Best practice for getting started on edit requests posted to the gorup

[Carol]

I'm a new librarian. And I joined so that I could be of general help. So I don't have a pre-arranged list of fixes to work on.

I'd like to get advice from some experienced Librarians on how to get started. What is your methodology for picking up fixes? How do you find new requests in the boards? Do you specialize in certain kinds of fixes?

Just some general responses on how you view and execute your role would be very helpful to me. Thanks in advance for the advice and I look forward to being a Librarian.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

When I first started, I worked on those areas of the book detail that were most important to me. For me, that was page count and original publication date. I could see those titles on my own My Books section that needed attention. Just addressing those two things helped me to become familiar with the layout of the edit page and to feel comfortable making edits.

Gradually, I began to notice other things on those titles that I was editing anyway and looked for the right data to make corrections. I also read threads here, looked for specific language in the librarians manual - because, though I'd read it, I had not retained a lot, so much was new to me. Eventually, I felt comfortable making more changes in more areas. There are still things I'd rather come here to ask for help than do myself and mess up. As my approach was haphazard, it might not work for you, but you'll find your way.

Good luck!

[Debbie's Spurts (D.A.)]

When I was a new librarian, I looked first for easy typo type of fixes—particulalry if some big sisyphus thread requesting "all hands appreciated" started by staff (Rivka).

Pay particular attention to things in the manual that have explicit examples. Usually that means the goodreads database needs it done one way, that other librarians frequently did wrong or found it confusing and needed clarified, or that a jillion requests went against standards.

When in doubt how to do something or if you should do something, just post and another librarian will help you. Keep the manual open in a separate tab or window and keep referring to before making edits until very used to librarian work and keep an eye out on these threads for changes to policy/manual (well, not if just correcting a book description that said "teh girl ran" to say "the girl ran" from a request to fix a typo or because you spotted it).

Once an author claims their goodreads profile, librarians cannot edit. Those requests get answered that you will post over on the "staff merge/fix these" type of threads in this group.

Only librarians can put books in series. Many authors and goodreaders type series name in book titles inside parentheses because that resembles how series names displayed (and once upon a time that worked) — edit those when you run across or as requested so that they really are in a series. Be careful; if series already exists you need to edit the series rather than the book. Series info with thumbnails is very slow to update on the author page (10 minutes to 72 hours usually); if shows correctly on book page and on series page it's fine but just being cached before showing correctly on author page.

When looking for work to do, there are always a kajillion unclaimed author profiles to correct that mistakenly include titles (Dr., Mr., Mrs.,...), initials with spaces between or without periods, nonstandard "Jr." If you want to edit those (for example, use the add book/author to find ones like R Archer, R a Cage R A Moulton needing periods; Dr. Anwar Fazal, Dr. John Hutton, Dr. Robert S. Rosenberg, DO., Dr Alex Nelson, Dr Corey Guyton needing "dr" removed; use the regular goodreads search to look for "/ PhD" and "/ Ph.D." authors [the "/" means to lookup author not title]...) feel free. Sometimes it's a goofy version created by someone adding a book that actually needs to be merged with a goodreads author profile so you'll need to add your own request to the thread asking for staff to merge author profiles.

I followed along requests (you'll want to get familiar with looking at the librarian changelog to help figure out what was done) and asked probably the same old boring questions asked a thousand times anything that was unclear to me in the librarians manual. I looked for request turnaround time and if a lot of librarians were very active so fixing quickly—good time to ask any questions or to say you are working on the request but could someone please doublecheck you when done because you are new. If not a lot of activity and requests seemed to be taking longer, good place to step in and help if you understand how to do according to the librarian manual.

It took me a while to understand ACE rules (and I'm still the last person to ask about mangas). Make sure you understand before removing or overwriting book covers.*

Read the author FAQs at top of this group's home page discussions.

*I bring it up and harp on it because bookcover update or removal requests are very, very, very common and the alternate covers process took me a bit to understand. A quick perusal of discussion threads here show a lot with book cover as subject. (Seldom anything malicious; just that they forget goodreads has book data being used by millions of readers (many of which shelve or otherwise use the book's editions they own) rather than product pages to sell only the most recent edition. They get to overwrite bookcovers and other info on their retailer product pages like at Amazon.com so try to do the same here. Not impossible someone already told "no" will try to sneak one past a newbie librarian.)

Many authors and their agents request things librarians aren't supposed to do. Before overwriting/updating/moving bookcovers or ISBN numbers, please make sure you understand the Alternate Cover Editions (ACE) section of librarians manual and the permitted exceptions to not altering existing covers and ISBN/ASIN data potentially in use by goodreaders—even if Amazon.com allowed author to update on their site. Some readers use the edition they own, not the edition for sale. I'd advise to leave very clear comments/notes in the book data and on the request thread if you think you do have an exception to the rules—and when I was brand new, I always asked another librarian too confirm. Withiut a clear comment/note, other librarians might undo your change just because normally bookcovers and isbn/ASIN don't get changed (exceptions of course if isbn actually had a typo or someone tried to put the isbn13 in the isbn field so that last three digits cut off, bookcover thumbnail wasn't working so you had to fix, etc.)

[Carol]

Thanks D.A.Misses Linda- follow-up question.

Regarding using the normal search function for something like "/PhD"- doing this give me many returns that do not have "PhD" in the author but rather the title. Am I doing it wrong? or is it just the wonky search engine?