Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
Policies & Practices
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book descriptions reading more like book advertisements
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The ones that irritate me are audio book descriptions from Playaway or Mobi--long paragraphs of self promotion and a listing of everything they offer and a little tiny description somewhere in the middle of the dross (maybe).I don't dislike NYT descriptions since I read the NYT Book Review anyway -- just have to keep in mind the occasionally obvious political bias. But for the most part, they are adequate.
And I agree that some description is better than none at all; again, you just have to filter it accordingly in your mind.
As I said in the other post, this is a silly conversation IMO. No librarian should be able to delete an entire description (or whatever you'd like to call it - I don't care) because of a personal opinion.In that thinking it would be okay for me (as a librarian) to go to all of your books Michael, that you think have fine descriptions, and delete said descriptions. Because I don't agree with them. How would that be okay? It's complete nonsense.
I somewhat see where you're coming from but not many things in life are perfect and if you ask me, GR is about as perfect as anything can get.
This is nitpicking and there are better things to do with available time - for example finding things that would actually help GR instead of hurting it.
It's not my job to give out librarian status but I can say this - there would be no way I'd approve you after hearing what you want to do with that status.
♥Eva♥ wrote: "As I said in the other post, this is a silly conversation IMO. No librarian should be able to delete an entire description (or whatever you'd like to call it - I don't care) because of a personal o..."I think calling a person's opinion "silly" is offensive. I happen to agree with the poster that "book description" should tell us what the book is about, not how much Peron X loves the book. No one has said anything about out-right deleting descriptions, but if a description is simply a random book review imported from Amazon, it should be replaced with a neutral book blurb that gives a person an idea of what the book is about.
Actually, he most certainly did say what I said he said, in another post or this one, I forget. But, to be quite honest with, I don't care if you think what I said is offensive. I said my thoughts and they'll stay my thoughts regardless of what you - or anyone else - thinks. It's silly. Now, you can feel free to continue on with your tirade about me being offensive or carry on with other things but as I've said my piece, like I already said, I'm now finished. I hope you have fun with it!
Michael wrote: "I'll write a greasemonkey script to compare the description of a book to what appears on amazon and remove the description on the GR page if they match. Problem solved."Michael, I think that what people are taking issue with is the fact that you state things like this. Rather than saying that you'll EDIT the description, you use the word "remove", which implies that there will be nothing left in its place. If you want to contribute to reducing the advertising or whatnot in descriptions, then you must change them, not just remove them. It is not for any librarian to decide that the users of Goodreads would be better to go elsewhere to find a book description simply to avoid hyperbole.
Part of being a librarian is making the site more useful to the user base at large. Removing any and all descriptions that match Amazon's will not improve the site, in my opinion, nor make it easier for the majority of people to use the site.
I agree with your philosophy in general, but I disagree with how you suggest going about making a change here.
Okay, Michael, I'll bite your critique of publishers' book summaries:Who do you think is capable of giving a truly unbiased description of a book? The author who wrote it? The publisher who wants you to buy it? The reader who loved it? The reader who hated it? The person who flipped through it in the library and decided not to read it? The professor whose job it is to teach from it? Everyone has a bias, and it's hypocritical to pretend we don't. I'd prefer to know from whence the bias comes when reading a description, and having it come from the people who produced the book makes it clear and simple.
Furthermore, I find value in knowing how an author (and the people working with an author) want to present their book in a short form. The packaging of the book -- cover, blurb, and all the rest -- is part of the book and part of what I'm taking in when I read the book. Should we remove covers from the database as well, because it biases us toward publishing houses who can employ good artists and designers? No, of course not: because the cover is part of the book. So, too, the blurb is part of the book.
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rivka wrote: "Becky, while I agree with you on his attitude, I think (I hope!) that he is talking about a script that would only affect what HE sees, not what is on GR for everyone else to see. At least, that's how Greasemonkey is primarily used -- to personalize a user's view of sites."Ahh... Let's hope that's the case then!
