Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
Policies & Practices
>
Reviews on things which are not books
date
newest »
newest »
Cait, Thanks. I'm usually careful but I know that I've made that mistake a few times. Hopefully, I'll run across them again and be able to do that, or maybe these are ones you've found, or others will find.
So how do you shift a user's reviews to the proper edition? Is it by combining the title, and then separating the NOT A BOOK one, or is there a different process?
It's actually a somewhat painful process if the not-a-book had ISBN numbers, Brandy, but I find it rather satisfying. :)1. Combine the not-a-book with the actual book. (If there's a review on the not-a-book indicating which edition the reviewer thought they had, separate out that edition to be combined with the not-a-book; otherwise just combine with all of the actual books, if there are more than one actual book editions.)
2. Note down the not-a-book's ISBN numbers and title.
3. Delete the not-a-book. (You might have to get a superlibrarian to do this if too many people have become confused and shelved the not-a-book.) You'll see a little note at the top saying "Merged [some number of] reviews".
4. Manually create a new book. (The manual add page is here, which I locate fastest via my books, the "add more" link at the end of my shelves, and then the "manually add books" in the sidebar.) Give it the ISBN numbers of the old book, the author NOT A BOOK, and the title NOT A BOOK + the original title. Using the ISBN numbers keeps it from popping back up with the original author the next time goodreads gets data from the amazons.
Mod
Just search for the ISBN. When GR can't find it in its database, it will pull it from Amazon's. Then just edit the author field to NOT A BOOK, and you're good to go.
Ah-hah, I didn't know that -- thanks, Rivka!
Me neither. Oh, is that going to be a time saver for me! Thanks so very much Rivka!!!
Unfortunately, a bunch of people are shelving and reviewing things which they know are not books. Case in point:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18...
What do I do about those?
Ignore it. It's already marked.
Someone recently combined the boardgame Arkham Horror (the fantasy flight games edition) with Call of Cthulhu the story. I am disappointed that all my comments and review no longer make sense. The titles are not even the same....
Looks like they're uncombined once more Jonathan. I went to take a look at it, and it looks alright to me.
thanks for looking, but the newest edition of the game put out by Fantasy Flight has been removed/ combined with Call of Cthulhu the story- this is what shows up on my books in place of where Arkham horror once was. Thanks
Mod
Do we have a master list of things that are considered "NOT A BOOK"? I didn't see anything in the librarian manual.Thanks!!
Rebecca, I don't think there's a master list. There are simply too many NOT A BOOK items. I've found just about every item one could imagine. Most are obviously not books. Were there items you are unsure of whether or not they're books or did you just want to see a "complete" list? If unsure of specific items, feel free to ask.
Lisa, At the moment I'm considering a book of sheet music. It's bound and it has an ISBN number, but I'm still on the fence as to whether it's actually a book.
Rebecca, this thread covers a lot of these questions, especially posts 14 and 15. There are always weird things cropping up though, and I know it's a lot to read. I just thought I would make sure you knew it was there! :-)
JG, Thanks for the link. I know I read some of the later discussion in that thread, but I must have missed Michael's fairly comprehensive list on the first page. That certainly helps.
(Sometimes they're actually reviewing the thing which isn't a book, but I try to give the benefit of the doubt and shift them over to an actual book.)