Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
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Additions to Librarian Manual
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Editing a book
I just wanted to say thanks for all of the awesome work you guys are doing to update both the edit page and the guidelines. I know a lot of us junior librarians will find it all really helpful!
Aldawen, Well, I'm not Goodreads and I'll let them speak for themselves, but I've seen lots of editions of books and reviews in languages other than English, and I've always assumed that they're very welcome here. We have a thread in the librarians group for librarians who speak languages other than English.
I think some members have contributed to translating the Goodreads librarian manual into languages other than English.
I love the fact that the membership here is international, although I'd be friends with only those who can write in English because unfortunately I'm not multi-lingual and can read long text only in English.
I've added the original title to the translations title solely for the purpose of helping get books combined. But then when the Librarian Note feature was created, I started using that to note what the translation was - but really only if it was an anthology or a book that didn't currently combine with something else.
I will be working later on today on the various suggestions for the edit page.
I just posted a suggestion in the Feedback group about possibly adding an edition specific field as I mentioned at the bottom of post #44 if people wish to comment.
Just wanted to drop a quick note...I haven't had a chance to do edits yet on the page for all the recent suggestions. I'm currently in the process of starting a new job, doing training and all that fun stuff. So my schedule is rather wacky. I should be able to get edits done either Friday or Saturday.
Mod
Is this something like this: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36...
That looks cluttered to me but I have no idea what it says!
Language support is a tricky issue. We at Goodreads want to support international users as best as we can. Eventually that will mean translating the entire site, but that is a very big project. For now if there are relatively easy ways to make book information available in other languages I'm all for it.If we added an original_title field to books (which has been requested before I know) - should that be edition-specific or work specific?
Michael's suggestion for an edition_information column is not a bad one - I'm just not sure how useful it will be to break it up?
Otis wrote: "If we added an original_title field to books (which has been requested before I know) - should that be edition-specific or work specific?"Work-specific, I would think, like original publication date.
Also, if there were some suitable way to make that visible in search results and authors' book listings, that would probably help with a number of "I can't find that book so I entered it manually" duplicates....
Otis wrote: "If we added an original_title field to books (which has been requested before I know) - should that be edition-specific or work specific?"Work specific.
Would it be helpful to also have an original_language field to tie to that original_title field? That would give the complete information set:
current edition title,
current edition language,
current edition publishing date
vs
original title,
original language,
original publishing date
Mod
Otis wrote: "Michael's suggestion for an edition_information column is not a bad one - I'm just not sure how useful it will be to break it up?"I think the edition specific information could be very useful, if the field is integrated properly. For example, I think the editions list would be a lot neater it was in this format:
The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1)
by Philip Pullman
Edition: Deluxe 10th Anniversary Edition
Binding: Hardcover
The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1)
by Philip Pullman
Binding: Hardcover
The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1)
by Philip Pullman
Binding: Paperback
The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1)
by Philip Pullman
Edition: Large Print
Binding: Hardcover
particularly if you added a sort (or even better, a filter) by the edition field (just as you can currently sort (and again...filter would be cool) by binding).
Imagine a more advanced search engine where you could search multiple fields at the same time, specifying author, title, and edition all at once (say, if you wanted to return only large print editions). If this info is in the description, not only is it not searchable but it's never seen in any general list of editions. If it's in the title, it gets cluttered up with other information (particularly when there is series info in the title) and reduces search accuracy.
Even if there is little immediate advantage to a random user, I think it would make the job for librarians a lot easier, because it would remove ambiguity about where this information goes, which is currently a bit of an issue.
Isis, I just [finally:] got a chance to read your new edit document - looks great - thanks for all the work on it!I did have one suggestion though. In the section on authors, perhaps to have a note on what to do if the author name is a pseudonym (or if the author has pen names.) Just telling anyone doing edits that the full pen name should be used, and then details and a link to the author's real name should be put in the Description field. (I think that's how it was decided they would be handled, anyways.)
That would hopefully help with issues where I've found both the author name and the pen name clumped together into the author name field...
Also, I think you were going to address the issue of using the author's initial, and issues of initials and periods/spaces, iirc from an earlier post on this thread.
PS Congrats on the new job!
Thanks, Carolyn!I will add the penname as well. I still haven't had a chance to do the next round of edits...been a busy week with the new job, Mother's Day, and some birthdays. It's number 1 on my To-Do list for this weekend.
