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Announcement: Updated Policy on ISBNs and ASINs
Merry wrote: "Therefore, no retrospective changes, which would be a nightmare!"The retrospective changes will have to be made when you find yourself doing edits on an existing ACE (or edition that points to an ACE).
I meant to include my observation that including the UPC, which is assigned and coded on all modern books—even those that don’t include an ISBN in the bar code— makes as much asinine sense as including the ASIN in book records. Both of these ideas are unique to bookselling, and their inclusion violates the intent of Goodreads as well as overcomplicating librarianship. Libraries that I frequent do not use the UPC to track books—even though already present. They assign their own unique identifier so that they can track indiviual duplicate copies, be they of whatever format or age.
Mark wrote: "I meant to include my observation that including the UPC, which is assigned and coded on all modern books—even those that don’t include an ISBN in the bar code— makes as much asinine sense as inclu..."Does it present on various kinds of ebooks too?
I think answer is "not always" because fanfic from fanfiction.net sometimes is "a book" according to Goodreads "what is a book" rules. They don't have ISBN,ASIN, UPC or anything unique at all except their URL.
Mark wrote: "I read this new policy in total incredulity, especially after I researched ASIN (Henceforward to be pronounced "a sin", or better, "asinine"). "Including an ASIN in a book record is not new. These have been in existence since the inception of Goodreads (actually before, but that wouldn't matter as we're only discussing GR here). Kindle books have an ASIN rather than an ISBN. It isn't the same field as an ISBN, but is an alternate field. An edition may not have data in both fields.
Mark wrote: "Libraries that I frequent do not use the UPC to track books—even though already present. They assign their own unique identifier so that they can track indiviual duplicate copies, be they of whatever format or age. "You might be interested in Overdrive. Kindle books can be borrowed from libraries and have ASINs.
I'm not entirely clear what if anything is required of authors. I purchased ISBNs from Bowker and have used a different number for each title, one of which I updated with a cover. Wish you'd make clear in communications to us what we are expected to do. Thanks
Miranda wrote: "I'm not entirely clear what if anything is required of authors. I purchased ISBNs from Bowker and have used the same number for each title, one of which I updated with a cover. Wish you'd make clea..."You should post in the authors group. An ISBN is supposed to be a unique identifier for an edition, and you should not be re-using the numbers.
My apologies if you've clarified this above, and I'm not understanding. How should I handle a single book that has two different ISBNs? I republished a series, but the old editions/old ISBNs are still coming up as the first result. Thanks!
Cal wrote: "What this ends up being is a zero cost effort by GR to fix something that wasn't really broken instead of putting that Amazon money to work and improving the site in a meaningful way."So, GR business as usual? ;)
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Miranda wrote: "I'm not entirely clear what if anything is required of authors. I purchased ISBNs from Bowker and have used the same number for each title, one of which I updated with a cover. Wish..."Mistyped: I used a UNIQUE ISBN for each title and registered each unique ISBN with Bowker and Lib. of Congress, so what is it I need to do?
Miranda, this thread is about how reusing ISBNs for updates of the same titles (different covers, etc.) should be handled.If you have purchased a different ISBN for each title and cover update I applaud you and it also means this thread is not for you.
Miriam wrote: " They would need to completely overhaul the database so that more than one record could have the same ISBN "I don't think so. My knowledge of programming is limited, but it seems all they would need to do is change the edits on those fields. Where it is currently editing/disallowing duplicate records it would simply remove that edit and therefore allow them. A change just to the ISBN fields. It would affect the entire database, yes, but not require a programming overhaul of the entire database.
lethe wrote: "Yup. Goodreads is now officially no longer first and foremost for readers, but for authors and publishers (if anyone was still in doubt about that)."Yikes. I have replied to voice my displeasure.
Re #269: Veronica wrote: "My apologies if you've clarified this above, and I'm not understanding. How should I handle a single book that has two different ISBNs? I republished a series, but the old editions/old ISBNs are st..."As author, you can set the default view to whichever edition you like. Here's how: https://www.goodreads.com/help/show/3...
If you are not re-using the same ISBNs, there is no problem at all; the editions will just be combined as usual.
Alexandra wrote: "Miriam wrote: " They would need to completely overhaul the database so that more than one record could have the same ISBN "I don't think so. My knowledge of programming is limited, but it seems a..."
