Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
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Announcement: Updated Policy on ISBNs and ASINs
Please tell me that no one is removing any editions of any books.
E. wrote: "Hi, the book was republished under a new ISBN and a new cover. I would like to replace the old edition which is removed and no longer available for sale, and the sales page is removed from Amazon a..."This is a discussion thread. For questions about specific books, start a new thread in the Book Issues folder.
While books may be removed from sale, they are never unpublished. Goodreads does not delete published books.
I don't know how to contact a Librarian directly. I am unable to edit the book cover for my title. This is the correct book cover and needs to be added with the correct ISBN. https://www.goodreads.com/photo/work/...
Lisa wrote: "Please tell me that no one is removing any editions of any books."We can only hope.
E. wrote: "I don't know how to contact a Librarian directly. I am unable to edit the book cover for my title. This is the correct book cover and needs to be added with the correct ISBN. https://www.goodreads...."You don't contact librarians directly. Go to the Book Issues folder: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...
Open a new thread for your request. The next available librarian handling these requests will assist you.
Dobby0390 wrote: "E. wrote: "I don't know how to contact a Librarian directly. I am unable to edit the book cover for my title. This is the correct book cover and needs to be added with the correct ISBN. https://www..."Excellent, thank you.
Hello. I imagine it wouldn't mess this up, but I had to ask just in case. Will transferring the ASIN to the new book page I created with the new cover edition transfer the reviews from the old edition over to the new edition? Thanks
B.L. wrote: "Hello. I imagine it wouldn't mess this up, but I had to ask just in case. Will transferring the ASIN to the new book page I created with the new cover edition transfer the reviews from the old edit..."Reviews are per work (which is the "combined" bundle of individual editions comprising it) and not per individual edition.
So, nothing changes there.
Michael wrote: "Reviews are per work (which is the "combined" bundle of individual editions comprising it) and not per individual edition.So, nothing changes there."
I don't think that's correct since I have at least one work of which I have shelved and review two different editions, so reviews must be per edition. So B.L. has a point, but I think it shouldn't mess things up since I guess reviews are connected with the GR book ID, not ISBN for aforementioned reasons. At least I really hope so.
Merry wrote: "I'm gobsmacked that the practice of reusing ISBNs was ever allowed, let alone that it is actually done."Well, it's not generally done from the publisher's point of view. For the most part, they only reuse an ISBN for books with "minor" differences. It would hardly be any better if books that were identical between the covers (and I mean identical: sometimes they release a book with two or more different covers in the same market at the same time) had different ISBNs.
Merry wrote: "I believe it's an issue because Amazon allows authors to (a) re-use an existing ASIN and just replace the cover (and often neglecting to change the publication date)"
And I believe that merely placing a different cover on the same content should never require a new ASIN (or ISBN). When you do that, you haven't changed the publication date. However, iirc, if you do that with an ASIN, there's still only one Kindle edition in Amazon's database. It has a different cover, and if you have the old one on your kindle, one day it will probably automagically change covers. So, if an author wants to have two editions with different covers, they need to use a second ASIN. Which seems perfectly consistent to me.
Merry wrote: " Removing critical (or any, really) data from one record and adding it to another would be the ultimate unthinkable no-no in any other database, and totally violates best practice."
This... I'm tearing my hair out at the moment over a piece of code that's been doing that for years, and trying to figure out the cleanest way to fix it without having to rewrite the whole system. This will come back and bite them. But it's my experience that only experience can teach them...
Merry wrote: "I've just checked and the Change Comment field is marked as mandatory, but is often blank. As stated here, "It has always been a strongly-encouraged rather than actually required field." "
That, too. I confess I rarely fill it in: not because I consciously can't be bothered, but because it's not only not mandatory but it's at the bottom of the form, and on most fields if you hit "Enter", the form submits before you ever even see the Change Comment field! I've called for it to be made mandatory before, and never even had a response, let alone encouragement.
