Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
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ATTN: Jaclyn: Questions about valid and invalid ("non-book") items
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Hi Michael. As another librarian told you in the original thread - https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... - this determination was made by a Goodreads staff member (employee). Librarians are volunteers and cannot modify, change, or reverse a Staff decision. We must adhere to Goodreads policy in our edits or we'll lose our librarian status. To request a change or exception to a policy determination, you must contact Support. Since you've detailed your questions so thoroughly here, you can add "ATTN: Jaclyn" to the subject line of this post to have Jaclyn review it. Jaclyn is a Goodreads employee who moderates the Librarians Group.
Jaclyn: See background/determination discussion here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Dobby,Thank you for your quick and helpful reply and further insight into the important aspects of process and decision-making. I've edited the subject line of this post as you advised. I will also contact support, possibly tomorrow. I certainly wouldn't expect or encourage any librarian to violate policy!
Mod
https://help.goodreads.com/s/article/...
If one is not available then we won't be able to reevaluate the record.
Jaclyn wrote: "Hi Michael. Thanks for your post here. Unfortunately, to make a different ruling on the book we'll need proof that it meets our catalog standards. If you have it available, please provide a valid s..."Jaclyn, thanks for your quick reply. I gave away both books (TWMPMM II and its predecessor, The World's Most Powerful Money Manual), many years ago. I've exhaustively searched online and resources like Internet Archive and WorldCat, and all that I've come up with are that
(1) the first book is on Internet Archive (three search results, including https://archive.org/details/worldsmos... and https://archive.org/details/WorldsMos...),
(2) the first book is on WorldCat with a bit of a garbled listing and incorrect page count (https://search.worldcat.org/title/103...), but actually is available in many libraries, and
(3) the second book is not on Internet Archive and only has an incomplete listing (with an incorrect category) on WorldCat (https://search.worldcat.org/title/549...) and is not in any libraries.
I see that both books have been marked as invalid, which is good for consistency (but several editions of both books still exist on Goodreads that are NOT marked invalid; they should be merged). You may have enough information in WorldCat and archive.org to assess the first book as valid, but since both books are the same in all relevant ways with respect to their validity for Goodreads's purposes, they should either both be invalid or both be valid.
In short, I'm responding to a determination that this book is "invalid," made in this thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
The given reason was that this book appeared to be an example of "DVDs of lectures and any accompanying transcripts/coursebooks, as they are an accessory to the DVD," which is one of the examples of "non-book" items.
This item is not a DVD (or audiocassette) of a lecture or a transcript of a lecture or an accessory to a DVD. It is a physical, substantive, 112-page paperback book. It is listed incorrectly in several places (including WorldCat) as an audiocassette or audiobook. It is neither. The fact that it comes in a package that includes other multimedia material does not cause the book to be "not a book."
I've reviewed the Librarian Manual entry about "non-book items." None of the bullet points applies to this book or its predecessor.
Would you like any further explanation or background, including links? I'm happy to provide any. I didn't want to overwhelm the thread from the outset. Thank you!
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Notes
Before I wrote the above, I had composed a post that became quite lengthy. I've saved that draft for later, if necessary, and rewritten portions of it here for reference:
1. I have no personal or financial interest in whether this book (or its predecessor) is valid or invalid on Goodreads. (You can see from my reviews that I do not think highly of the books.)
2. One of the (now invalid) listings for this book is here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
3. I understand that the available information about this book is confusing and non-standard, given that it has an incomplete (and inaccurate) WorldCat entry, no ISBN, no Amazon listing, and no publisher page or other traditional bookseller visibility online. I sympathize with the librarians because this all makes understanding the nature of the book and how to list it correctly on Goodreads rather difficult.
4. The predecessor book, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... (also incorrectly listed as an audiobook), should have the same validity determination as the book in question. The predecessor is exactly like this book in that it is also a physical, substantive paperback book (268 pages) and that it is the centerpiece of a course that includes multimedia materials such as audiocassettes. Neither book is merely the reproduction of a video or audio lecture nor merely supplemental to a lecture on DVD or audiocassette.
5. The predecessor book can be viewed on Internet Archive, but TWMPMM II cannot be. You can clearly see that the predecessor is a physical, substantive book, here: https://archive.org/details/worldsmos...
6. Either both the predecessor book and this book should be determined to be invalid, OR both should be determined to be valid and should be listed as books, not as courses or audiobooks.