Unknown Book with only ASIN (Resolved)

[Sarah]

Hello. I've been searching the listings Unknown Book here in GR and I was wondering how to recover this particular entry. Here is the entry in question:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11...

It has an ASIN included so I made a search in Amazon and here is the resulting web page:

http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Empire-F...

It's a 7-book set and it doesn't have an ISBN nor ISBN-13. And I tried scouring the net for a similar product but based from my search only Amazon seems to be selling this set of books. So what should be done about this?

I'd like to do my part in recovering some of these books but I don't know how to handle the above scenario. It's such a shame really that I know the title and author of the book but I couldn't input it because the info is from Amazon. I can't use WorldCat bec the ones I encountered don't have ISBN with it even on its Amazon page. I hope somebody could help me on this.

[Sandra]

I don't think it was actually originally sold as a set of 7 books. Looks to me like a 2nd hand dealer is selling them through Amazon.

I could be wrong, but if you can't find it anywhere else, that makes me even more suspicious.

Had a look on WorldCat and couldn't see any mention of a set.

[Sarah]

Yeah. That seems to be the case. But Amazon did assign with an ASIN so what's the deal with that?

I think since this set is not packaged by a publisher I would just make a librarian's note about the title and author. But then again it will still show up as an Unknown Book.

I'd like to ask, is this entry is even considered as valid here in GR in the first place? As stated above it seems this set was packaged by a second hand dealer selling it through Amazon.

[Emy]

Amazon second hand dealings are/were assigned an ASIN as an internal monitoring number. If you can find a record for the edition it was supposed to be, I would suggest that you note the two URLs and then request a merger.

[Sarah]

Nope. There's no record of an edition it can be merged into. So what should be done with regards to this particular entry?

And for future reference, say I found an edition it should be merged with, when I request for a merger, I should just note the URL of the two--the edition URL and the Unknown Book URL. Am I correct? Would the super librarian be the one to recover the entry then merge it to the specified edition?

[Emy]

How I would do this:

1. Post it in the current version of this thread: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...
2. Ask for a merge from A (with link) into B (with link).
3. Make sure it is the /show/ link not the /edit/ one as that makes it easier I believe.
4. Explain that it is an historic record from the Amazon feed of a second hand sale.

Reasoning for this is although we can usually do a delete/merge for unadded books, in this sort of situation I would advise getting it done by a Super for the authoritative "Yes this is OK to merge"...

[Sarah]

Thanks Emy. I'll keep this as reference if I encounter a situation like that in the future.

But I'm afraid it cannot be applied in this particular case because I cannot find an edition it could be merged into. The entry is a seven-book set of the The Saga of Seven Suns series and I can't find a similar book set here in GR.

[Renske]

If there is no similar set then the first book of the set is the most used option for merging.

[Sarah]

Ok...but what edition in the first book should it be merged to? The first published edition?

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Usually the most popular, since there's no reason to do otherwise.

Please remember that we cannot use Amazon as a source of book data.

[Sarah]

Ok, thanks for all the help. I'll request now in the delete/merge thread this particular case.

Oh and about the usage of Amazon data, duly noted.

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

Even though amazon data cannot be used since they yanked their data, please note also:

An amazon marketplace/secondhand item's asin is not the same thing as a book having a kindle edition with asin.

Kindle edition book's asin can be put in goodreads book data asin field. Marketplace asin does not belong there.

Any other marketplace finds (asin or not), need either a valid isbn* to be made their own book edition or merge with another edition of book to ensure member reviews and ratings are kept.

(Merge prevents book from just disappearing off their "my books" shelves, too).

*pre-isbn publications may have some exceptions made if verifiable from non-bookseller source as unique book edition not already on goodreads

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

Learned that from some "unknown book" fixes where asin belonged to a "bag of assorted books"

[Sarah]

Thanks for the addt'l info. Will keep that in mind as well.