Adding new books - proof of ID and attributes

[albie_of_nonfic]

Hi

I have been a librarian for some time and am thinking about helping out by actioning some of the requests in the Adding New Books and Editions folder. I am familiar with adding or editing books - I often do it for myself - but am looking for clarification before I start. Apologies if these questions are answered elsewhere (and pls tell me where, if they are).

1. Proof of ID.
From looking at a few posts, I gather that some kind of proof of book ID (scan of the colophon page) is required. There is no mention of this anywhere on the Goodreads Librarians Group that I can see, and the word 'colophon' does not appear anywhere in the Librarians Manual. Is this compulsory?

2. Mandatory information.
According to the 'How to request a book to be added to Goodreads' locked post on the Adding page, books require certain attributes (title, author, ISBN/ASIN, publisher, etc.). In reality, there are thousands of books on Goodreads missing one or more of these things. There are also many requests with many of these things missing; some are just title, author and ISBN (or just title and author). Apart from title (obviously), which attributes are mandatory for new books? Is it OK to add books with incomplete attributes, or should I ignore requests that are missing some details?

Again, apologies if I should know the answers to these questions.

[Renske]

I think it is good you bring this up as some practises have changed over time without being official policies.

For the second point, in my opinion this is about the difference between not providing available information versus mentioning something isn't available, like a book published without ISBN.
Some people seem to expect that librarians will find all other information if they just provide a title or ISBN.

[Emily]

1. It is not compulsory. Some librarians and non-librarians reply to Add a New Book posts by asking for photos of the cover and relevant pages if a valid website with all of the information cannot be provided. However, users' images are not necessarily required for every request.

For example, sometimes the author provides all of their details, but the book hasn't been printed yet or the author doesn't have a website, so the person reading the post won't add it. That is their preference, but it can be interpreted in the post as "this is not valid to add to Goodreads" when that is not the case.

2. To follow what Renske said above, if a librarian wants to add a book based on incomplete information in the post, and the librarian finds the information from valid sources elsewhere, that's allowed, and you do not have to avoid those posts. Most people do for efficiency's sake.

[albie_of_nonfic]

Right. Thanks both.

On point 2, I can see why a lot of requests missing details get bypassed / ignored. If people want a book added, the least they can do is provide the details, imo. Especially if they have the book in their hand.

Also:

3. Sources of images.
Some posters put cover images on PostImage or similar sites, making it impossible to tell where the original image came from. Is it mandatory for them to provide a link to the original site, to prove it is an acceptable source? (if they claim to have scanned it themselves, I am just going to have to take their word for it).

[Martin]

#3 we always need to know the source, if it is online they should provide a link to the source so we can check details. If it is their own scan/photo they can link direct to an image and tell us what the source is - I prefer to see an image of colophon as well as quite a few submitters dont realise that a different ISBN or publication date matter.

[albie_of_nonfic]

Back yet again, with another (probably dumb) question:

4. ISBNs.
When adding books (started today), I have taken the precaution of checking the ISBN in the isbnsearch.org website. If this confirms the ISBN is correct, I have proceeded, but many ISBNs quoted by requesters do not show up there. I can understand books published this year not having added to the site yet, but surely books published years ago should be on there - and some are not. How definitive is isbnsearch.org? Is absence of proof here a sign that the poster's request details are incorrect, or is isbnsearch.org very incomplete (I have also checked ISBNs on ABE Books and found some that do not appear on isbnsearch.org)?

Again, sorry for clogging this page up, but I don't want to add things that are wrong...

[Javier]

The website isbnsearch.org is not on the list of acceptable sources so I wouldn't take it as authoritative. For this reason, we cannot use it as source for covers or book data either.

If the ISBN can be verified on any acceptable source (Amazon, Abe, publisher, WorldCat, scans/photos of users' copies, etc.), it is ok to add it to the database.