Anthologies Being Deleted from a Series

[Sophie]

Has anyone else seen anthologies being deleted from a series?

As far as I've been able to tell from the forums, anthologies containing a short story should be included in the relevant series... but I've run into several where I've added the anthology, only for it to be deleted.

Am I wrong? Or can someone make a suggestion to help keep the series intact?

More recently I've run into this with The Forest of Hands and Teeth, as well as Outlander, among others.

Thanks for any help.

Sophie
The Forest of Hands and teeth

[Banjomike]

Normally the only rule for adding to a series is that the book being added must be relevant to the series.

If the anthology being removed contains a story which is already included in the series then I would tend to wonder why it was added in the first place. A series page is not usually intended to provide a list of every occurence of every story. There are other places on Goodreads for most of that.

Are the anthologies by the series author or by multiple authors? Is it obvious from the title or from the book page that there is something in the anthology which is related to the series?

One of the anthologies removed from Forest was https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7...
that looks like it fits in the series since it contains a story about Sister Tabitha. But probably not as a primary work. Unless the reader is a completist.

You could add the anthologies and add a note listing the reason for including it.

[Sophie]

Thank you, Skyla, for clarifying what goodreads wants.

Personally I like to know when anthologies contain shorts from other series, but it's sounding like the series page isn't going to be the way to keep track of those.

[Erin *Proud Book Hoarder*]

Fortunately most of my series do contain the anthologies of their series page. I'm surprised it would not be considered standard. I wouldn't think there would be a rule against it and it seems to be the norm. Sorry someone is deleting it when you're doing it.

[Sophie]

Skyla, listing the anthologies in the series description doesn't help readers of the anthology figure out that the stories they're reading are part of a series. That's what I'd like better tracking of, especially since it's already not very explicit in most anthologies.

Also, what do you suggest for when short stories originally part of an anthology are later released as ebook on their own? The anthology should get deleted at that point? Sounds like even more clean up.

[MrsJoseph *grouchy*]

Wow.

This is the exact opposite of what I'd been told in the past.

I've been told that all books/stories within a series should be listed on that series page - including anthologies and omnibus editions.

It's been so long I can't remember what thread and I'm too lazy to look for it.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Skyla wrote: "I was told that if the short story was already listed on the list for the series the anthologies shouldn't be on there too."

This, as well as the variations and almost opposite advice later in this thread are all different librarians' opinions.

Personally, I find it useful to have novellas (but probably not anything shorter) listed as both stand-alone and as part of an anthology when they are published both ways. So that is what I add to a series. Neither as a primary work, of course.

However, we do not have an established policy on this issue that I am aware of.

[Erin *Proud Book Hoarder*]

It's true that these are different opinions (to a degree anyway, I've seen what MrsJoseph has stated on a thread here awhile back too, maybe we're thinking of the same one?), but that doesn't help when librarians who disagree keep deleting the work of others on the series page when it wasn't considered against policy. It seems to be a struggle.

[Erin *Proud Book Hoarder*]

Skyla wrote: "Erin ~ (It's October, time for creepy books) wrote: "A lot of short stories ONLY appear in anthologies so that is why the anthologies appear on the series page. However if the story is released separately from the series from what I've been told, that is the edition that should appear on the series list so that you don't have multiple copies of the same story"

I can understand that reasoning, although it can be tricky depending on the author. How is it decided, and who decides, which anthologies are removed then? Is it by date order, like the earliest published, if two or more anthologies have the same short story?

[Dee]

Rivka - what is the chance of getting a policy established/added to the manual?

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Start a new thread in the Policy & Practices folder. Link back here, and state what you think the policy should be. Discussion ensues, and usually goes on for a few days or weeks, until we can approach consensus.

(Failing consensus, staff will make a decision. But when possible, we like to have as many active and experienced librarians as possible participate and reach a consensus.)

[Sophie]

Thanks, Rivka, for the suggestion; the new thread is here.

I appreciate all the comments from everyone - hopefully we'll get some final clarification soon!