Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
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Amazon is going away as a data source
dely wrote: "But it would be appreciated if somebody could answer the questions we make. This would surely calm members. "Dely, it is only 7:33 a.m. on Monday in California, where GoodReads is based. Give the staff a chance to get to their desks--I'm sure we'll get some definitive answers later today.
Inna wrote: "8) What is this about the right to aggregate data? You want to say that If I’m holding a copy of the book in my hands, and key in its ISBN, publisher and number of pages it’s wrong? Incredible!..."When you are on the "rescue the book" page, simply click the check box next to...
I have a physical or ebook copy of this book present.
No URL is required when you have the book in hand. Enter the data and hit the submit button. That is all that is need to save a book.
They have answered many questions, and they may not (and I don't know one way or the other) know the answers to many questions. I think they're probably up to their a$$es in alligators. They don't know how the import is going to go, which is why they've asked us to *test* the rescue system.
Kathy wrote: "Dely, it is only 7:33 a.m. on Monday in California, where GoodReads is ba..."Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "They have answered many questions, and they may not (and I don't know one way or the other) know the answers to many questions. I think they're probably up to their a$$es in alligators. They don't ..."
Yes, of course. I will wait for the answers and I know they don't have a good time with all these problems.
Angela wrote: "Couldn't the titles be renamed to "RESCUE-ME-{OLD-TITLE}" and "RESCUE-ME-{OLD-AUTHOR}"? Or "RESCUE-ME-{ISBN}"?"My understanding (and I could be totally wrong, so don't quote me on this) is that no they can't.
The particular title and author being associated with that ISBN was the service that Amazon was providing. Now the relationship is dissolving and so Goodreads can't use that information to make that association anymore in any way.
Does anybody know the particulars of what Amazon has done / demanded? I'm curious.
Angela wrote: "Inna wrote: "7) This bit is my favourite: “If we can't find a matching edition, then your review will be attached to a book with no title or author.” No comment."James wrote: "It appears we're to..."
Insane? I don't think so. Stressed? Probably!
Amazon is pulling there data out of Goodreads. It is my understanding that if the import doesn't cover a particular book and no one is around to "rescue" it, then when Amazon pulls their info it will leave Goodreads with blank data fields for that book. I don't believe this is an end result that Goodreads really wants to happen. From the previous comments from staff, it seems like the upcoming import of data from other sources and the librarian rescue tool is an attempt to keep this from happening to as few books as possible.
Well, GR does seem to have a tendency to try the take out the trash strategy: announce big, likely unpopular changes on Friday, perhaps in the hope that it's about to be the weekend and most people won't notice (and they have an excuse for not being around as much to answer questions). Of course, this never works, because it irritates many of the core users who are still using the site on the weekend. (And maybe the timing is just a repeated coincidence. But maybe not.)Only 10 days' notice to fix something that required many hours of data entry and will take even more time to correct and seems likely to disproportionately impact non-Americans, many of whom seem to have been already feeling less than appreciated is understandable as a source of frustration.
My entries are compounded by the fact that when first using GR I would enter a book by it's 'best fit' cover rather than ISBN. I'm now having to change that which means 1) I have the 'wrong' (new-release) cover on my shelf, and 2) I'm being asked to save books I don't have that version of. I'm also finding books that I never got round to putting on that are in danger of going.
vicki_girl wrote: "The particular title and author being associated with that ISBN was the service that Amazon was providing. Now the relationship is dissolving and so Goodreads can't use that information to make that association anymore in any way."Then why not just cut the references to Amazon? Anyone can go to Amazon and look up this information and they don't need license or permission to do it. Just wipe any summaries that may have come from Amazon writers, and if we must, any imported images. To say that we can't use it to find out how many pages a book has, or who published it and when, is absurd. This is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
WeaselBox wrote: "1. The rescue me form should accept the damn date I put in when I have the book in front of me, not tell me that it has to be more recent than the original date which is off by 31 years.2. While ..."
I've had the same problem. It's infuriating!!
I'm not sure why Amazon is considered the only source of things such as title and ISBN. Just because a book shows amazon.com doesn't NECESSARILY mean that's where I got the title and/or ISBM. But often enough, that's what shows up. I know this won't be changed during the current mess, but it's silly and now proving very expensive in time and aggravation.
And frankly, not that it matters now, it seems unlikely that Amazon would pull out of what must have been a fairly lucrative deal with GR, given both whatever they get paid for the data base and the books bought thru the site or because of the site and the large group of potential buyers they are now pissing off with no reason and/or notice. Just saying I don't believe it for a minute, though I understand spin.
Mod
I understand that this is frustrating, but it's definitely better than when it didn't object to the pub date and just didn't fix the book. (It took some doing to figure out why, when we were testing it.)