Depends on how they have the database setup and which tables the fields are stored in. As they are unlikely to give us their database schema it is supposition as to how much of the programming would need to be altered (though likely it is not an easy on/off change, otherwise why not change it sooner).
Miriam wrote: " (though likely it is not an easy on/off change, otherwise why not change it sooner). "GR doesn't change a lot of things for their own reasons. Sometimes, sure, it's due to amount of programming effort, but I don't think it's safe to assume it always is.
lethe wrote: "..."The most recent release is usually what authors, publishers (and perhaps readers, but that's debatable) are currently focusing on." (https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...)Yup. Goodreads is now officially no longer first and foremost for readers, but for authors and publishers (if anyone was still in doubt about that)...."
Wow. Just ... wow. What a punch to the gut.
So, I have to ask myself: What am I doing here? I've freely donated hours (days, weeks, months) of my time to ... placating those who don't understand the publishing process, who want to change accepted industry standards rather than educate themselves? So they can sell more books??
I signed on to be a librarian because I was blown away by the magnitude of Otis' dream. I wanted to be a part of that massive, insanely ambitious undertaking. What a fabulous sense of self-actualization! I love working in databases; I love tidy book records; I love helping other authors and readers have orderly book records.
I won't knowingly vandalize a book record. I absolutely won't remove a legitimate ISBN from its edition record.
And working for free to push book sales? Ummm...I don't think so.
Dobby0390 wrote: "lethe wrote: "..."The most recent release is usually what authors, publishers (and perhaps readers, but that's debatable) are currently focusing on." (https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...)Yup..."
right on, this is the final straw for me, my contributions have lessened over the last 6 months or sso but this is pretty much it ! I have just bought Book Collector and in the process of importing all my books there. I want my editions to have the correct data, and the ISBN belongs on the book it was published with and the initial cover it was published with not the newest edition because snowflake SPA keep changing their covers and the book links don't take users to the Amazon page straight away
This site is no longer for readers or book cataloging which is a damn shame
Not me either Dobby0390. I've been here since the really early, cool days. This GR world is filled with Russian bots who seem paid to follow "writers". I used to trust the reviews, now, not so much. And now I can't even trust the ISBN/ASINs.
I didn't necessarily mean all ISBN from a WorldCat record should be included on Goodreads, just the one in the actual book-in-hand. This is a problem with the cataloging in WorldCat; some catalogers don't realize that there are separate subfields to use for the actual book-in-hand and other formats of that book. Many lump them all under the one subfield.What I was suggesting is to just use the ISBN in the book-in-hand, whether it is a duplicate or not, and let the user distinguish which they wanted.
Another observation from years of library cataloging, some publishers (like Harlequin or Silhouette) have reused ISBNs every few years... not on the same title, but on another title. They seem to simply recycle them after a certain number of years. Which causes problems all around, in library cataloging and Goodreads.
Just want to see if I understand this correctly. A few days before this announcement I made three ACE for kindle editions with changed covers of a series. Old edition: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
New edition, ACE: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
According to my understanding of this, I would take the ASIN off the old edition and cut/paste it to the new ACE one?
Is that correct?
I only read page one's comments, so forgive me if I'm repeating something someone else has said. But when it comes to an ISBN on a book I own being a match for the ISBN on some other cover edition on the book, all I do is go to the ISBN match, and then view "All Editions." Then I manually scroll through all of the listed editions (ideally for the same "paperback" or "hardcover") and look for ones that don't have an ISBN listed. Then I compare those covers to mine and, if one matches, then that's the one I put down as having read and shelve as "owned."And if I don't see a match to an existing-in-Goodreads book cover, I add my edition to the database with a note that "my" book is an "alternate cover for ISBN # xxx".
This happened quite a lot with this one series I own. The covers tell you which books have also been written this author and my editions showed different books than the main editions for their ISBNs.
In sum, all I do usually is type in the ISBN or title and if the search result is not my book, I look at All Editions to find my book. And if it's not in there, either, I add it.
So I don't understand why this change necessitates so much discussion. All Editions will still have all of the books, so it really doesn't matter so much which one has the ISBN attached to it.
???
Jen wrote: "All Editions will still have all of the books, so it really doesn't matter so much which one has the ISBN attached to it. "Goodreads thought it mattered and changed the librarian procedure, which now creates a lot more time and work than it used to. Good for you for finding your edition via the all editions page. If the editions were cross-referenced you could find it more easily.
