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Elizabeth (Miss Eliza)
(last edited Aug 01, 2008 01:40AM)
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Aug 01, 2008 01:16AM
I think that maybe we should lobby for comics to be allowed on this site more, because alot of people read the individual issues and don't read the trade paperbacks. I'm that way and I think there has to be more people like me out there. Just a thought. Plus I'm also totally willing to spend the time adding the data.
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I'd love this too, Elizabeth, but the problem is not the data so much as having fields set up that will hold the data comic books need. (Just for starters, I would despair of adding comic books until we get separate "writer" and "illustrator" slots instead of a generic "author" field! Comic books also have ISSNs plus issue numbers instead of ISBNs, and ISBNs are a major part of the tracking system right now. And there's more....)It's a shame, though. I do wish I could track everything I read on Goodreads!
Warning: the following message may contain heavy sarcasm and be unsuitable for those over the age of 4And once we do that, we need to add newspapers and magazines and academic journals and...oh, wait, to be completest, we'd need to be able to specify articles within newspapers and magazines and journals and short stories in books and...and, huh, even some individually published comics are collections of stories by different authors and illustrators, so we'd need the ability to specify each of those as separate items...and of course, now the young people just read everything on the internet, so we need to start cataloging websites...
I think I'll start by making a GoodReads entry for each of the posts in this thread (3 as I write this) and adding them to my shelf...
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I actually am not opposed to the general idea, but it is potentially very difficult and will likely add a huge strain to the database. Once you open it up to serially published comics (i.e., items with ISSN) there's no justification for banning any other similarly published reading material. For example, I've essentially read every issue of Science for the past 10 years or so (well, to be fair I'm currently about a dozen behind...it's been a busy couple of months)...if I add those to my shelf, it'll be about 500 entries (it's published weekly)...and that's just a single journal.
*grins at Michael without shame*Goodreads should have remembered that the reward for doing something well is the chance to do it again! It's not our fault that we've gotten in the habit of cataloguing everything we read, is it? ;)
Michael, ☺☺☺Goodreads: I like books. ☺
Here at Goodreads, my preference is that we stick to books. I have a bunch of favorite journals & magazines too. It would all be just too much. For me. Just one member's opinion.
I've read thousands of comics, and the thought of trying to list them all on here is a nightmare! It would make the site horrible to use, as well, if searching for JLA brought up the hundreds of issues there have been rather than just the books. There is already quite a lot of software out there for cataloguing your comics.Maybe the best compromise, if one was thought to be necessary, might be to allow one "book" for each serial, and just have "Serial" as the author.
Good Reads is relative, what if the only things my friends read are comic books or graphic novels? Is there a database online that they can go search? If so, then as a service we could be a gateway to that resource.It might be an opportunity for a "spin off/sister" site, one specifically designed with a different database and forms to handle artist, writer, issue, etc... It may open up an opportunity to partner with various comic giants such as Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, etc... then they can assign someone from their own staff to be a librarian in the system. They probably already have that data in some form.
Same for magazines and journals.
I agree that you'd need the framework to be able to handle such a large amount of data, not to mention being able to handle the search.
I think GoodReads right now, should stick with books and graphic novels, but should keep an open mind about the other types of reading material.
I agree with most everyone on all the different aspects that would need to be taken into account. And LOL it Cait, we are totally catloguing addicts. But most importantly I agree with Jenn, this could be an opportunity or gateway, by either creating a sister site or somehow finding a framework to include it here.The key is that comics are comic books, emphasis on books, which makes them different from magazines and journals and newspapers, they are their own thing, which is relavent to what we do here. They eventually get turned into trade paperbacks but not always and having the individual issues would be more interesting. What I think would be best would be some kind of subcategorization wherein each issue could be part of the trade paperback, but could also be selected individually. Plus if you go and look around on this site, there are alot of librarians who have added comics and the fact that people are adding them means they want them on here.
Just some ideas to think about for the future.
Elizabeth
I'd like to be able to reference individual short stories from collections and anthologies, if only because of the number of times someone's asked me about x storyline and I *know* I've read it and I *know* I've got it somewhere upstairs, but can I find it?Grrr.
For what it's worth, I think graphic novels should be on GRs. Consider their recent popularity as a serious literary/art form - and hence the new description "Graphic Novels". Is there a space issue; too many? I like the spin-off site idea. We also need a GoodMovies site! And yeah - I'd like to see short story titles referenced individually, too. Btw: I highly recommend short story "The Pear Shaped Man".
deb, Graphic novels are part of GR's database. They're definitely considered books here.
I read single-issue comics all the time, and for GR purposes, I just add the GN version to represent that I've read all the single issues that are collected in that GN. Sure, it's not perfect, but then I at least feel more legitimate about adding that to my total "read" tally.
I do the same thing as Brooke. And there at least as many online communities for discussing the latest issue of a comic than there are for discussing a book. I'm equally fond of reading comics and books, but I don't see them as the same thing at all.
Well there are comics/graphic novels that are also in chapter book form. Such as Batman.
I read comics in singles too, but also don't want them on GR. They are not books, merely chapters of a much larger story. One issue generally takes me about the same time to read as a chapter of a book, so I feel a trade is slightly more legit(even then most should probably be twice the size).
I have to agree with the idea of sticking just to books. While I read comics, own artbooks, and read magazines, (and have cataloged the ones I've found here), it would make a mess out of the site and an annoyance to search. It was already a bit annoying to search for a book and get results on 4 different manga tankubons...
I think GR should stick to books, and indeed provide some sort of sister site for comics/manga/artbooks, and magazines/newspapers. (And another for movies? ;) )
For me, a little inconvenience in searching is a small price to pay to be able to catalog my comics, manga and "real" books in the same place. I treat them the same in my actual library, and I like having them together.
Mod
There are a number of comics sites out there, but none of them focus on bookbound comics and manga the way that GR does -- they all assume that you're interested in individual issues or chapters and treat collections as an aside. I like how GR's restriction to books keeps the collections (and artbooks) central.
rivka wrote: "It wouldn't be just a "little inconvenience" for you. It would affect EVERY single GR user doing related searches."I don't mean that there should be changes for adding the comics; I'm referring to the system as it exists right now and the "manga-related difficulties" that have been brought up.
Cataloging individual issues of any periodical will create difficulties and not really worth the trouble; I'm merely referring to the inconvenience that some people have discussed in terms of running across graphic novels and manga while searching for other things.
Amber wrote: "I don't mean that there should be changes for adding the comics; I'm referring to the system as it exists right now and the "manga-related difficulties" that have been brought up."Oh, manga and bound comics are definitely books -- no worries about those disappearing from the GR catalog! :)
Mod
Also, since the site is divided by search areas (books, groups, lists etc.), couldn't comic books be given a separate search or their own catalog, so they are not in the way when people are searching for books but can still be cataloged in the same virtual library? Sort of like a "sister site," but easily accessible from your GR library. Or is this unrealistic? Would it create too much confusion when people are searching for trade collections versus single issues?
It is easy to distinguish between a book and a group, because they are distinct types of entries in the database. On the other hand, books and comments are both book entries. There would need to be a field or a flag in place to mark certain entries as comics. (I don't know how this would affect the difficulty of altering the search engine, of course, but I would rather see more significant improvements implemented to the overall search itself than time spent on creating such a division.)
I agree with Amber. A separate search that catalogues individual comic issues would solve the avalanche of comics in book search issue?