Derek wrote: "Merry wrote: "I've just checked and the Change Comment field is marked as mandatory, but is often blank. As stated here, "It has always been a strongly-encouraged rather than actually required field." "That, too. I confess I rarely fill it in: not because I consciously can't be bothered, but because it's not only not mandatory but it's at the bottom of the form, and on most fields if you hit "Enter", the form submits before you ever even see the Change Comment field! I've called for it to be made mandatory before, and never even had a response, let alone encouragement. "
I must also admit that I rarely use that one. I do a lot of cleaning up book titles and I mostly just hit enter but there's hardly a reason to explain the changes anyway in these cases. The other thing I do a lot is correcting page counts. In most cases, I just correct them and be done with it, but if I see in the log that there has been a lot of going back and forth between page counts (usually when there's additional material), I do quote the first paragraph of the LM on page count in the comment section, though I've never checked whether that helped the count to stay correctly.
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "It is supposed to be a unique identifier, by definition. "Well, yes and no. There are certainly abuses by the publishers, and you're right, we just have to work around those, but it also depends what is considered unique. Publishers have never considered ACEs to be different books (which I would agree with); some consider new editions, with new material content, to be different books (and give them a new ISBN), some consider them the same (I'd say that they're different; but GR has always said they're the same); some consider a new printing with corrected errata but no new material, to be a new edition, others don't.
So most publishers do treat an ISBN as unique: but frequently GR treats various entities with that ISBN as separate editions.
If a book has a different cover, it is a different edition. I want to be able to catalogue the edition with the exact same cover I own.Although change comments are not mandatory (and in some cases do not even register), they are a great help to other librarians in order to determine whether changes are correct.
For example:
- changing or adding the page count - source should be mentioned
- adding a cover - source should be mentioned
- replacing a cover - reason for replacement (very important!) and source should be mentioned
- moving or replacing ISBN or ASIN - reason why should be mentioned
lethe wrote: "For example:- changing or adding the page count - source should be mentioned
- adding a cover - source should be mentioned
- replacing a cover - reason for replacement (very important!) and source should be mentioned
- moving or replacing ISBN or ASIN - reason why should be mentioned "
Yeah, come to think about it, it would be better if especially "major" edits like those you mentioned would require proof. Although in case of page count, for me the only viable source is an edition at hand of either and preferably the librarian or the person requesting. Publishers and Internet sources can't be trusted here since they often stem from publisher info and publishers usually don't count pages according to the GR standard. I'm working for a German publisher and our official count is the actual pages in a book dictated by the print sheet (therefore always divisible by 16). This means, that ads and even empty pages are counted as well.
When I make a book-record edit based on a book I have in front of me, I log the change as "per book in hand." The log is the only way we have of knowing (1) why a change was made and (2) what the source of the information was. A record change with no explanation in the log creates a break in the information path: why was the change made? What was the source? Who knows? Even the librarian who made the change might not remember the justification, especially if they've done hundreds of edits since then.These types of comments provide an audit trail for staff and other librarians:
• Page count: book in hand
• Page count: WorldCat
• Page count: publisher
As you pointed out, publisher counts are notoriously inaccurate, especially the pre-publication counts. So for these examples, I would trust the count for book-in-hand or WorldCat to be more accurate than a publisher-sourced count.
Ellie wrote: "Michael wrote: "Reviews are per work (which is the "combined" bundle of individual editions comprising it) and not per individual edition.So, nothing changes there."
I don't think that's correct since I have at least one work of which I have shelved and review two different editions, so reviews must be per edition. So B.L. has a point, but I think it shouldn't mess things up since I guess reviews are connected with the GR book ID, not ISBN for aforementioned reasons. At least I really hope so. "
Merry wrote: "Reviews are shared across all editions of a book, providing they are combined correctly."