Okay, version 1.3 of the How to Edit a Book page is now up (finally) --> LINKIt includes a whole bunch of changes, adjustments and additions as discussed in this thread (there's a list in the changelog at the bottom of the page).
I also added 4 new sections: dimensions, librarian note, change comment, and librarian comment.
I didn't address the issue of translated titles because...well, I didn't know what to put, LOL.
Leave a comment if you see any mistakes or anything you think needs to be added or fixed.
Looks amazing, Isis. Thanks for all the work you put into that.Caught a typo in the "add a librarian note" section - the book should note be combined - where note should be not. Same section - If a note hate you confused - where hate should be has.
Isis, Thanks so much for all the work. This is going to be incredibly helpful. I haven't had a chance to read through it yet but yes it does look amazing.
I'm just glad to be able to help...hopefully this will get some more consistency going in the database.rebecca - thanks for finding those typos! Spellcheck doesn't catch them. I'll get them fixed.
Some comments:* Librarian Notes - you state where librarian notes will be found; it would also be useful to point out that they will NOT be seen by non-librarian users since they do not show up on the normal book page. Librarian "notes" that are useful to the average user (as well as librarians) should be repeated in the description.
* Author - Typo: "If an author uses initials in their name, the initials should be contain NO spacing between them and be marked with a period."
* Dimensions - Typo, I think: shouldn't there be a space in "height(thickness)"? You repeat this multiple times...or is that how GR lists it?
* Original publication year - It is possible for an original publication year to be different from the copyright. For example, older books published before copyrighting became common. Also, sometimes books published in the fall have copyrights for the following year. However, if in doubt, assume the copyright is correct.
* Literary Awards - Maybe we should come up with a standard for this? It's never really been discussed, to my knowledge. Things like (1) one should include the year of the award, and (2) Pulitzer Prizes for literature are given to authors, not for specific books, so should not be listed.
* Cover Art - Should we add a note that one should not upload the original art the cover was based on? (I believe only one librarian was doing that, so it may not be necessary). I had written the little "cloth cover" generating program at some point. Is it worth mentioning it...I don't even remember the link to it off the top of my head, although it's still online somewhere.
Michael - I will get the typos fixed...I forgot to proofread the new stuff I added before I uploaded it. Oops.Notes - will add a comment about who can and can't see them.
Dimensions - I copied what GR listed on the edit page...but there might actually be a space in there - I didn't look all that closely. I will fix that.
OP Year - will add a note about that.
Awards - good points. I'll add whatever the consensus is.
Cover art - there is a note about not using original art:
Cover images uploaded should only be an image of the actual front cover (which will typically have title and author on it), and should not be an image of the art used to later create the book cover.
I'll add a link to the program if others think its a good idea.
Thanks to everyone reading through and giving feedback!
Mod
I think that may be the sort of thing better for an advanced tutorial, not for new librarians. ;)
Is this being geared towards new librarians? I thought it was a single source for all your questions on the various fields of the edit page. More than anything, I appreciate it for making us all agree to a consistent way of doing things.
Mod
Yeah, I was wondering about information overload when you said it was for new librarians. I'm not sure I could have absorbed all that on day one. But then I only added missing cover images for the first few weeks I was a librarian.
It's fine with me, either way. I was just running through the page and throwing thoughts down as they struck me.
I like the idea of adding a link to the cover program, only so we have a consistent place to go find the link. If it's too much for this document, can we put a sticky up somewhere with it?
I was thinking what Carolyn just suggested. A link wouldn't be overwhelming but would give every librarian easy access to all useful information.
Mod
rivka wrote: "You know, it started as a resource for new librarians, but I think it has changed. Regardless, I think things like the cover-program should be left off. Not because they're not useful -- it's a gre..."In writing it, I think I was just doing a general librarians guide to help ease some of the repeating problems we come across.
If we wanted to do something for new librarians...well, each section of the document I wrote could have a short sentence or two telling what the field is, then their could be a "read more" link to bring up the full explanations I wrote.
I'm sure I can find it again....Hmmm....http://www.rosenberglab.net/GoodReads...
Hmmm, I should probably write a readme file for it or at least some sort of vague documentation.