Jen wrote: "So I don't understand why this change necessitates so much discussion. All Editions will still have all of the books, so it really doesn't matter so much which one has the ISBN attached to it."So then why does GR change the procedure if it doesn't matter? This means a lot more work for librarians.
In your example, you would now have to move the ISBN from the old edition to the new one and leave a librarian note on the old edition. Ideally, you would make cross-references so the people who have shelved the old edition will know what happened to the ISBN, and the people who do not have the latest edition will be able to find the older one.
(Good luck finding a non-cross-referenced edition if there are hundreds, which happens a lot with classics.)
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Goodreads thought it mattered and changed the librarian procedure, which now creates a lot more time and work than it used to. Good for you for finding your edition via the all editions page. If the editions were cross-referenced you could find it more easily. "Oh I understand the policy change, I just don't understand why it led to six pages worth of discussion. :-/
Jen wrote: "Oh I understand the policy change, I just don't understand why it led to six pages worth of discussion. :-/"Because others do not understand the policy change.
Jen wrote: "Oh I understand the policy change, I just don't understand why it led to six pages worth of discussion. :-/ "Well, I'm glad you understand the reason behind the change. To many of us it is completely nonsensical. Look on this thread and you will see some of our most active librarians refusing to do these edits any more. Do you think that good for the community? I don't.
lethe wrote: "It is worse, because it involves much more work for the librarian adding the ACE. Suddenly the librarian now has to start researching which edition is the latest and so gets the ISBN, whereas it used to be that the edition already in the system kept the ISBN."No, it doesn't. You're under no obligation as a GR librarian to fix any book information. If you think that updating a book requires you to check which edition should have the ISBN now, well, you should have been making sure it was on the earliest edition previously. All this policy does is makes it OK for any librarian to remove the ISBN from an older edition and move it to a later edition.
If you change data for a book, and don't bother to check whether it should have the ISBN added, who's going to fault you?
lethe wrote: "We are required to. See rivka's original post:
"Going forward, new editions added to Goodreads should adhere to this policy. As you make librarian edits to book records already on Goodreads, you can update the ISBN/ASINs as needed.""
That is quite clearly not the same as saying that you have to research ISBNs for every book you change. If you didn't create the edition, you have no obligation to check the ISBN.
If you did create it, you should add the ISBN if it's the most recent edition with that ISBN—but legally "should" is a long way short of "must".
Derek wrote: "No, it doesn't. You're under no obligation as a GR librarian to fix any book information. If you think that updating a book requires you to check which edition should have the ISBN now, well, you should have been making sure it was on the earliest edition previously. All this policy does is makes it OK for any librarian to remove the ISBN from an older edition and move it to a later edition."That was not the prior policy. The ISBN stayed on the edition that was added first, which may or may not have been the oldest (or newest) edition. The new policy now requires you to research the dates and move the ISBN accordingly.
That is quite clearly not the same as saying that you have to research ISBNs for every book you change. If you didn't create the edition, you have no obligation to check the ISBN.
If you did create it, you should add the ISBN if it's the most recent edition with that ISBN—but legally "should" is a long way short of "must".
Must. You could lose your librarian status if you willing and negligently ignore policy - this one or any policy.
Mark wrote: "I, further, own two books of same ISBN with different titles. Are they to be treated as alternate cover editions, since the content remains unchanged? "Er.... they always have been treated as ACEs. This doesn't change.
Vikarti wrote: "Does this policy mean that if I add new e-book from Litres AND print one arleady exists, ISBN should be moved to e-book edition? "
Definitely! However, no matter what litres.ru says, putting another publisher's ISBN on your release is theft. ISBNs denote not just the book but the publisher.
Jen wrote: "So I don't understand why this change necessitates so much discussion. All Editions will still have all of the books, so it really doesn't matter so much which one has the ISBN attached to it."Exactly. Which one has the ISBN is irrelevant. As long as only one can, it's always going to be wrong in some cases. The bigger complaint is that it makes more work for librarians, and I can only say that it's as much work as you want it to be. Sometimes I put hours into fixing a couple of titles. Other times … not so much. If you add a newer edition, and don't establish that it's the "newest" and so move the ISBN, who's going to fault you? And if you get your librarian privileges revoked because you didn't spend the extra time doing something that doesn't really matter… do you really want to be a GR librarian?
