Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

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Questions (not edit requests) > Is there a reason why there isn't a limit on how many books a librarian can add to a series.

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Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂  | 2302 comments There is a limit of 100 on listopias. I think that would be a good idea for series as well - or even 50.

I'm in the process of removing an imprint entered as a series - 166 books. It is time consuming - & there is now so much to do.


message 2: by Liralen (new)

Liralen | 8223 comments Some series (e.g., comic series—also a lot of children's series like the Baby-Sitters Club, Sweet Valley, etc.) are longer, and asking that three or more librarians work on every series of length would likely be challenging.

If the entire series is invalid, there's a delete link on the series edit page.


Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂  | 2302 comments Liralen wrote: "Some series (e.g., comic series—also a lot of children's series like the Baby-Sitters Club, Sweet Valley, etc.) are longer, and asking that three or more librarians work on every series of length w..."

The thing is if people have added the series information on each title, that has to be deleted. One by One. It takes a lot of time.

I would argue that there are way more series under 50 books, or even 20 books than there are over 50 books.


message 4: by lethe (last edited Jun 05, 2023 04:03AM) (new)

lethe | 16359 comments Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ wrote: "I would argue that there are way more series under 50 books, or even 20 books than there are over 50 books."

I would put that any non-fiction series with over 100 books (or maybe even 50) is not a series according to GR standards, but a publisher's series, or, as GR likes to call it, an imprint.

Also, if a series is invalid, the librarian adding it has put in a lot of work for nothing. (Earlier this week, a non-fiction "series" was deleted that had over 750 volumes.)

One could argue that the librarian should know the GR policy for series, but it is not always that clear-cut.

I am in favour of a maximum number of books that can be added to a series by one librarian. I don't think that is more of a nuisance than it is with Listopias.


Elizabeth (Alaska) Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ wrote: "The thing is if people have added the series information on each title, that has to be deleted. One by One. It takes a lot of time.."

Clearing title information that is incorrect is always a chore.

For A Tale of Two Cities, the word Illustrated appears on 2,994 editions; the word Annotated appears on 1,258 editions. That is just one title.


message 6: by Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ (last edited Jun 07, 2023 02:36PM) (new)

Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂  | 2302 comments Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "
Clearing title information that..."


Very true! & some work (like the examples you gave) there is no solution that I can see.

But this one could make an librarian entering imprints come to this group for help when they get to 51 (or 101) then they could be told that what they are doing isn't a series by Goodreads standards.


message 7: by Liralen (new)

Liralen | 8223 comments To me it seems like extra work either way—either for librarians cleaning up after a (well-intentioned, I'm sure!) librarian inputs an invalid series, or for librarians inputting valid series that somebody else was game to work on but couldn't complete. Perhaps an alternative (if we're talking hypothetical changes anyway!) would be to have a popup on the series-edit page to remind librarians of criteria for series on GR.


Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂  | 2302 comments Liralen wrote: "To me it seems like extra work either way—either for librarians cleaning up after a (well-intentioned, I'm sure!) librarian inputs an invalid series, or for librarians inputting valid series that s..."

It would be a lot less work for librarians removing invalid series if it was 100 (or 50) books rather than over 700. Plus on the present one (166 books) I'm removing invalid books added by the bot.


Elizabeth (Alaska) Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ wrote: "But this one could make an librarian entering imprints come to this group for help when they get to 51 (or 101) then they could be told that what they are doing isn't a series by Goodreads standards."

And I could see the limit being shorter than that for a single session. There are mystery series with more installments than 25, for example, but it would be unlikely that anyone would be creating the series from the beginning.

And back to Tale of Two Cities ... I was trying to console you, but ineffectually. There are so many books with wrong wording in the title. I appreciate your going to the trouble to address these specific series words. There are just so many books with wrong wording in the title. Sometimes the series information in the title is valid, but not in parenthesis and those have to be fixed. And on and on.


Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂  | 2302 comments Thanks Elizabeth. :)

I'm just feeling a bit discouraged.

Another solution would be to have a level between regular librarians & Supers. Not every librarian needs to be able to add series & awards.


message 11: by lethe (new)

lethe | 16359 comments Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Clearing title information that is incorrect is always a chore.

For A Tale of Two Cities, the word Illustrated appears on 2,994 editions; the word Annotated appears on 1,258 editions. That is just one title."


But I bet those are all due to import bots. Series are added by librarians, and diligent ones also add the series information to the title field. It would be nice if they were stopped from doing too much superfluous work.


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