Mod
rivka wrote: "Should this document have an explanation of the difference between combining and merging editions?"No, but only because you do not do any of that from that page. Well, I guess that's not precisely true. You do delete from that page, which is part of merging.
Hmmm...Deleting a book is not even mentioned. I would add a short section on deletion, pointing out details on when a book can be deleted or when a superuser is necessary, and with a link to a separate page with a broader discussion on combining vs. merging.
That page would start with an explanation of what the differences are, followed by detailed instructions for combining (should be a lot shorter than the edit page instructions since there is less to it) and a link back to the edit page instructions for the new "delete" section.
Didn't even think to add something for the Delete Book action. I will add that this weekend (along with anything else that was mentioned since the last update).re: merging/combining...I think there are some instruction in the general librarians manual. So are you thinking there should be a longer, more detailed explanation?
I was also considering a section on the do's/don'ts of manually adding an edition.
Isis FG wrote: "I was also considering a section on the do's/don'ts of manually adding an edition."Do check the database several times to make sure you didn't miss the book. Search by title, search by author, search by ISBN.
Mod
Are there? I couldn't find them.
Aha!
Abigail--On your first point, I think the idea behind having standardized series formatting was so that it would be easier for the eventual "series object" feature to scoop up the series information from the existing title field and use that data to populate the new series fields.
On your second point, GR has just implemented an "original title" field on book records, so I think a lot of the workarounds that people have been using can start changing. The original title isn't visible yet to anyone except librarians, but hopefully it will be soon, and I think that we can start changing the book records now as we come across them.
Mod
I can't see any reason not to, and in fact I think I saw some that have been already.
mlady_rebecca wrote:I know you meant that as a joke, but I'll answer seriously. Given that this is a US based site which conducts it's business (groups, FAQs, announcements, menuing,...) solely in English, I would expect to see foreign titles translated into English for the benefit of the GR staff and the Librarians from English speaking countries. And, no, I would not expect (or appreciate) seeing the opposite. If this was a German site, I'd expect to see the German language favored.
As long as someone who speaks both languages combines the books, I don't really see why the english title would need to be there too. Right now there mostly seem to be problems where the original language is farsi, arabic or russian (those languages still being fairly popular among users), but that to me seems mostly a nuisance.
Furthermore, since germans and french translators arbitrarily renumber series, they can't be combined meaningfully (per Translated Title (English series name, #1)) anyway, so the number of books that aren't combined due to 'inability' of the librarians to recognize series should be fairly small..
While this certainly is a US-based website, I imagine that in the future, there might be increased demand for localization of at least the web interface, if not the forum language.
There seem to be (looking at the 'translator volunteers' thread) quite a few librarians capable of reading more than one language (especially considering the fact that Spanish already is a major (if horribly underrepresented) second language in the US), so I would like to suggest that putting too much emphasis on the 'english language' might not be necessary..
Mod
Part 1
Part 2
The rest will need some re-working, now that we have the edit fields broken into edition-specific and work-general.
rivka wrote: "The rest will need some re-working, now that we have the edit fields broken into edition-specific and work-general. "Yikes...I hadn't even though about the how the new setup of the edit page affects the "how to edit a book" stuff. Not sure if I'll have time to make the adjustments, but I can try to work on it a little at a time if no one else can do it.
Mod
Probably just in time for them to make some new change. ;)
rivka wrote: "Probably just in time for them to make some new change. ;)"Yup. I swear I hadn't been done the original one long when GR up and changed things around.
I should have time this weekend to start some tweaking.
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And thanks to Cait, who did most of the work!
The link given by Isis appears to be more complete than the official manual itself. Shouldn't they be sync-ed?
Mod
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I see your point, however, there seems to be a problem when it comes to using English title if the book was translated into English from some other language. Sometimes two English editions are given titles that have almost nothing in common. Henryk Sienkiewicz is an excellent example here. You have The Knights of the Cross and The Teutonic Knights for Polish Krzyżacy. Or even more notable Pan Michael and Fire in the Steppe for Pan Wołodyjowski.
I admit that combining books is much easier if you are provided with an original title or it's English translation, but I don't like like that stuff in the title field. It looks cluttered. "Original title" field seems like a perfect solution, but maybe, for the time being, a note in the description field or a librarian comment/note would be a better solution.