I'm an author and a copyright hawk, and I'm not sure that I have understood Michael's points. I'm concerned about what might be meant by "edit" and "rewrite" any book summary (Lobstergirl. Message #2).
Posting a dust jacket or back cover blurb in its entirity with proper attribution is certainly fair use.
I wonder, should GoodReads be concerned about the legal and copyright implications of being "free to edit or rewrite any book summary" if that book summary is copied from the back of the book?
Doesn't editing/rewriting smack of more than censorship? Does it become plagiarism?
My opinion is that librarians should either write their own, original descriptions, or they should use the publishers' description as written, with proper attribution (and a link to the original).
Or, if an excerpt is used, the excerpt should be as written, with attribution, and punctuation should be used to clearly indicate that this is a partial quote, and there should be a link to the original text.
Rowena wrote: "...or they should use the publishers' description as written, with proper attribution (and a link to the original)."Regarding attribution: We don't link to publishers' websites unless they provide additional information about the book which is not included in the catalog record (excerpts or multimedia are pretty much the only reasons). The entire book is already attributed to the publisher via the "publisher" field; there's no need to further attribute each separate piece.
As for editing the text provided, I would expect that librarians are either excerpting it without changing the meaning or rewriting it entirely, and that in either case it's because the text was clearly incorrect. For example, I often create the default description for a book by taking the description from the most popular edition and removing all of the edition-specific information from it. It's my understanding that that continues to be a legitimate use of the text in question, although I can't find any legal resources to confirm this -- does anyone have any?
I understand Michael's point of view, but can't agree with his conclusions.Michael, are you suggesting that I and other GR users are incapable of differentiating hyperbole and genuine description?
EVERYONE has a point of view; reviewer, reader, author, everyone. I can't imagine where one could find absolutely neutral reviews of anything from automobiles to books; do you have such a source? I read BookMarks, NYT Book Review, newspaper reviews, GR reviews, magazine reviews (even People sometimes) and listen to my friends. Each has a different point of view. It's my responsibility has an adult of presumed reasonable intelligence to deal with each point of view and find a conclusion that works for ME (and it would not be the same one that works for you, probably).
As to your suggestion that Librarians edit every review to remove such bias, do you have any idea how many edits that would be? And new entries from B&N and Amazon presumably being added every day. I suggest that this would be a physical impossibility, not to mention that to edit is to impose the editor's own bias.
As I said earlier, I hate the blatant ads from Playaway or Mobi and others and that stuff could be eliminated when encountered by any Librarian to the general good, but to suppose that every summary from the back of a book jacket can be "unbiased" bu editing is impractical, to say the least.
Give people a little credit for intellect and discernment.
If someone is incapable of filtering out the crap, they probably aren't that picky anyway.
Sorry for the rant.
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MissJessie wrote: "Give people a little credit for intellect and discernment.If someone is incapable of filtering out the crap, they probably aren't that picky anyway. "
Amen.
Frankly, I like the description to match what I would see on the cover of the book when I'm in the bookstore. If it's nothing but a bunch of hyperbolic quotes, I'm quite likely to pass. That tells me almost as much as a blurb telling me a bit about the story. Not all publishers are good with blurbs. Some will just use a bunch of quotes from professional reviews and famous authors. Some will include a description that spoils the story. Some will print a description that ends up sounding like a completely different story. (I have a copy of
To Kill a Mockingbird that has a blurb saying it's about a rape.) I think its really, really difficult to come up with a good description and we should just let the publishers describe it the way they want. Of course, they're going to come up with a blurb that will sell books. They'd be foolish if they didn't.
I use a combination of the description and GR member reviews when selecting books.
