Should this ASIN book be deleted?

[Dawn (& Ron)]

I was trying to straighten out and merge this straggler http://www.goodreads.com/book/edit/11... I removed 'paperback' from the title and added description and added the subtitle but see it has an ASIN not an ISBN but I have yet to find a match for this number. There is very little information on this book, no publisher, binding, etc. I wasn't sure about deleting it and am checking here to make sure I am not overlooking something and that I am handling it correctly. I went ahead and combined it for now here http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60...


Thanks,

Dawn

[Vicky]

This one can be deleted, yes.

When someone posts a used book for sale on Amazon, it is assigned an ASIN by Amazon rather than being sold by the ISBN - even though the book being sold would (in most cases) have a valid ISBN number.

A few months ago there was a bug that was importing these books, it's since been fixed and many of the books were deleted by a script - but there are still some stragglers.

If you click through this edition to Amazon you'll see that it's a used book and not being sold directly by Amazon, so it's easy to tell that it's one of the aforementioned stragglers.

[Dawn (& Ron)]

Vicky,

Thanks, I took care of that and deleted it. I wanted to see what you were talking about with these stragglers from the bug and tried to click through but it came up with one of those 404 'not found' errors. In case I come across any others of these in the future, is that the only way to verify if a listing is a straggler and can be deleted?

You guys are always so great and patient answering questions by us less experienced librarians.

Dawn

[Vicky]

You have to click on the Get a Copy --> Amazon link on the main book page and not the source link on the edit page. There is something weird with the ASIN books not linking properly from the source, I've noticed it on legitimate Kindle books as well. This page is the one it linked to, so you can see what I mean. :)

There are some other things you can look for, but none are completely foolproof so you have to use some good judgement.

You can look at the format of the book. Kindle Editions and Audible Editions are the only formats for which ASINs should be used. Any other formats with ASINs are more than likely wrong.

Another sign is the format in the title, which you saw in the book you mentioned. This one isn't a definite as other signs, but it's something to look for.

[Dawn (& Ron)]

I would not have thought to use that link from the main book page. I always wondered where those titles with the book format in brackets came from and I do notice that they are often associated with a ASIN. Now I know if a listing meets the criteria you mentioned, ASIN, format in title and the Amazon link then I can feel fairly safe in deleting it. Thanks I'll add that to my notes for future reference.

Dawn