Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
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book url field
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Wikipedia is certainly useful, particularly with popular authors and genre fields like science fiction. Also, like GoodReads itself, they are popular and participatory--something to be encouraged.If there's no problem with GoodRead's storage space, then allowing more than one URL field (unobtrusively, as you do with author's fields) is a nice, but nonessential, idea. As it is, one can still provide multiple links by either employing the book description field or putting in different links for different editions of the same book.
I'm uncertain what an "official" site is except in those very rare cases when a living author maintains one. If we confined ourselves to those there would be little employement of the URL fields. Also, some author's sites aren't very informative or up to date.
The bottom line would seem to be that more information is better than less.
Yeah, Ive never seen an official site for a book before and considering we have those links to Amazon where there are generally descriptions and reviews then I dont even see why we need a url for individual books. In fact, I didnt even realize there was a field for that until now. That all said, I think that using wikipedia is the best source and they do seem to have a lot of SF descriptions (sometimes they give too much information though bordering on spoilers). I think two sources would be all we would need. Only really "big" books would have a lot anyway and I think we all know what Lord Of The Rings and In Cold Blood are about.
My basic answer to both of your questions is No and No.I think the link should be reserved only for links to the author's website/book site. If I want to find out about a book from another site, I can go looking for it. The author's webpage (if there is one) has an official quality that seems reasonable. A publisher's book page might be ok, if the URL is edition specific. Some random fansite, however, is not...and that's what would start to happen, particularly if multiple URLs are allowed.
Wikipedia is sort of a weird case, but why should it be considered any more authoritative than any other site? For some books its great, for others its worse. If you really want Wikipedia links, you might potentially be able to hardwire some auto-Wikipedia link the way you have the Google preview. But leave that as a separate issue from the official book URL.
I pretty much agree with what Michael said.
I agree with Michael wholeheartedly on both questions.I do love wikipedia and use it but it shouldn't be a link from a book here. There are often tons of errors and frequently omissions at wikipedia.
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In any case, I agree with Michael and Lisa.
And Ubik, this is an example of an official book page.
If we confined ourselves to those there would be little employement of the URL fields.
Why is that a problem?
The bottom line would seem to be that more information is better than less.
I agree: that is the bottom line. However, I disagree with the statement. If it were true, we would encourage multi-page book summaries, and we don't. The trouble with excess information is that the "good/useful" information gets drowned by the "excess" information. Obviously, which is which is a judgement call and a matter of opinion. But information overload is a documented phenomenon.
For books which are out of print but are available via Project Gutenberg & other such sources, can the URL field link to the ebook? That's what I've been using it for.
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I'd stick to official author pages.If you really want Wikipedia links, you might potentially be able to hardwire some auto-Wikipedia link the way you have the Google preview. But leave that as a separate issue from the official book URL.
Great suggestion, Michael.
The member who started this thread has been continuing to add Wikipedia references for books with no official website. I changed the book edit page to say "official url" instead of "url". I think the consensus here was that the url just just be used for the author's actual site. Though wikipedia does have great content - perhaps we should encourage people to just link to it in the author/book description?
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Well, at least Wikipedia is better than the person who started putting:http://www.goodreads.com
in the book URL field.
I can't even begin to guess what the point of putting that in the book URL field was...re: Wikipedia thing...I think some people are just set on doing things the way they see fit and others don't bother to try to figure out the purpose of something. So no matter how clear you make things, there's always going to be someone doing something they shouldn't
I've deleted a lot of urls on Philip K. Dick books that just linked to a bio page. There's a lot left, though.Do official sites not started by the author count? Some of them died before the internet got going....
Personally, I wouldn't want a link to a wiki page on the book - someone mentioned above that often they have a lot of spoilers, and I agree. It is easy enough for someone to go look there themselves if they wish. IMO the book url page should be kept 'official' or to a site like Project Gutenberg for downloading of an e-book. I'm fine with that field being left blank as well, I agree with Rivka that information overload is not helpful.I think that wikipedia pages are best linked to an author's page, especially in light of how many authors predate the internet, so we're unlikely to find a more 'official' site for them.
Just my two cents. = )
I'm now thinking about killing the official url and replacing it with a new set of 'reference links' or something.
Works for me...what about a link to it in WorldCat, so people can see if their local library has it?Just an idea... = )
Worldcat and other catalog sites are linked to in the book links section. This would just be for sites like wikipedia, publisher sites, or any other site that has relevant content about the book.
That would be inconvenient for publications that aren't available via Amazon, who might like to have a link to where the book can be purchased.
I think we'd need to decide if we wanted bookseller links in this section. I kind of like the idea of keeping booksellers in the book links section, but I'm open to other ideas/needs.
