Which language for publishing company?

[Mark]

When entering this book's data, I found the publishing company to be listed both in English as CITIC Press Group and in Chinese as 中华出版集团.

As both refer to the same entity (https://www.citicpub.com/details/2161...), is the choice a matter of preference, or should it match the language the book was published in?

[Emily]

If both are listed in the book, I would put them in the order in which they appear in the book, like this:
Chinese Name / English Name
depending on which is first.

However, this book's ISBN indicates an English edition on Worldcat and Amazon, with the title "Welcome." Do you have the book? Sometimes ISBNs are re-used.

[Mark]

Thanks, Emily. They don't appear in an order. On the copyright page, it's written CITIC Press Group, and on the cover page, it's written in characters. I suppose the order, then, doesn't matter? Though Chinese / English would make more sense considering intended audience. I'll include both in the future.

Is the ISBN in reference to the other question I have open on this book? Because there's a conflict with its box set as sold in in China:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Volumes-Pict...

I don't know if the ISBN was used for each of the six volumes in the set as well as the set itself, or what. I checked it out from the library. I could probably hunt down other volumes.

I do have the book, currently.

[Emily]

Mark wrote: "Is the ISBN in reference to the other question I have open on this book? Because there's a conflict with its box set as sold in in China:."

If it is a 6-volume set meant to be sold together then we would only want the one Goodreads entry.
While some of these may be sold individually, this particular edition of "Welcome" would be part of the box set, in my opinion.

[Mark]

So, I've got that same response from a moderator on another thread about this book's cover (sorry, I separated the three issues) and I'd like to see if I can suggest something different.

From a retail standpoint, it does make sense that the ISBN would be the final word in identifying a product. However, living in China, I see a lot of sets/bundles that are nothing more than six books shrinkwrapped together. There's nothing indicating the books they contain on the packaging itself or as listed on the website.

For example, even the Amazon UK page for the bundle only lists the author's name after it's first translated to characters, then to pinyin:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Volumes-Pict...

That means there's nothing to connect the author to their work. In this case, Barroux translates to 巴胡 which become Bahu in pinyin. When you click the Bahu link on the Amazon page, it pulls searches for Bahu, no Barroux.

Further, the name of the bundle is only the name of one of the six books within, each of which is a different translated work by a different author. And, at least with the book this thread's about, I can't find another translation. So if only one Goodreads entry is allowed for the title that was given the ISBN, then no one's going to know there's a Chinese language translation of the other five books.

I suspect this is a pretty big issue as the Amazon example is how it's listed on Chinese sites as well (transliterated name, no individual title listings). Those retail sites are often very clunky in their design, and sets of translated works are very common. I've also had very little luck finding anything but very recent publications on publishers' sites. However, in public libraries, these sets are split up and each title entered individually into the system.

Since Goodreads is not a retail site and attempts to emulate an online library so that users can find books, and since the only translation of this book is in a set that will otherwise be lost, I would like to request a way of entering this book separately. Perhaps two items with the same ISBN can be cleared on a case-by-case basis? And/or, perhaps the ISBN can be left blank and the name of that book's set parenthetically appended to the title, like with series entries? It just seems like a waste otherwise.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Your suggestion has been noted, but we have no current plans to change this policy.

[Mark]

Thanks, rivka! Maybe next time you can just say that, instead of issuing the same response three times without further commentary. At least I know now Goodreads is deliberate with its issues and not left to bots.