Request to add cover: The Rocketeer

[RM]

Link to scanned image of the cover of the copy I own: https://imgur.com/a/GaQey9k

Also, the title needs fixing in accordance with Goodreads standards-- the correct title is: The Rocketeer Official Movie Souvenir Magazine. Published 1991, edited by Gary Gerani and Russel Hogan.

[Martin]

If it is a magazine I don't think it should be on Goodreads.
See https://help.goodreads.com/s/article/... and https://help.goodreads.com/s/article/...

[RM]

It's in magazine form, but it's really a storybook novelisation: most of it is a summary of the film with still images (as are other storybook novelisations) with a few behind-the-scenes pages. So while its form is a magazine, it is substantively a publication that should be on Goodreads (in my view).

[Martin]

The word 'magazine' is in the title, and it is described as a 'souvenir' rather than a novel. Without an ISBN I would say it is not intended as a book and does not meet Goodreads standards for inclusion.

[RM]

Further to my last: This "magazine" could have been published with a slightly thicker-grade cover and a slightly different cover and been called The Rocketeer Movie Storybook: the content is no different to countless other storybook adaptations which have entries on Goodreads, e.g. the various Star Wars storybooks.

[Martin]

But it wasn't

[RM]

We're having a form v substance debate: just because Disney/Topps decided (no doubt for marketing and distribution reasons) to give this book an ISSN instead of an ISBN and call it a "souvenir magazine" instead of a "storybook", Goodreads would deny it an entry?

The book contains none of the traditional features of a magazine: there are no ads (apart from one on the inside front-cover, for Topps' own products), and there are no "segments" or "sections". Rather, it is a 64-page storybook summary of the film interspersed with a few pages of behind-the-scenes info. If Goodreads has storybook entities, and if it has behind-the-scenes-of-films books, then there's no good reason this should not qualify for its own Goodreads entry.

I agree that there are a lot of actual magazines on Goodreads that shouldn't be here, e.g. cooking magazines, magazines with particular issue numbers/dates etc, individual magazines which are part of larger runs, and one-off magazines which clearly are magazines. But I can attest to the fact that this does not fit into those categories: despite what it calls itself and how it was marketed & distributed, it's clear (at least to me, who owns a copy) that's it's much more book than magazine in substance. Denying it a Goodreads entry solely on the basis that it was marketed & distributed as a mag would be equivalent to, say, allowing a magazine full of ads and sections merely because it describes itself as a "book".

[Martin]

Reading the Goodreads standards I linked above I still don't think it should be in the catalogue.
Standards are not set by librarians, but we are expected to follow them. If you feel the standards are incorrect you could contact site staff.

[RM]

Thanks Martin: I'd suggest this title fits squarely within this "exception" to the non-inclusion of magazines: "Periodicals without ISBNs but substantially similar to books, defined as literary magazines valuably contributing or dedicated to literature, regardless of binding."

But I can also appreciate your position, and in particular the risk for librarians who make the wrong call on these matters.


I'd be grateful if you could point me in the direction of a contact for site staff?

[Martin]

Sorry, but I don't consider a Rocketeer movie souvenir as something 'defined as literary magazines valuably contributing or dedicated to literature'.

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