Alexandra wrote: "I don't think so. My knowledge of programming is limited, but it seems all they would need to do is change the edits on those fields. Where it is currently editing/disallowing duplicate records it would simply remove that edit and therefore allow them. "
It's going to be more complicated that that. For instance, any search by ISBN has to permit more than one result, rather than the one that is guaranteed now. However, afaik, that only happens on the same pages that allow title searches, so may not be an issue at all, but I expect there are other situation where it currently expects a single result that could become a set.
Derek wrote: "do you really want to be a GR librarian?"I actually do want to be a GR librarian. Therefore, I will not be doing ACEs. Should I encounter a duplicate ISBN, I will comment and/or leave a librarian note and report in the Book Issues folder for someone else to work it out.
I have read and reread this thread and it keeps my head spinning. Instead of saying that the ISBN should be deleted and THEN ADDED TO the new ACE and that the ISBN belongs legally to the publishler, Why not just say that the ISBN APPLIED TO THE PRODUCT IS THE ONE THAT GOVERNS? This eliminates all legal infringement, confusion regarding selection, dum dee dum of latest edition.... As I pointed out in a previous post, ISBN is not, nor ever has been, a viable unique identifier. Get rid of it altogether!!
Merry wrote: "Keith wrote: "But really, when the DB already is not keyed by ISBN, the continued choice to make ISBN record-unique is, frankly, stupid."Agreed. Surely all that's needed is for the properties of the ISBN/ASIN fields to be changed to allow duplicates?"
FWIW, I restrict my comment to ISBN. ASIN is, and IMO should be, record-unique, because ASIN is owned and administered by Amazon and designed and intended by them to be record-unique as it does (AFAICT) key their database. It was, in fact, their solution to the problem of improperly reused ISBNs.
That said, they don't have to maintain an ASIN for anything that's no longer available if they don't want to, whereas Goodreads does. I do not know if ASIN reuse is a problem or not, though I could see it as a possible issue for ACEs, especially on Kindle.
Derek wrote: "Mark wrote: "I, further, own two books of same ISBN with different titles. Are they to be treated as alternate cover editions, since the content remains unchanged? "Definitely! However, no matter what litres.ru says, putting another publisher's ISBN on your release is theft. ISBNs denote not just the book but the publisher.
There is one small issue: It's not fully clear (at least to me) who EXACTLY publisher is in this situation. As I understood, it's litres.ru in such situations.
Litres's own pages for books says 'rights owner:'.
They sometimes even provide 2 descriptions: their own and 'publishers'. They never specifically say they ARE publisher (even while they can be one for some books).
Example: https://www.litres.ru/dmitriy-rus/igr... (same ISBN on Goodreads - Срыв ) - ЭКСМО / Eksmo listed as publisher on GR, type is hardback).
If Litres.ru is not publisher in GR sense and just seller (like Amazon), this mean that this issue just replaced with another - now we have 2 editions (print and ebook) from same publisher like Eksmo which share ISBNs and it's not possible to get 'ebook' edition from publisher directly).
Adding Google Play Books to the mix makes situation even more confusing - same book on Play Books - https://play.google.com/store/books/d... - see 'Publisher' field - it's Litres(!), thankfully, ISBN is different.
As far as I understood, somebody, (I think it's bot but not 100% sure) imports many major Russian publisher's books on Goodreads as hardbacks.
Litres's ebook sometimes comes later (in 1-2 months) and sometimes comes at some time.
Does new policy mean that if I add ebook edition - I should remove ISBN from Hardback one? As far as I understood it - answer is 'yes, and it would be nice to provide link in Librarian notes field' ?
One more issue. 'One ISBN' issue also happen with piter.com (Russian publisher, usually publish scientific/technical books. Sometimes translations but sometimes originals. Books/ebooks can be bought in different places including their site. All ebooks from their site...share ISBNs with print editions). Here both e-book and print book are published at same time (sometimes it's even cheaper to buy both). Should I add BOTH editions if none present and I have them both on hand?
Which edition should get ISBN? What if have only one of editions and other is on GR? Should I move ISBN?
It would much easier if it will be possible for book records have dublicate ISBNs and site UI will show something like ' there are other editions with same ISBN, most modern one (based on publishing date) is ')
Hi there,If a book with same edition (e.g 1st edition) but two formats (e.g paperback and ebook) which both hold the same ISBN, what I should do?