Is there any way for non-librarians to see which books of ours are at risk so we can ask our librarian friends to help us?
vicki_girl wrote: "The particular title and author being associated with that ISBN was the service that Amazon was providing."But is partially keeping that information allowed? We don't know for sure.
Not that it matters. They could still change it to "RESCUE-ME-{ISBN}"or just "RESCUE-ME" and it would mean we could fix the book titles later. If the titles are blank we can't search for the books that need to be fixed.
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "I don't understand this anger toward Goodreads. Do you think this is what they planned and wanted?"It's not hate - it's stress. We love Goodreads. :)
MissJessie wrote: "...unlikely that Amazon would pull out of what must have been a fairly lucrative deal with GR, given both whatever they get paid for the data base and the books bought thru the site or because of the site and the large group of potential buyers they are now pissing off with no reason and/or notice. Just saying I don't believe it for a minute, though I understand spin."
Well Amazon are the owners of Shelfari and if they have raised the price beyond what Goodreads can afford for use of their database, they may also consider pissed off GR users may flock to their rival site rather than blame their greed for what is after all information in the public domain. I think this is why the GR staff are urging the use of non-e-commerce sites to verify info including our own eyes.
On the rescue page you should add a "information is accurate* button, I've just saved three books which had the exact same details as it was stated on their page already
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "I don't understand this anger toward Goodreads. Do you think this is what they planned and wanted?"I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way! I totally sympathize with the people who have hundreds of thousands of books at stake, but I don't think taking it out on Goodreads is the right approach.
If Amazon says that Goodreads has to remove all the data received from them by January 30th, then it has to happen. None of us know when Goodreads was given the deadline, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was January 1st. Before they could tell us, they had to develop the tools to properly attribute data to the librarians that made the change, the tools to rescue a book and the partnerships to enable them to import data from other databases.
If they had told this was happening without giving us the means to see what books were at risk, people would have been complaining that we had no way to see what books were at risk and would have been worrying for weeks longer than necessary.
I'm quite sure that Goodreads is taking this seriously and working as fast as they can to get new information. There is a lot of information we don't know about the situation from the legal and contractual points of view, and I have faith that Goodreads made the best decision they could within the amount of time they had.
No it's not optimal, yes there may be users who lose lots of books in the process (back them up!), but for Goodreads sake as a company and as a tool for users - I would rather have a handful (even a very large handful) of users loose books than have Goodreads go bankrupt and shut down when Amazon sues them for illegally using their information.
Angela wrote: "Couldn't the titles be renamed to "RESCUE-ME-{OLD-TITLE}" and "RESCUE-ME-{OLD-AUTHOR}"? Or "RESCUE-ME-{ISBN}"?"
They can't. Changing the title to "RESCUE-ME-{OLD-TITLE-STILL-FROM-AMAZON}" is the same as keeping the title from Amazon. Also, I'm sure the ISBN field in the database is a numerical field and would not support such a prefix.
I don't think Goodreads wants to remove the titles, authors, isbns - but it's not their choice. If it comes down to January 30th (which is a deadline imposed on Goodreads, not one they've chosen) and the title/author/isbn is still sourced by Amazon, the data has to be deleted. If they keep the data, they will face legal action from Amazon, which is something I suspect Goodreads is in no [financial] position to counter.
If the title/author/isbn are sourced by Amazon, they get deleted. We are then left with a ton of books with x number of pages, published in some month of some year by some publishing company - who's going to sleuth those books out?
When GR removed B&N last year, it's my understanding the "old" B&N data was grandfathered into existence and it was just that B&N couldn't be used on a going-forward basis. Are Amazon's restrictions simply more draconian than B&N's from last year where Amazon data cannot be grandfathered in? I don't recall the B&N removal to have caused this much upheaval.
Vicky wrote: "Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "I don't understand this anger toward Goodreads. Do you think this is what they planned and wanted?"I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way! I totally sympathiz..."
I'm in the same boat with you, and hope this is actually a teaching opportunity for any solution architect out there preaching "cloud", as well as anyone who has all their data (email, documents, photos, etc) in say.... Google.
Mod
Lindea, that would just be confirming the Amazon data, and that's exactly what we can't do.
Audrey wrote: "Are Amazon's restrictions simply more draconian than B&N's."Most probably. I suspect if Amazon had given Goodreads the opportunity to grandfather in the data, we wouldn't be dealing with this now.
I don't know a lot about the Terms & Conditions for either B&N or Amazon, but I do know that they allow websites to use their APIs primarily as an end game to get them more money. Both B&N and Amazon required that books listed on Goodreads using their information were linked primarily to them. Which is why Barnes & Noble and Amazon have their own buttons separate from the "online stores" button on a book page.
