To merge or not to merge

[KM]

So this is really more of an advice/guidance/education request...

As a VERY new librarian, I don't want to do anything I shouldn't so am mostly adding info to books/authors of which I am certain and then trolling the forums when I can to watch how things run.

Today I saw a request to merge two editions and went to go take a look at them out of curiosity. When I went to the Author page, there were, what looked to me, many editions that should be merged, but when I clicked the Combine Editions to see what was behind the curtain, I saw the following:

note: This author already has many combined works and thus we don't recommend using combine editions function unless you really know this author and know what you're doing.

I didn't have any intention of doing anything when I went in, and so this definitely got my attention. No, I don't know (completely) what I am doing - so what am I looking for to know if these should be combined or not?

The author in question is Lowell Cauffiel

[lethe]

Your link isn't working.

Combining and merging are two different things. The merge function is down at the moment (should be resolved later today), but apart from that, I would advise a new librarian to stick to combining for the time being. Once you get some experience at that and become more confident, you can try merging.

In case it isn't clear (many new librarians find it confusing):
- combining is combining two or more different editions and in the end the number of editions has remained the same
- merging is combining two duplicate editions (if not already combined) and then deleting one so only one edition remains

[KM]

(link corrected now)

Understood - I guess I misspoke when I used the term "merge" when in fact I should have said combine.
Given those adjustments, how would I know it is a good idea to combine editions as above?

[lethe]

You can safely combine these. It's basically a question of the ebooks (with subtitles) having been added separately from the print editions (without subtitles).

Just make sure you don't combine everything at once, but title per title.

In case you're not sure if an edition is the same, you can look at the covers and/or page counts. F.e., a short-story collection may have the same title as a single short story, and sometimes the only way to know is by a vastly differing page count.

Most important rule: when in doubt, don't combine :)

[KM]

Thanks, that clears things up

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Kiki wrote: "note: This author already has many combined works and thus we don't recommend using combine editions function unless you really know this author and know what you're doing."

This note specifically refers to using the "auto-combine books" link, more than generally combining the author's works -- although that should be done with caution too.

[lethe]

I have always steered clear of the auto-combine function, because I have no idea what will happen when I use it, and what to look out for in case I would want to use it. As far as I can tell, it's not explained in the manual.