Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
Book & Author Page Issues
>
marked not a book?
date
newest »
newest »
Eva, How weird. Perhaps it's one that Goodreads changed automatically. But, I checked googlebooks and World Cat and they show not author/the item as a book. Where do you see the author should be Geoffrey Wansell?
Mod
Are we NAB-ing the Books LLC books? I just changed the primary author on the last one I found.
Mod
That may have happened, and no loss IMO, but there seem to be a great number of books that are NAB'd by Good Reads itself. I have noticed quite a few of those lately when checking to see why something was NAB'd. Most are OK; I have found the occasional one I have had to change back.
Those LLC listed things aren't books, even with ISBN numbers. But that's another issue. And there are at least two-three other "authors" with similar situations; thousands of so called books that are just bound (I suppose) copies of Wikipedia listings. The authors haven't written a thing.
Mod
I stated it poorly. The listings show no librarian edits at all but are marked Not a Book. So they must have been imported that way which doesn't seem likely or were changed when imported (which doesn't seem likely either come to that.).
Sorry for the slander to good ole GR.
Mod
I can't help but wonder how LLC makes any money, when no one seems to know exactly what they're selling... ;-)
It happened when the Not a Books were merged with .... whatever they were merged with to make them go away. Anyway - I'm all ears about what we're supposed to do with those LLC books. There are an awful lot of people who have rated them. and they are languishing in the Not a Book pile. So sad.
rivka wrote: "I think there was some debate about that. I thought we weren't, but it sure looks like at some point in the not-too-distant past some librarian merged the Books LLC author with NAB."As long as we list Books LLC or something of that nature as the primary author, I don't care much either way. I don't consider them books, though. I pulled one off a series list the other day. Confused the hell out of me. It looked like an omnibus edition of 6 books, but there were less than 100 pages of text. Very odd.
Books LLC seems to publish two types of works: 1) reprints of public domain books, like this
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/75...
2) the ones people love to NAB, which are compilations of Wikipedia articles, like this.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/83...
However much we hate them, and I do, they are still books. They are just as much books as any book which is a compilation of essays. They should not be NABed.
See, Lobsergirl, that's where we disagree. I Don't think they are books (not referring to the public domain ones). The fact that they have ISBN doesn't make them books anymore than bookmarks or calendars or dump bins are (IMHO).
They just cause a lot of confusion for people who are looking for, say, Charles Dickens books and get these truncated little articles. They take up a lot of space in searches. They have no author at all, since they are just snatched from Wikipedia or whatever.
They are not necessarily valid answers to a search, since Wikipedia is just, obviously, a wiki, where anyone can put in whatever they wish to.
I guess you can see I think they are cra. and should not be listed as books.
People are also confused by CliffNotes, SparkNotes, and Bloom's Critical Editions, thinking they are the classic books themselves, but we don't NAB those. I agree they take up a hugely annoying amount of space in searches, but they are books. They have text, on pages, and covers, unlike bookmarks, tarot cards, and calendars.
MissJessie wrote: "The fact that they have ISBN doesn't make them books anymore than bookmarks or calendars or dump bins are (IMHO)."Sure, but no one is arguing to include them by dint of having an ISBN. Unlike those examples, these are books. Perhaps not books of any great quality, but books nonetheless.
MissJessie wrote: "They are not necessarily valid answers to a search, since Wikipedia is just, obviously, a wiki, where anyone can put in whatever they wish to."
What do you mean by "not necessarily valid answers to a search"? The search engine isn't great in the first place; depending on the title and author of the work for which one is searching, it can take some effort to find the correct work. As Lobstergirl pointed out, there are many other books that could make search results confusing for people, but we don't remove them, because they are books.
Nor do I think the fact that these are repackaged Wikipedia articles disqualifies them. Publishers package online content and sell it as a print book all the time; they love to do this with author blogs. Why shouldn't a publisher do it for Wikipedia? Of course Wikipedia makes it easy for people to inject inaccuracies, but it isn't our job to fact-check books and make sure they indeed correspond to their subject matter. Indeed, thanks to self-publishing, someone could write a book called Charles Dickens was a Space Alien. This is an obviously ridiculous and untrue statement (Charles Dickens was a werewolf). However, we can't do anything about it if such a book became the first result in a search for Charles Dickens. It may confuse people looking for more factual biographies, but it's still a book.
I think it's silly that Books LLC is printing and binding hard copies of Wikipedia articles, just because there are so many better ways to access them. But their business model doesn't concern us. A book is a book because of its content, not its context, and a bound Wikipedia article is a book. We can't go around NABing publications for reasons of quality control. Much to my dismay, The Da Vinci Code remains a book.
Well, I don't think that binding something and buying an ISBN number makes something a defacto book. But since that's opinion, I am leaving them alone.BUT, I could easily take some of my printouts of junk e mails (particularly those wanting to give me money) and bind it and get an ISBN number.
Would that be a book? I don't think so.
Mod
Sounds like an art form waiting to happen (and get a book deal.)
MissJessie wrote: "BUT, I could easily take some of my printouts of junk e mails (particularly those wanting to give me money) and bind it and get an ISBN number.Would that be a book? I don't think so. "
Sure it would. Classic Junk Mail and Spam: More Money Plz. To be followed by Path to Riches: A Guide to Helping Deposed Nigerian Princes, Heirloom Express: How Your Gold Can Work for You, and Bigger: The Story of How Diamonds Became Your Girl's Second-Best Friend.
LOL. You cheer me up !I was just reflecting upon one of the hazards of Librarian-ing--correcting the punctuation or whatever of entries of friends who have died.
Dismal...
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/83...
and the author is NAB'd. I think the author is supposed to be Geoffrey Wansell and when I went into the librarian edits it shows there have been none.
I only checked GoogleBooks before coming here but I think this is an actual book.