Why only English edition of Solaris is accesible?

[Pólica]

Recently I added Slovenian edition of "Solaris" by Stanisław Lem. Now I wanted to find it on Goodreads - and all I can find is English edition (?!), even if I look by the name of the Slovenian translator Tatjana Jamnik. The only way to get to Slovenian edition is by searching with ISBN: 9789619294611 (hardcover), 9789619294628 (paperback). But which reader would look for books by ISBN???
What happened to non-English editions of Solaris, where have they dissapeared? Did someone combine/merge the editions?
I think editions of the same book in different languages should be treated separately. Actually, every book should be treated separately - even if they are in the same language, they can significantly differ from each other and are not all the same quality (2 different translators - 2 different translations!).
Anyway, I have serious objections against classifying books under English editions - "Solaris" was originally written in Polish language, Stanisław Lem was Polish... And readers read books in different languages - therefore their experience is different. In my opinion, imposing exclusively English editions is very non-ethical.
Could we do something about this problem?
Thank you for advice!

[Empress]

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15...

the editions is there. When searching ANY book only ONE editions will show up in the search - the most shelved one, it is a coincidence that it usually is the english one. And yes the editions from different languages are always combined and will be.
Imagine if you want to find all books named solaris and you search it and you get few thousand results because all editions of all books containing that name come up. Searching b name in that language also not gonna work since there is always multiple entries.

I understand your frustration. A lot of Bulgarian books don't have ISBN numbers. What I do is I go to other editions, expand to see at least 100 books (if you are librarian from the combine page is better) and search by title in Bulgarian.
it's either that or ISBN search.

P.S. This should be posted in the feedback. Librarians have no control over webpage functions like search

p.s.2. You may seriously object but here no one will listen and I am happy that no one will make the requested changes. I understand that you find it inconvenient but if editions were separate book entries it would be hell searching for a book. Trough how many pages do I have to brows to find the exact one copy of the above 800 Oliver twists that are listed?

p.s.3: " But which reader would look for books by ISBN???" You will be surprised.

[Pólica]

Ellie, Thank you for your quick reply and explanation. It helped me to understand the function of merging books :) And I don't have any better idea how to solve this problem. (Well, I will have to deal with my frustration about English, you are right.)
Anyway, English is not my mother tongue, so I hope my comment didn't sound to harsh. I find Goodreads as a great project - therefore I joined it (I don't have time for useless projects).
You are doing great job, thank you!
All the best, Tatjana

Ellie [The Empress] wrote: "http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15...

the editions is there. When searching ANY book only ONE editions will show up in the search - the most shelved one, it is a coincidence that it ..."

[Empress]

I am trying to explain two things - how GR works and that this is not the group for this discussion. You can either post in Feedback or contact the support.


I didn't mean to sound harsh, I have the same objections as you, but I understand now the practical applications of the editions and how difficult it would be for the editions in another language to come up. Unfortunately you can only search by ISBN or in your shelves. (there the editions that you shelved will be displayed and you have search option as well)

So, different editions of books are always combined but not if there are differences in the content. For instance abridged versions, or plays will not be combined with the original, but where translations are concerned they are translation of the same book, so they have to be combined.
I think ONE way of finding those books is creating Slovanian profile for the auhors and adding that second author name to only the Slovenian editions. I think it will display them. But not sure if it will work. Still accounts for authors in different languages are allowed (If that helps)

The most shelved edition will show EVERYwhere on this site, on each author or translator page, even when you create series. That is why some series will display editions in different languages (it happens). Even in the listopia unless you search by ISBN. I had created a list of bulgarian series and it was so difficult to add only the bulgarian books, because they don't have ISBN numbers, I had to shelve them, and this list is 121 books. So If I sounded harsh it is not as much to you but my annoyance with the same problem. I mean .... there must b some solution to this problem? Don't you think?

[Pólica]

Dear Ellie,
sorry that I answer with such delay - I was away, I went to the World Congress of Translators of Polish Literature in Krakow.
Thanks a lot for your hints! Of course, I will make Slovenian profiles for the authors and connect the books with them.
And I got another idea: at least for the books published in our publishing house, on our website I will make a link to the exact Goodreads place (where the book can be found by ISBN), with the invitation to readers to review the books.
This way, "the goat remains whole and the wolf full", as a Slovenian proverb says (meaning, it is a good compromise, at least in my opinion) - Goodreads gets some publicity in Slovenia, and the readers will (hopefully) read the books and maybe write some reviews. :)
All the best!
Tatjana

Ellie [The Empress] wrote: "I am trying to explain two things - how GR works and that this is not the group for this discussion. You can either post in Feedback or contact the support.


I didn't mean to sound harsh, I have ..."

[Empress]

Thank you for replying. I though I have offended you.

I have found out that the correct [in this case Slovenian} editions can be accessed by another profile, either for the author or translator.

The idea of putting a link to GR is great. I think there are even ready gifs and widgets that can be used for links or even to display books. [On second read that sounds stupid, why would you do that if all the books are on the publisher webpage - faceslap!] What I mean is you can create a profile for the publishing house and shelve all of your books, than add the widget to your webpage (or just add widget to a shelve on your profile with all the books, the links will lead to the books).

You can see how they look when you go to edit profile-widgets: http://www.goodreads.com/user/edit

Also when adding edition there is option for url to be added but only urls to the authors webpage and the publishers are allowed. So you can use that field for the opposite link (from the edition to your publisher webpage). If that makes any sense.

This is nice:



And at the bottom of this page there are some GR logos http://www.goodreads.com/about/press

Anyway if you need any help you can always post a new topic either here or in the feedback group. [there is a link in the description for this group]

Good luck :]

P.S. We have absolutely the same saying! :]

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

Well, if any of the Bulgarian authors in question are goodreads authors, they are welcome to set whichever edition they like as the default/primary edition. If a goodreads author does not set, then goodreads uses the most popular edition.

Despite being a U.S. company, I have no idea how many members prefer shelving their reads in which language(s). Goodreads just leaves a lot of choices open to crowd-sourcing/popularity including which edition shows in search, in genres, etc. There is no policy to ensure the English language edition shows first, members just shelved that language the most.

A lot of older English books (particularly serial romances) are getting very popular in Korea and Japan so U.S. English speaking authors like, for example, one who currently has series on American television, have had the foreign edition show in search results.

It always looks really strange in series info where most of the books are in the same language then a few have foreign titles. But that's just the result of crowd-sourcing.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Debbie wrote: "Well, if any of the Bulgarian authors in question are goodreads authors, they are welcome to set whichever edition they like as the default/primary edition."

Not if they are the translator. Only the primary author of a book can set an edition as primary.

[Empress]

It's Ok. I always manage to find the edition I need and SOME of the primary authors have a Bulgarian profile [I avoid creating additional profiles, and don't think anyone has complained so far from finding a Bulgarian edition]. I think just the contemporary Bulgarian literature is getting translated but it is not as popular, most people read either Bulgarian classics or books in other languages.

I don't mind the way GR works, my only problem was when I Was creating this list, since I had to shelve the Bulgarian editions to vote for them [lack or ISBN], but I don't see what GR can do about it.