Rowena, out of curiosity, what about cases where the description on the cover/dust jacket is outright incorrect? It's not necessarily that common, but I do stumble across books here and there who's "official" description on the back cover or dust jacket is just outright wrong. The book jacket of the version of Foucault's Pendulum that I read had half the plot wrong and the order/cause-effect of many of the "correct" points in completely the wrong order. (The jacket essentially said "X led to Y" when X didn't occur in the story until years after Y).I've noticed that Thorndike Large Print books are particularly bad with respect to back cover descriptions for some reason.
Hi, This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For.I agree with the readers who prefer that the official Goodreads description matches what is on the back cover of a book.
It seems fairer to the author/publisher to tolerate the occasional incorrect but official back cover blurb. If they published it, they at least must be satisfied with it.
I assume that GoodReads reviewers would be able to comment on the description.
That seems safer than relying on a volunteer.
There are amateur --and even professional reviewers-- who write astoundingly inaccurate reviews, no doubt with the best of intentions. Sometimes, one wonders whether they were reading several books at the same time and got them mixed up.
Generally, if they write something that is outright wrong (as you say), the author has no recourse at all.
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Oh, definitely.
Abigail wrote: "I can see not wanting users to edit wily-nily, based on opinions, but counter-to-fact blurbs should be edited as well."
Completely agree on both points.
Indeed -- the entire philosophy of the GR librarians is, after all, that nothing's safer than having lots of volunteers...!
I have been known to edit descriptions for typos, inaccuracies, and especially for reviews. The field is called 'Description' not 'Review'.And who is a Goodreads Reviewer?
'We the collective librarians of GR are here to provide accurate information to the masses not to promote our opinions', sorry got carried away there...
The vast majority of librarians do an excellent job and as Cait said 'nothing's safer than having lots of volunteers...!'
Disclaimer: My comments are based on the assumption that we are talking about an official, GoodReads (Librarian uploaded) Description of the book, not on the personal precis that often precedes a review.I've been thinking further about Not...Michael's example. I do not mean to suggest that Not...Michael is anything other than a careful reader of every word in any book he reads.
But let me play Devil's Advocate on behalf of the author or publisher of a poorly written back cover.
"The book jacket of the version of Foucault's Pendulum that I read had half the plot wrong and the order/cause-effect of many of the "correct" points in completely the wrong order. (The jacket essentially said "X led to Y" when X didn't occur in the story until years after Y)."
What if the book was a clumsy mystery, and X (which really did lead to Y) was only revealed to the reader many pages after Y? And X was only revealed to a main character in the book many years after Y?
Not...Michael says that there are many other inaccuracies in the book, so my argument may not apply to this book. My point is simply that readers are not incapable of misreading or missing a point.
However, which is more helpful to the prospective reader? A badly written, inaccurate-seeming but ultimately correct book description? Or a well written but inaccurate book description?
Sandra wrote: "....And who is a Goodreads Reviewer?
'We the collective lib..."
Hi, Sandra,
By GoodReads reviewers (I used lower case and plural) I meant members of this book-related, social networking site who take the time to not only write reviews of the books they read, but to check out and comment on other members' reviews.
I apologize for any unintentional offense given.
I assume that anyone may comment on anything --including book descriptions-- and that may not be the case.
Cait wrote: "Indeed -- the entire philosophy of the GR librarians is, after all, that nothing's safer than having lots of volunteers...!"Hear, hear!
Cait, are you suggesting that there should be --or is-- a committee of volunteers to approve every edited or rewritten description of every book?
If several librarians check the same book and agree on the inaccuracies and typos to be removed from the description, then I withdraw my concerns expressed in #15 and #21
How could anyone possibly have the time? I should have thought that was impractical, which is why I favor "If in doubt, don't" as regards rewriting and editing back cover blurb.
Are typos in the official back cover description informative?If I read a back cover description and notice that it contains typos, I take warning that the rest of the book may also contain typos.
Since sloppy typing/editing upset me after a while, I'd know not to buy that book.
If someone cleans up the description, they potentially deprive me of one of my filters.