That's fine for the major booksellers, but for small presses and especially ebooks that Amazon won't list, it's useful to be able to link to where they can be acquired.
For (tech-savvy) small presses, usually there's a catalog page on the press website for the book indicating how it can be purchased -- I'd be open to considering that a "reference link", especially since there's usually other information listed there as well.
Useful, but not necessary.I say keep any links that generate revenue to GR (like an Amazon Associate link), B&N, Half.com and Abebooks are sufficient to give a reader an idea of how much it will cost, or if it is easily available.
GR shouldn't worry too much about trying to be a portal to every bookseller out there.
I do agree with adding a link to one primary ebook vendor, since Amazon is only listing Kindle editions.
Otis, thanks for the info, I never did the 'compare price' thing before, so I didn't realize that I could go through there and shuffle my links like that. Cool feature! All set now!
I hope there's some sort of URL field still available...either keeping what's there or doing the "reference" links that Otis mentioned.Myself and a lot of my friends read a fair amount of ebook only publications that are only sold from the epublisher or a few select esellers. That URL field is helpful to finding where to get the ebook.
If it is just a matter of not wanting certain links to be used, couldn't GR implement a filter so that if someone entered a wikipedia address (or amazon...I've seen amazon links) they get an error telling them that those aren't valid URLs?
First, if the URL is supposed to be about the book (say, reference information) why is it edition specific and not grouped with the info which applies to all editions (e.g., original publication year)? Note: I can think of a few possible reasons, but I'd like to know if this was a purposeful decision or an accident of programming.Second, the general problem with the URL field is its ephemeral, while the rest of the information should pretty much be static. Once entered correctly, author, title, description, year of publication, # of pages, etc., should all be fixed forever, but URL's come and go. If they are included, I'd separate them from the primary book information in some serious way because of that.
Sure, Carolyn, if you're happy to cut out the ebook sellers like Fictionwise and the small presses selling books directly off their sites.And such urls can be edition-specific because a book can have a Kindle edition (only available through Amazon) and a multi-format ebook edition (never available through Amazon). For example.
Michael: great points. Url is edition specific for no good reason at all, and I think if we changed it we'd make it work specific. Also, all these proposed new fields would be visually separated from the main book content.
There are good reasons for the url to be edition specific, as stated above. It's no good sending someone to Amazon if the edition is a multi-format ebook. It won't be there.
Good points. There are both edition-specific and work-specific urls. This also applies to other things, so maybe we make a set of urls for both cases.
Otis wrote: "Good points. There are both edition-specific and work-specific urls. This also applies to things, so maybe we make a set of urls for both cases."That sounds great!
SF SQRL wrote: "Sure, Carolyn, if you're happy to cut out the ebook sellers like Fictionwise and the small presses selling books directly off their sites."SQRL, sure, it makes me blissfully happy to cut out those sellers -snip-snip-snip!
NOT.
If you'll read what I posted above, I said that I was in favor of adding a non-Amazon ebook seller link. How do you read this as 'happiness' to cut other ebook sellers out of the loop? I didn't actually NAME an ebook seller to include, just said that it shouldn't be Amazon.
As to small presses selling books directly from their sites, why on earth would GoodReads try to link to all of them? There are probably hundreds, if not thousands of them. Heck, there are self-published authors selling their books directly from their blogs, should there be a link on GR to that as well?
I don't use GoodReads to buy books. I know many do, and that's fine and should be accommodated and made easy to do, but as I said above, I do not think that GoodReads should try to be a portal to every single vendor out there.
Now that that's cleared up...
So, am I reading this thread correctly, that the book-specific url is no longer going to be a link to more information about the book, but is instead going to be a link to where the book can be purchased as an ebook? (Or to where it can be downloaded for free, in the case of Project Gutenberg?)
Wouldn't the Kindle editions already be loaded into GR by Amazon? This would mean that only non-Kindle editions need to be added, right?
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One ebook seller would hardly cut it.I don't see why a book put out by a small press shouldn't have a link enabling people to buy the book from them. Why on earth wouldn't GR link to them if a librarian can be bothered to add the information? Don't many people who use GR want to get hold of the books their friends recommend to them? Otherwise, sure, let's create a level playing field and remove all buying information!
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Question...Why not have one field for Author ONLY URL and another for Edition URL?
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1. Should Wikipedia pages be allowed short of an official site?
2. Would it be useful to have multiple urls? Multiple official reviews? Multiple anything else?
"The URL field is for linking to an official website for that book. This is often useful for eBooks or downloadable extras. It's also ok to link to an author's official website page for that book. It's not for booksellers, fan sites, or reviews. "