Please DON'T Delete this book

[Michael]

I've had a couple of books vanish off my shelves this week, replaced instead by the most popular edition. The two I've noticed were editions of Cold Comfort Farm and The Prisoner of Zenda, which I have re-listed.

I'm assuming that somebody has decided to delete those original records - Has anybody else had the same problem recently?

[Manybooks]

I don't think that I have had that happen, but then, I have not been checking all that closely and I have a lot of books on my bookshelves.

But what you are describing seems rather heavy-handed, especially for such well-known books. Before deleting a book, or a specific edition of a book, librarians should really check wether the edition has been shelved by members and especially wether it has any reviews (I know that I would be absolutely furious if a librarian deleted an edition that I had reviewed).

If an edition has any reviews, said edition should really not be allowed to be deleted, and even with editions that do not have reviews, I think it would be good for librarians to notify any GR members that their edition of "book X" is going to be deleted (otherwise they might have the same nasty surprise that Michael has experienced).

[Vicky]

Out of curiosity, did the edition(s) you had shelved have a proper ISBN number?

There was an issue in the import that was allowing used books from Amazon to be listed, these editions had ASIN numbers. They ran a script that cleaned up the un-added ones but any that are left are on the to-delete list. Although they should be merged into the closest match which is not necessarily the most popular, but someone may have missed that memo.

Gundula wrote: "Before deleting a book, or a specific edition of a book, librarians should really check wether the edition has been shelved by members and especially wether it has any reviews."

We do check, or should be anyway. In fact, only super-librarians are able to delete a book that has been shelved by more than 5 people to stop this from happening.

Books are only deleted if they are duplicates or problem editions. For instance, someone may try to enter the ISBN13 into the ISBN10 slot, which cuts off the last digits of the ISBN13. If the proper edition is in the database, the all shelves/reviews of wrong edition should be merged into the closest match so none of that data gets lost.

[Michael]

Vicky, those two books don't have ISBNs "Cold Comfort" because it is a Folio Society edition and Zenda because of its age.

I've just found another one: Mission of Gravity, again no ISBN due to age.

I added each of these editions myself because they weren't on Goodreads (no ISBN, no import) and have gone to the trouble of scanning covers and adding the back cover blurbs, so if not exactly as furious as Gundula would be :-D I am nonetheless rather peeved at losing the input data and repeating the task of adding the editions.

If this is a "robot task" deletion then the routine needs urgent re-writing.

If I find more books missing I may indeed undergo a peeved/furious paradigm shift!

[Michael]

Grrr, another one: The Noble Tale of the Sangreal.

[Vicky]

Sometimes it's tough to judge whether a book is legitimate or not when it's added by a user without an ISBN, so I can see how someone might have mistakenly deleted them. Especially because you may have been the only person with that particular edition shelved.

I would suggest adding librarian notes saying that they are valid ISBN-less copies, just to be safe for the future. :)

[Lobstergirl]

I haven't noticed this happening to me, but then I don't know why I would notice because I have so many books shelved. Many of them don't have ISBNs. I really hope this is not happening...

[Lobstergirl]

Vicky wrote: "Sometimes it's tough to judge whether a book is legitimate or not when it's added by a user without an ISBN, so I can see how someone might have mistakenly deleted them. Especially because you may ..."

But Michael said he had scanned in covers, which would be a big red flag to a librarian NOT to delete.

[Michael]

Vicky wrote: "Sometimes it's tough to judge whether a book is legitimate or not when it's added by a user without an ISBN, so I can see how someone might have mistakenly deleted them. Especially because you may ..."

I've added distinct cover scans and edition data, so absolutely no reason for any sensible librarian to delete them, but I take your point, Vicky. Obviously, this won't help if it's an automated routine.

Lobstergirl wrote: "I haven't noticed this happening to me, but then I don't know why I would notice..."

I noticed when I clicked on my reading challenge page and two of the books I'd recently read were showing the wrong covers. I've checked all my 800+ books and these four seem to be the only ones affected - four too many, though.

[Manybooks]

Vicky wrote: "Out of curiosity, did the edition(s) you had shelved have a proper ISBN number?

There was an issue in the import that was allowing used books from Amazon to be listed, these editions had ASIN num..."

That's a relief, I really would hate to lose a review. Do you warn members before an edition is deleted (if not, I think that would be a good idea).

[Manybooks]

A lot of my classic girls' fiction (both English language and German), do not have ISBN numbers due to age. Lack of an ISBN number should not be a reason for a book being deleted (even classic books that have been reprinted in modern times with an ISBN number likely did not have ISBN numbers when first published and if a member wants to import or to shelve a non-ISBN first edition of a classic book, that should be no problem). Books should really only be deleted if an ISBN number has been added incorrectly.

[Vicky]

I notice looking at the change logs for the 4 books you posted that they all have messages like this:

Goodreads updated the book The Noble Tale of the Sangreal by Thomas Malory
edition: Deleted edition id=10375192 title=The Noble Tale of the Sangreal isbn=, merged 2 reviews

which showed up on the 14th or 15th. I wonder if this was some sort of side-effect of the script that was meant to get rid of the buggy ASIN imports?

If so, it does suck that it deleted your editions, but I don't think it should be a recurring issue.

[Michael]

Thanks for checking and posting, Vicky. I'm pleased that this looks like a one off glitch.

[Lobstergirl]

I just noticed this happened to one of my books. I modified the record back in 2010....I suspect it had a cover back then. On July 15 "Goodreads" merged 3 reviews, now it has no cover and it is absolutely not what I had originally shelved (I wouldn't have shelved a book with that crazy long nonsensical title, without editing it). I suspect this is supposed to be merely Concerto #1 without all that gibberish following. Also I would not have shelved an "audio cassette" - this was originally sheet music.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/edits/8...

Please do not delete because it is an audio cassette....I will try to edit the record properly.

[Michael]

It's happening again - George is getting upset :-(

The copy of The Lays of Marie de France that I added has been deleted and I'm now shelving the most popular edition.

I will be re-adding my actual edition, but could someone from Goodreads please get to the bottom of why perfectly legitimate, simply ISBN-less, editions are being deleted.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

The deleted edition appears to have been deleted July 15. That was the day the script removing the faulty-should-never-have-been-imported ASIN records were deleted. Unfortunately, it looks like your edition was a casualty. :(

[Michael]

rivka wrote: "The deleted edition appears to have been deleted July 15. That was the day the script removing the faulty-should-never-have-been-imported ASIN records were deleted. Unfortunately, it looks like you..."

Thanks, Rivka. I thought I'd carefully checked all my books after I first noticed the issue, but it looks like this volume slipped past me. I'm relieved it's from that old exercise and not a new occurrence.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

So am I!

[[deleted user]]

This is concerning. I'll have to go through my books. Because of my reading habits I've needed to add a good handful, some of which don't have ISBNs. In fact, of the books I just listed for a challenge, I'll need to add 5 to the database. I guess I'd like some way to tag or mark books we add so that they will not be deleted whenever the next iteration of something like that script runs--and something will, eventually, unless there's a way to tag.

[Vicky]

This shouldn't happen again. It was a side-effect of a script that was run to take care of a problem. I suspect now that they know this happened, it will be fixed should the need arise to do this again.

Although... it is odd that these books were deleted when they were shelved. Didn't the ASIN script only delete books that had not been shelved by anyone?

[rivka, Former Moderator]

It also deleted those that had been combined with another edition.