Please make corrections

[Melanti]

Okay, well, I updated most of that.

I put in Conkling and Beagle with a role of "Screenplay" and Tolkien and Bakshi with a role of "Source Material." I wouldn't normally necessarily credit a director of a movie for any part of a book, but since this edition has so many photos from said movie it seems appropriate IMO. He seems almost akin to an illustrator in this case.

Does your edition actually have that ISBN listed anywhere in int?
The automated checker on the edit page is flagging it for being possibly invalid, and Amazon actually gives another ISBN that's only off by 1 digit.

The Lord of the Rings

I'm cleaning this entry up now, but I'm just trying to figure out if there's really two English editions or if there's only one.

[Melanti]

Sure, no problem. Just let me know when you get a chance.

I tracked down a couple other stray copies that will need to be merged so they're two separate entries for now, but that should be fixed in a day or two.

[Melanti]

Does any librarian care to give me a second opinion on whether these covers are close enough to be considered identical?

First we have the cover associated with what I suspect is the correct ISBN:
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings
Which has terrible glare and is a bit blurry.

Then you have this edition with what I think is a mis-typed ISBN, since it's only off by one digit:
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings
This one is a lot better.

Then you have this edition:
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings
Which is even better yet. Less wear on the cover, completely straight. Looks to be a fresh scan I'm not seeing elsewhere online.


If possible, I'd like to merge these into just one or two editions, but I just can't tell if the text along the left spine is identical - or even there at all on the first edition I linked to. It's just impossible to read. (And if you can't, in fact, read it, does it matter if it's off by a character or two?)

Anyone care to make a judgement?

[Melanie]

Melanti wrote: "Does any librarian care to give me a second opinion on whether these covers are close enough to be considered identical?..."

To me it looks like they're all the same.

On the first one, I think the text to the left of the L is in the glare. Or it's simply hard to see because it isn't the best quality.

Personally I think they could be merged into one listing using the best quality cover.

[Melanti]

That's what I was hoping! Thanks!

I spent so staring at the edge of that first blurry one that I was beginning to wonder if I was really seeing shapes & shadows of lettering under all that glare or if it was all just wishful thinking...

Cause, really, that first photo is so awful it'd be a shame to have to keep it around.

[Melanti]

1. Yep. It does look like the ISBN may have been reused at some point for the Blair Witch book. Automated bots have switched the data out for the LotR book over a year ago, so we'll leave it as LotR and will have to add an Alternate version for the Blair Witch if someone needs it.

At least one review does look like it might be for Blair witch but another more detailed review is clearly for LotR. There's no way to make everyone happy with this one.

2. Yes, Amazon shows it as June, but other sites show it being sold as a First edition, which would logically mean April.

3. Not sure what's going on with that, or what the difference is between ISBN and ISN, but if your copy has that number, that's reason enough to leave it, IMO.

AISNs are a Amazon specific thing but that looks nothing like a typical AISN. In this case, I assume someone tried to enter the ISN ending in 77 into the system and the system rejected it since it doesn't compute as a valid ISBN, so it was entered into the AISN field instead just to get it listed somewhere on the product page.

Lots of databases just assign Jan 1 for a month/date if you don't specify one, so never trust a Jan 1 publication date beyond the year indicated.