Where back cover blurb is used, I'd personally prefer it left "as is".
Rowena, Hi (I have a couple of your books, though am yet to read them),I think you are confusing reviewers with librarians.
Typos often come from Amazon and are not always the fault of the book or publisher. I don't think that many librarians would 'rewrite' a blurb, we just don't have the time or energy to do that, we just generally fix blatant mistakes.
It is the librarians 'job' to fix things like that.
It is the reviewers 'job' to give opinions on what they thought of the book in the appropriate place. Not the description field.
I don't see how anyone could ever be certain that a typo in a GoodReads description was a literal rendition of the back of the book or just computer/input error. I'm on the side of making descriptions as factual and error-free as possible. In the genre I mostly read back of the book descriptions can be surprisingly inaccurate. There is value to having the original description however, because sometimes they can help people remember an old book. I was advised to use as much of the original as possible but change as necessary to eliminate spoilers and inaccuracies and that still seems like good advice to me.
Abigail wrote: "Rowena: you never addressed the example I gave - the inclusion of additional information that is not part of the publisher blurb. Are you opposed to that as well?"Hi, Abigail,
I beg your pardon for not addressing the inclusion of additional information.
All I wanted to do was interject another perspective on a discussion that caught my attention in the Feedback group in the hope of being helpful.
I haven't read any of the descriptions that are being discussed, and I'm not a volunteer, either, so I don't feel entitled to oppose or approve.
In general terms, my view is that a "description" should be a description, and not a partial review that is given greater weight than any other reader's review.
I do think that if the official back cover copy is used, it ought to be indented or punctuated as quoted text, or otherwise clearly identified as the back cover copy.
I cannot see any objection to the addition of other factual information... number of pages, formats available, genre and subgenre, "tags", some kind of PG-13 (or R or G or SLV) rating.
It would be nice if "Comments" could be enabled, or reply/flag functionality.
Sandra wrote: "Rowena, Hi (I have a couple of your books, though am yet to read them),I think you are confusing reviewers with librarians.
Typos often come from Amazon and are not always the fault of the book..."
Sandra,
I concede that I may very well be confusing reviewers with librarians, and apologize for my confusion.
I'm accustomed to reviewers who spend the first three or four paragraphs of their review in giving a summary in their own words of what they think the story is about.
Then they add a couple of paragraphs of their opinion of the plot, writing, etc etc.
From some of the comments in this thread, I inferred that some librarians may be writing their own descriptions in their own words of what they think a story is about.
I inferred this from Message #2 And, as the manual says, you are free to edit or rewrite any book summary that you find too opinionated.
Here is the information about editing the description from the current version of the librarian manual:The description field is for entering a summary of the work. The best description to enter is one found on the back cover or on the dust jacket of the book. If the book does not have a summary listed anywhere on the cover or pages, you can copy a description from a different edition or you can write your own. The description can be a couple of sentences or a couple of paragraphs describing the content of the book. It should be a generic summary and should NOT include reviews or personal feelings (i.e. "This is a book about sisters. It was good. You should read it"). The summary should also NOT contain any important spoilers such as mentions of characters deaths, how the book ends, major twists or other information that would spoil the story for those who have not read it.
Descriptions copied from an outside source, such as Wikipedia, should contain a short citation stating where the summary originated from.
In the librarian manual, it says "The description field is for entering a summary of the work." and "It should be a generic summary and should NOT include reviews or personal feelings." So if the description field has reviews - either professional or armature - they should be removed from the description since they obviously don't belong there.
I just came across a description that was a signed review. I have the book and was wondering if I should change it to the back of the book description. Sounds like I should.
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And, as the manual says, you are free to edit or rewrite any book summary that you find too opinionated.
I myself find it useful when the book description has been imported from Amazon and contains the professional/industry book reviewer's opinion (as opposed to someone from the NYT or other newspaper), e.g. from Kirkus or whatever.