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Policies & Practices > [solved] How to enter Gutenberg Project books?

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message 1: by Ietrio (new)

Ietrio I have read The Character of a Priest. I see there are at least two editions in the database[1]. But I have nothing to do with the ISBN or the Kindle edition. How do I enter the Project Gutenberg virtual volume? Archive.org also has quite a few books that can be found in print with legitimate ISBNs.

Cheers!

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...


message 2: by Krazykiwi (last edited Mar 21, 2016 10:29AM) (new)

Krazykiwi | 1767 comments PG books being reproductions of the original editions, so I enter those (the original editions) based on the info on the title page, if it has one. Most do.

You can probably get accurate publisher, date, title and author info from there, enough to find the exact edition from Worldcat where there may be more info, such as pages. Do be careful there, the PG books are pretty often not the actual first editions (but you can often find the original published date at Worldcat too.

Archive.org you can get the requisite info via the ISBN from Worldcat.

For both, if the cover is not on Worldcat, Abebooks is your best bet, but a lot of those old books the only covers available are the archive.org scans which afaik we can't use. Again on Abebooks, be careful you have the right edition, and that it isn't a stock image.


message 3: by Hannah (new)

Hannah (bookwormhannah) | 198 comments I do the same thing. I enter the original copyright info (which is what Gutenburg is literally going off of) from the front of the book and get the number of pages from archive.org

Most of theirs are pre-ISBN days, so just leave that field blank. I try to go through and add covers as I buy old books, but to me it's more important to have the correct edition than a cover.

Also, if you're using the original info from Gutenburg, don't call it an ebook. Most of those were copyrighted as hardcovers, some as paperbacks.


message 4: by Ietrio (new)

Ietrio Thank you Krazykiwi and Hannah. Now that you wrote your answers, it makes perfect sense.


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