Thanks
I think this is great. Being a reader also, using the same ISBN for new editions was confusing me too. I hope more improvements will follow.
Thanks all
Sawsan wrote: "I think this is great. Being a reader also, using the same ISBN for new editions was confusing me too. I hope more improvements will follow.
Thanks all"
How is the new policy an improvement? It hasn't made things any less confusing.
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Just to give you guys some feedback how this new rule of moving ASINs are actually interpreted, I spotted someone move an ASIN from an edition imported by Amazon interface to the previously created placeholder edition, rather than requesting a deletion of the duplicate. To me that means the blurb text, the cover art, and edition information now tied to the moved ASIN, are not necessarily the exact same data as the ASIN connected data on Amazon.com. To me this data ID inconsistency is not good practice.
After all those pages of discussion in this post, I hope GR will cancle this new policy. Most of the active librarians refuse it.
I add, edit and find books based on a cardfile system that I keep here, in my house, on paper. I do not have the ISBN number handy when I work with Goodreads. Is this going to be a problem? I normally searched by copyright date under other editions.
Ashby wrote: "I add, edit and find books based on a cardfile system that I keep here, in my house, on paper. I do not have the ISBN number handy when I work with Goodreads. Is this going to be a problem? I norma..."The ISBN or ASIN is the only thing that prevents the same edition being added to the data base multiple times, and many of us search by ISBN/ASIN so yes, it's not good to add books without.
Merry wrote: "There won't be any duplicates, will there? The ISBN and ASIN fields don't allow duplicates. Or did you mean something else?"This entire thread is about ISBN duplicates. You say in this same post that you have created an ACE. Why did you do that? Oh, probably because there was an ISBN duplicate. If not, then there was no reason for an ACE.
Ashby wrote: "I add, edit and find books based on a cardfile system that I keep here, in my house, on paper. I do not have the ISBN number handy when I work with Goodreads. Is this going to be a problem? "Off-topic, but in addition to what Abcdarian says, Goodreads policy is to add the imprint in the
Mark wrote: "As I pointed out in a previous post, ISBN is not, nor ever has been, a viable unique identifier. Get rid of it altogether!! .""
It is supposed to be a unique identifier, by definition. That the system is abused by publishers is not something that Goodreads can control. Therefore, we have to work with it.
Merry wrote: "Er, no. I've created numerous ACEs when there's a new cover for an existing book, only for Kindle editions so far, so ISBN duplicates are irrelevant. I've never come across duplicate ISBNs. How can that happen? Don't the ISBN and ASIN fields need need to contain unique values? "Er, yes. Duplicate means the publisher has duplicated the ISBN/ASIN when publishing another edition. That can happen with a different cover. This is what we are discussing in this thread.
Asteropê wrote: "Just want to see if I understand this correctly. A few days before this announcement I made three ACE for kindle editions with changed covers of a series.Old edition: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
New edition, ACE: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
According to my understanding of this, I would take the ASIN off the old edition and cut/paste it to the new ACE one?
Is that correct?"
Yup, that's correct. Although you have to do it in two stages, as the system doesn't allow for duplicates (so remove ASIN, then re-add ASIN to new cover).
Lots of traffic on this change. This may be something not previously considered:Could this be relaxed to allow multiple instances of ISBNs (one/many-to-many) in lieu of using them as a primary key (one-to-one) and then moving the primary key to another field? I'm assuming a relational database structure like SQL/MySql/OracleDB, etc. for the back-end. Let me know if I'm off-base in my thought process.
Dave wrote: "Lots of traffic on this change. This may be something not previously considered:Could this be relaxed to allow multiple instances of ISBNs (one-to-many) in lieu of using them as a primary key (on..."
Been mentioned many times. I doubt they made the ISBN/ASIN fields the primary key, just that the field does not allow duplicates. I think the primary key is the GR created BookID which appears in the URL.
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"The most recent release is usually what authors, publishers (and perhaps readers, but that's debatable) are currently focusing on." (https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...)
Yup. Goodreads is now officially no longer first and foremost for readers, but for authors and publishers (if anyone was still in doubt about that).
I too will refuse to do any ACEs from now on, and will restrict my editing to my own books.
@Vikarti: yes, that is what this policy means. The ISBN should no longer stay with the original publisher's books, but with the ebook publisher who borrows these ISBNs. It is insane and another example of how badly thought out this policy is.