Reviews are actually edition specific, but also shared across all editions. The default view of reviews displays all reviews, across editions, whether or not text is included. But you can narrow down the display, including by edition: "editions: all | this edition". (You can also narrow to only display reviews with text, or to only display reviews with certain star ratings.) This ability/feature is especially useful for audio editions, editions with illustrations, and editions with extra material.
Ellie wrote: "...but I think it shouldn't mess things up since I guess reviews are connected with the GR book ID, not ISBN for aforementioned reasons. At least I really hope so. "Correct, the reviews are connected to the book ID, not the ISBN, as far as I know / have been able to tell. If a Goodreads user switches their edition, though, their review will switch as well.
Hi, I have read the announcement, and have books that need to have the ISBN's updated for clients, but i don't have librarian status - what is the easiest way to get this done? Post in the Librarian group?
Nai wrote: "Hi, I have read the announcement, and have books that need to have the ISBN's updated for clients, but i don't have librarian status - what is the easiest way to get this done? Post in the Librar..."
Yes, you should post in the Book Issues thread.
Thanks for all the feedback, everyone. As we stated in the original post, we carefully weighed the pros and cons before moving forward with this decision, and the policy has been finalized. Librarians who wish to make other edits but not create ACEs are of course welcome to do so, as our volunteer Librarians have always been encouraged to choose which areas they work in and the types of edits they make. However, we will be enforcing this new policy for all newly created ACEs, so please be sure to follow it if you choose to continue working on these edits in order to maintain your Librarian status.
Emily wrote: "Thanks for all the feedback, everyone. As we stated in the original post, we carefully weighed the pros and cons before moving forward with this decision, and the policy has been finalized. Librari..."It never occurred to me this wasn't final. But you've quickly seen that you've alienated a great many of your long time librarians and Update Cover Photo requests are going unfilled.
Emily wrote: "we carefully weighed the pros and cons before moving forward with this decision, and the policy has been finalized."Now there's a surprise. And we are threatened too. Nice!
lethe wrote: "Now there's a surprise. And we are threatened too. Nice!"Hard not to feel the love, isn't it? I feel all warm and fuzzy and cherished.
Wait. No. That's indigestion. Never mind.
Moving right along: I'm curious how GR plans to monitor all the edits being made as a result of the new policy. I've seen an appalling amount of vandalization as editions are being stripped of all data, Librarian Notes and hyperlinks are being deleted, and attempts are being made to remove editions entirely.
When the policy change was announced in the author's group, there was no discussion of the repercussions for vandalizing a record. I suggest that such a caveat be added, along with a definition of what constitutes vandalization and a list of acceptable/not acceptable examples. This is especially apropos for authors with full librarian privileges who already have a history of making against-policy edits. (And yes, those are flagged as they're found. There appears to be a significant backlog of unaddressed flags, however, as the problems continue unabated.)
I'm late to this convo but overall agree with Elizabeth (Alaska) and others that it doesn't especially matter which record an ISBN is attached to, but that links between ACEs should be mandatory.When there aren't ACE links it's a nightmare. Sometimes I go looking for one and then I find an edition with the right image, and the right number of pages, no ISBN... so I just pick that one and hope for the best. It shouldn't be like that.
Someone said a few pages back that this could make it easier to deal with cases where someone changes the cover image on an existing edition, and we're not allowed to change it back, even though it shouldn't have been changed in the first place. (Annoyingly common.) I'm not entirely sure that I understand HOW this will improve that, but if it does, I'll be happy about that at least.
Dobby0390 wrote: "...I'm curious how GR plans to monitor all the edits being made as a result of the new policy. I've seen an appalling amount of vandalization as editions are being stripped of all data, Librarian Notes and hyperlinks are being deleted, and attempts are being made to remove editions entirely...."
We won't know. We aren't privy to that.
