Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
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Anna & Rivka, and All,Although, if while Goodreads librarians are cleaning up book data, and we get to these types of books, I do think it would be polite and helpful if, at the beginning of the book description box, we added which plays, etc. are contained in the volume(s), if that information isn't already given.
Rivka - ah. I guessed it was something like that as ther are so many out-of-print books with no reviews or shelf-holds. No point in cursing, then. :)Speaking of which, has there been any discussion on deleting some of those ? Eg HC/ Hans Christian Andersen has a seemingly endless number of "Favorite/ Five major/ Four Favorite.. Fairytales that are out of print, lack cover and any information as to contents, has no reviews or any shelf-holds and were added like three years ago. I don't dare combine those as there's no info on them and quite frankly, they're just annoying. Is it OK to delete some of them, after CAREFUL checking - of course!
Lisa - I so agree and I've been trying to but many of these books lack info even on the Amazon homepage
Anna, Don't delete them. For one thing, users might have those editions and might eventually rate/review them. But, more importantly, Otis says any books, etc. on this site that are deleted will just appear again anyway, and then without any edtiing/descriptions any of us have added.
Thank you Lisa - good to know. It's seriously frustrating to find 20 out of print "Favorite Fairy Tales" that nobody has "claimed" and that you have no idea if you can combine or not as there is no info anywhere as to the contents.(My idea was that it'd be better if adding books was an active choice, ie that whoever had an out-of-print Puffin edition of FFT from 1958 could add that book.) But good to know - I'll puy my organizing urge away for a while. :-)
Anna,Well, we can also manually add books. I've manually added many books.
But unfortunately, that does not help at all with the problem you're describing.
There's still plenty of organizing we can do; we just need to try to ignore the books we cannot "fix."
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So Five Plays published in 1915 and the same title (by the same author) in 1937 might be five different plays. But if neither has a cover (or only one does), how would one distinguish them? And for some authors, there are dozens of volumes with almost identical titles -- and no way to tell them apart, except by ISBN. And sometimes not even by that.
Anyone can put up reviews for more than one edition, in any case.
In my opinion, my suggestion does help the general user -- at least, more than leaving all 20+ of the similarly titled as separate search results. Having more data about the individual volumes would be nice, but isn't always practical.
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Oh no, Rivka don't worry. We've all got you and Otis's minds down pat. You don't even have to make posts anymore.
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>_>
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Thank you Rivka :) - that was my exact question. (I ofcourse try to look for the contents elsewhere too, but a lot of them go waaaaaay back. With popular authors such as HC Andersen new collections of fairy tales are constantly printed!It seems a lot of those books stem from Amazon's sale of used books?
Also - should someone suddenly get hold of and wish to shelf and review that collection from 1905, it is just a matter of separating it from the rest of the editions (or ask us librarians to do so).
I try to add that information where it's available (and when I have the time/strength), but often it isn't. Sometimes I find myself peering at book covers trying to make out the small print!
I know - I do too. :-) But the editions that Rivka and I are having such qualms about even lack a front cover!
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I've seen much more ludicrous prices than that. I have at least one book that I've seen listed in the $100s of dollars. I didn't pay anything like that for it!
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Maybe Otis could weigh in on this, but it seems to me that sort of info should be included in the description. Which certainly doesn't preclude anyone from putting such things in their reviews.
I've been putting information like that in the description. Leaves you more space to write your review ;).
My 2 öre on this is to put it in the description too, for all the reasons mentioned above. :)
Abigail wrote: "Different illustrators are also very important when it comes to children's titles."Sorry, is there a consensus on this yet?
(Asking because the two different editions of Richard Bach's There's No Such Place as Far Away have two different illustrators, and I don't know if they should be separated)...
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I think this would be a place to clarify:There's a huge grouping for "Snow White" picture books. Different authors, different illustrators (different ISBNs)...not just all Grimm, variety of editions. If I were the illustrators, I'd be peeved to have them all grouped.
Sure, we can review them all separately, but when I 'search' one by its ISBN, I get a whole bunch of very (very) different works.
Help?
There would also B another problem: some would have read a version that have had only specific stories, and they only want to add the stories they've read in their own books.
-When someone adds a book and that book is a collection of plays, stories fairy tales FROM THE SAME AUTHOR, could there not be a "word of advice" box that suggested writing the names of the plays/ fairy tales in the "about the book"-field?
I am really beginning to hate the "Five Major Plays", "Seven Favorite Fairy Tales" etc titles :-)