I am saying that it does matter in the search engine that works in the 'add book/author' field, so it is still worth considering."It might be creating a worrying precedent.
We are saying, "Lets rename one edition of this book (or any book on Goodreads) so that if someone searches for the wrong title they will still have a chance of finding it".
It would also mean that the renamed edition with a valid ISBN/ASIN would not be listed correctly on any shelf because the title would be wrong.
Banjomike wrote: "It might be creating a worrying precedent"It might create a worrying precedent indeed. Next proposal would be to eliminate all non-ASCII characters from titles by replacing Umlauts (Ä, Ö, Ü) by (Ae, Oe, Ue) or dropping accents (à, é, û, etc.) with the argument of easier "accessibility/searchability".
If the title does contain an ampersand, so be it. If the search engine really breaks on ampersands, then the search engine needs to be fixed and not the title.
Goodreads told me it had a problem saving my comment, so I am trying again. If both show up, please accept my apologies.I think the book title should be left alone. It is correct now. If changing it is only an effort to make it easier to search, then I think it is wasted effort. A reader who really wants to read the book will not be defeated by the &; they will look in searches for either name or will search for the author. I know because I have done that.
Besides, here we go changing the name to accommodate a reader search and then a reader comes along who reads the very edition that was changed and finds that the title is incorrect. And, they want their shelved book to be correct. Can you guess what request will be made? Seems pointless to change the title to be incorrect.
Bea wrote: "Besides, here we go changing the name to accommodate a reader search and then a reader comes along who reads the very edition that was changed and finds that the title is incorrect. And, they want their shelved book to be correct. Can you guess what request will be made? Seems pointless to change the title to be incorrect. "Either that or someone adds another edition with a fudged ISBN to replace the renamed one. I expect someone would suggest adding a dummy book with the modified name.
I am opposed to changing title from what shows on bookcovers.But, boolean or not, currently, I am having a lot of problems with the search feature and bugs are being posted in the feedback group. So I'm not sure anyone should be thinking some search string doesn't work; maybe just doesn't work because search feature is intermittently down.
When I just tried: Four out of five times searching for "ELEANOR AND PARK" said nothing found, no search results , 1 out of 5 times returned "Eleanor & Park" but if I kept refreshing page kept changing found/not-founds apparently randomly.
My concern is that someone who has heard the title "Eleanor & Park" might (correctly, really) think the title is "Eleanor and Park" -- but probably wouldn't think to type "Eleanor AND Park."
"Vaclev & Lena" appears to be searchable by "Vaclev & Lena" and "Vaclev and Lena."Now that I know how the search terms work, I wonder if it would be more useful for every edition to be listed as "Eleanor and Park" -- like "Vaclev & Lena" seems to be listed.
Rainbow wrote: ""Vaclev & Lena" appears to be searchable by "Vaclev & Lena" and "Vaclev and Lena."Now that I know how the search terms work, I wonder if it would be more useful for every edition to be listed as "Eleanor and Park" -- like "Vaclev & Lena" seems to be listed. "
No. The title is what is printed on the front of the book. "Vaclev and Lena" is wrong. It should be "Vaclev & Lena" as the name for those editions with "Vaclev & Lena" on the front. If there was one edition titled "Vaclev and Lena" then that would be different.
I noticed that one edition of this book has been renamed to "Eleanor and Park". So is this something we can do in similar situations in the future?http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15...
Banjomike wrote: "I noticed that one edition of this book has been renamed to "Eleanor and Park". So is this something we can do in similar situations in the future?http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15......"
I thought that when in doubt (except for using ALLCAPS) we were supposed to match bookcover?
Publisher site at http://us.macmillan.com/book.aspx?isb... certainly uses ampersand.
The only place I see the ampersand not used is that changed entry here on goodreads.
Debbie wrote: "I thought that when in doubt (except for using ALLCAPS) we were supposed to match bookcover?"Yes, I'm asking because in #4 Rivka didn't totally dismiss the idea of renaming a single edition to the wrong title to improve search results.
Mod
rivka wrote: "I don't see a major difference between "and" and "&"."Presumably there should still be at least one edition with the true title?
Regardless of the right/wrong for this title—is there a current bug going on with how search handles the "and" and the "&"?I'm not sure; but, I don't remember until recently having any difficulty searching on either.
(If any title change are done just to work around a current bug, does that mean when bug is fixed the changes should be reverted?)
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15...
Is there a way to also make it searchable as "Eleanor AND Park"? Someone left a librarian note, requesting this on my author book page.
I hope I'm being clear -- and I appreciate the help.
Rainbow