It must be so hard for those who have done an amazing job supporting the accuracy of the data to see this happen. To see records "vandalized" and have no control in being able to stop it or confidence that flagging would result in swift or accurate resolution. (i just got a response to a flag marked in Dec and it had already been resolved by someone else in the meantime. Its not quick) In my opinion you have to walk away. You have not been given a voice to set the policies or enforce them. Keep your favorite area tidy and thats it.
We won't know. We aren't privy to that.
It must be so hard for those who have done an amazing job supporting the accuracy of the data to see this happen. To see records "vandalized" and have no control in being able to stop it or confidence that flagging would result in swift or accurate resolution. (i just got a response to a flag marked in Dec and it had already been resolved by someone else in the meantime. Its not quick) In my opinion you have to walk away. You have not been given a voice to set the policies or enforce them. Keep your favorite area tidy and thats it.
Emily wrote: "Thanks for all the feedback, everyone. As we stated in the original post, we carefully weighed the pros and cons before moving forward with this decision, and the policy has been finalized. Librarians who wish to make other edits but not create ACEs are of course welcome to do so, as our volunteer Librarians have always been encouraged to choose which areas they work in and the types of edits they make. However, we will be enforcing this new policy for all newly created ACEs, so please be sure to follow it if you choose to continue working on these edits in order to maintain your Librarian status."Dear Staff, what should librarians do in case publication date is difficult to ascertain? I already mentioned in #185 how it was difficult for one book. I started reading another book yesterday whose cover is not on GR (what's new?) and whose ISBN is taken by a GR record where cover doesn't match. Funnily, this ISBN-record doesn't have pub date on GR. I searched with that ISBN on several Amazon sites and several versions of publisher website but none of those have the cover matching GR record (or my book-in-hand). My book says it was originally printed in 2000 with 6th impression in 2015. The cover I have could have been used any time between 2000 and 2015. The cover on GR could have been used any time between 2000 and 2013 (when the record was added).
If I move the ISBN to my edition and mark pub date as 2015, someone may find later that my cover was available from 2007 (say) itself while original GR cover was published in 2010 - in which case my ISBN edit would be against policy. If I don't move the ISBN to my edition, someone may find later that GR cover was originally published in 2011 while my cover was first printed in 2013 (say) - in which case my lack of ISBN edit would be against policy. Between the devil and the deep sea eh :-)
I'm waiting to hear from staff before I create a new record with my scanned cover and mark it as "Currently Reading".
PS
Previously, librarians used to mark publication date as the latest date plausible in case it's not known when exactly the cover was changed. With this new policy now we poor voluntary librarians are forced to research a lot and still fear when we may lose our privileges in these scenarios where pub date is not easy to find.
Michael wrote: "If I move the ISBN to my edition and mark pub date as 2015, someone may find later that my cover was available from 2007 (say) itself while original GR cover was published in 2010 - in which case my ISBN edit would be against policy. If I don't move the ISBN to my edition, someone may find later that GR cover was originally published in 2011 while my cover was first printed in 2013 (say) - in which case my lack of ISBN edit would be against policy. Between the devil and the deep sea eh :-)"Yes. There are so many questions about how to act in particular situations that are still left unanswered (read this thread, staff). Questions that I'm sure were never even considered when this new policy was concocted. It should have been limited to cases of GR authors requesting updates of their covers.
After Emily's threat, librarians* still willing to do ACEs must be either very brave or very stupid.
*because only librarians (and authors with librarian rights) will be able to add ACEs now. Non-librarian users will have to ask here, if they want to have their edition added properly. Except that many won't. They will just leave the ISBN field open (or change a digit in the ISBN in order to get it to save) and a librarian will have to do the research later, when they come across such editions. Another point that was brought up but has not been addressed by staff.
I wasn't going to comment on this thread because you could count the number of ACEs I've done on one hand.But we have gone from Rivka's "We understand that this is a significant change from how we’ve handled book records in the past and that it may take some time to adjust."
to
"However, we will be enforcing this new policy for all newly created ACEs, so please be sure to follow it if you choose to continue working on these edits in order to maintain your Librarian status. "
Does that mean there will be no period of grace while everyone adapts to these changes? So if I did a few ACEs tomorrow, bungled it & someone flagged them in 2 years - boom - librarian status gone?
Michael wrote: "My book says it was originally printed in 2000 with 6th impression in 2015. The cover I have could have been used any time between 2000 and 2015. The cover on GR could have been used any time between 2000 and 2013 (when the record was added)."I think from now on we should be allowed to add the print numbers even when there is a year of publication (somebody else also brought that up upthread). It would make it a little easier to determine which cover came first (provided the right cover was added for the edition).
Carol Clouds ꧁꧂ wrote: "I wasn't going to comment on this thread because you could count the number of ACEs I've done on one hand.But we have gone from Rivka's "We understand that this is a significant change from how w..."
Yes, rather a change in tone between the two, isn't it.
Emily wrote: "However, we will be enforcing this new policy for all newly created ACEs, so please be sure to follow it if you choose to continue working on these edits in order to maintain your Librarian status."Not going to add any ACEs if I can help it but I most certainly have a couple of books myself for which I will have to create one if I want my GR shelves to match my real shelves. Since I have the feeling that we can never be 100% sure whether it's actually the newest edition, are we save from getting our librarian status revoked if we provide a sort of disclaimer in the change comment field that we have researched it to the best of our knowledge and belief considering the info accessible at that moment in time? Just so we can later on prove that we did try, that it wasn't just an arbitrary edit?
Ellie wrote: "Not going to add any ACEs if I can help it but I most certainly have a couple of books myself for which I will have to create one if I want my GR shelves to match my real shelves. Since I have the feeling that we can never be 100% sure whether it's actually the newest edition, are we save from getting our librarian status revoked if we provide a sort of disclaimer in the change comment field that we have researched it to the best of our knowledge and belief considering the info accessible at that moment in time? Just so we can later on prove that we did try, that it wasn't just an arbitrary edit?"+1
lethe wrote: "They will just leave the ISBN field open (or change a digit in the ISBN in order to get it to save) "Have you done that? I'm pretty sure it's not possible. It would of course be a policy violation to deliberately put in a wrong ISBN to test it, but I'm sure I've been told before that an ISBN I entered was invalid. As long as they're using the check algorithm, you'd have to change two digits to get it to save. And it's not blindingly obvious what you'd have to change the second digit to unless you have the algorithm memorized.
I am afraid that you do get an alert that the ISBN you entered is invalid, but the record gets saved anyway.
Derek wrote: "Why am I not surprised...?"And actually GR authors and some clueless users do it all the time (I came across some really weird "ASIN" in january and it took me hours to fix - once
it was the ASIN starting normal and then putting the initials of the author as last 3 digits - and it wasn't even a different edition but just one already in the system with correct ASIN...)
You only get a yellow warning "this ISBN may be invalid" but it does save -that is needed at the moment as the nook IDs starting with 294 which belong into ISBN13 field do also trigger that warning because they are seen as invalid ISBN at the moment :(
Merry wrote: "I believe changing the cover constitutes an actual change of edition and therefore the publication date needs to be changed."You're free to believe what you want, of course, but to most publishers, alternate covers are not new editions. And since they very often release an edition with two covers, at the same time, you could hardly change the publication date, anyway.
Not sure what your "we wish" was about. If you don't disable Kindle's automatic updates, when a Kindle e-book is changed, whether it's the cover, fixing errata, or a complete new edition, Amazon will update the book in your Kindle. As for listing multiple editions of Kindle books, if it has a different ASIN, it's a different book as far as Amazon is concerned. You can find them out there...
Michael wrote: "Dear Staff, what should librarians do in case publication date is difficult to ascertain? I already mentioned in #185 how it was difficult for one book. I started reading another book yesterday whose cover is not on GR (what's new?) and whose ISBN is taken by a GR record where cover doesn't match. (and more)"Michael, what I intend to do should I stumble upon editions in your example/question is to leave a librarian note, and then immediately post in the Book Covers folder that an ACE needs to be added but that I had not done the research to determine where the ISBN goes. Then staff can figure it out. I say staff, because it looks as if they will be the ones doing these.
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Michael, what I intend to do should I stumble upon editions in your example/question is to leave a librarian note, and then immediately post in the Book Covers folder that an ACE needs to be added but that I had not done the research to determine where the ISBN goes. Then staff can figure it out. I say staff, because it looks as if they will be the ones doing these."That is what I've been contemplating, as well. In my experience, staff don't lose their position for making wrong edits.
Merry wrote: "Derek wrote: "Merry wrote: "You're free to believe what you want, of course, but to ..."So are you :).
It appears that you've taken some of what I've said, which was meant to be lighthearted, to..."
Depends on how much of a change will be made as to if the records auto update or not. General rule (though not always) is if it doesn't affect bookmarks within the book, it is available for automatic updates. If the contents changed enough to affect the bookmarks, then it requires a manual update.
Do duplicate ISBNs occur on amazon.com, or are they also unique? If unique, are they always associated with the newest edition?
Merry wrote: "It appears that you've taken some of what I've said, which was meant to be lighthearted, too seriously and thus the wrong way."Not at all, just a little confused about what your comment meant. "Automagical" is a genuine technical geek term for software that does things that are not necessarily desired and almost certainly not understood: "(of a usually complicated technical or computer process) done, operating, or happening in a way that is hidden from or not understood by the user, and in that sense, apparently “magical”"
But my point about whether an ACE was a new edition is that you can certainly treat it that way, and GR definitely does, but publishers never have if that's all that changes.
This is the industry standard regarding change of cover: (from https://www.isbn.org/faqs_isbn_changes)If changing the cover of a book, does a new ISBN have to be assigned?
US practice is if the book is just out or the idea is to give a marketing boost to the product, then no, a new ISBN should not be assigned. However, if the change in cover substantially changes the product (ie., would lead to customer complaints), then a new ISBN should be used.
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "However, if the change in cover substantially changes the product (ie., would lead to customer complaints), then a new ISBN should be used."That is pretty vague. How would they know beforehand? And what does it matter to customers which ISBN a book has, so long as they can buy it with the cover they want?
lethe wrote: "That is pretty vague. How would they know beforehand? And what does it matter to customers which ISBN a book has, so long as they can buy it with the cover they want? "I don't disagree. There have been comments that publishers do this or that regarding re-using ISBNs, so I thought I'd post the one paragraph I found regarding covers and re-using ISBNs. That publishers can legitimately re-use ISBNs is what has caused GR to even need to have ACEs in the first place.
Mod
And as with any edit, commenting in the change comment field and/or leaving a Note are advisable -- especially if there is information you are estimating that should be corrected if better information becomes available.
As with any edit, there is a major difference between an error made in good faith, and deliberately ignoring the new policy. Again, commenting in the change comment field and/or leaving a Note are advisable.
rivka wrote: "we suggest confirming that the edition you are adding (or editing) is the one with the newest cover by checking Amazon and the publisher's site."I take it "checking Amazon" means checking the edition that Amazon itself offers, not the editions that are offered by third-party vendors? Because those are not necessarily the latest editions.
(So in the example of Turtle Diary (https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...), I would not have to add the green cover offered on Amazon as the latest edition, because it is from a third-party vendor and the publishing date is not clear?)
Mod
For questions about individual books, please start new threads in Book Issues or Policies & Procedures, as seems more appropriate for your specific question.
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rivka wrote: "Hi everyone,
We’re implementing a policy change to how we record ISBNs and ASINs. As you all know, we have required that a book’s ISBN/ASIN remain with the original edition. If a subsequent editio..."