Amazon is all about making money and Goodreads gives people any number of stores to compare prices. This is purely speculation, but I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon wanted to limit the purchase options for books sourced by them to Amazon and only Amazon.
For people who are having issues with dates: I was on a different thread yesterday where people were talking about a bunch of their books having messed up "originally published" books, but it seemed to be the other way around... they were WAAAAY too early, not too late. We sort of assumed it was a Persian calendar issue, but then I looked at my own books, and it just wasn't right... Jane Austen novels published in the 1300s? That's not Persian (I checked). Plus, often I couldn't even find an edition with the corresponding date! I don't know what's going on with original publication dates, but they're wonky ALL across the board!
Mod
I've only had one book with a date problem. I will end up with loads of cover roblems as I don't know how to get them :(
I checked online. An 1811 publish date is 1189 in Persian. Of course... if someone changed any edition of the book.... yes, okay. Good call. Hmmm...
Mod
Yep. My brain wasn't working all the way, apparently!
I'm frankly amazed at the anger towards Goodreads over this. It's the old "just push a button" mentality. People bitch and complain about things they know nothing about. There is no quick fix when dealing with a database this size and there is no magic button you push to make it all better. Every change you make has consequences and can effect another area of the database. You're making a lot of assumptions about why the data is stopping, when GR was informed, how many hours they've already put in to fix this and what they're doing now to make sure this goes as smoothly as possible. People have to sleep. They have families to care for. This is a small company. I'd much rather have Otis and the rest of the staff working on the solution rather than combing through threads to answer questions...many of which have already been answered. And you aren't even paying for this service!
Moderatrix Lori wrote: "I'm frankly amazed at the anger towards Goodreads over this. It's the old "just push a button" mentality. People bitch and complain about things they know nothing about.Completely agree. No-one's said you must fix the database. It's a free service and one that does a great job. But of course where would the self-important be without their outrage?
Lori, yes, assumptions are being made, but people are human. It's unavoidable, and GR has made sufficient missteps in the past that I can see why people find it hard to assume good faith as a first reaction.Librarians, who have been asked to do an unknown amount of work to help fix this, also have lives and families.
And no, we don't pay to use the service though some of us would if we could we are the ones who add a great deal of value to it. (By participating, we enable GR to sell ads and those of us who are librarians have made GR more useful by trying to make the database more comprehensive and accurate, a little bit at a time.)
I maintain that frustration is understandable, even if it seems excessive at times. Many people are looking at the possibility of losing the data entry work they've put in. Unhappiness is kinda natural. Even if no one held a gun to their head and made them do that data entry in the first place, or is making them fix it now.
Snail in Danger (Sid) wrote: "Librarians, who have been asked to do an unknown amount of work to help fix this, also have lives and families."No, they weren't, which, I guess is the part that has completely gone missing from people's attention spans. They were asked to test the system. Test. Try a couple of books to see if it works. That's it.
Thank you, Vicki and Lori. Excellent posts and I couldn't agree more!
Why test the system if it isn't going to be put to use on a large scale? It's an understandable extrapolation.
I'm don't know much about scanner app technology, but WorldCat has a scanner app. I don't know how it works but if you could scan a book, have it bring up the WorldCat listing...couldn't you just copy and paste that info into the GR rescue page?Link to WorldCat Blog about this, with link to their scanner app:
http://worldcat.org/wcblog_config/mt-...
Sorry if this has already proven to be stupid and/or unworkable. I know nothing about scanner apps.
I'm quite enjoying visiting my books, although my 'threatened' list isn't going down.
Snail in Danger (Sid) wrote: "Why test the system if it isn't going to be put to use on a large scale? It's an understandable extrapolation."The fact is, they don't know how many will still be endangered after the import. Would you have them import and then test a system? Or would you rather they put out this test first? I don't pretend to know how complicated this is, I just think all this animosity directed at Goodreads is misplaced.
Snail in Danger (Sid) wrote: "Why test the system if it isn't going to be put to use on a large scale? It's an understandable extrapolation."You are again making assumptions and if you were a programmer you would know that you always test and retest before you ever put anything live or into production. Because the librarians have spent so much time on working on the data, they've asked us to run a few tests. They also asked us to wait until they imported the data from the new source. Which quite frankly has the potential to blow up so they are most likely putting in on a test server to analyze the data before they pull it into the main database. Do you think this all happens by itself? It takes hours and hours to comb through code to make sure a script you've written in one area doesn't break something in another area. It's tedious, mind number work and I'm so thankful that I don't have to do it and that I'm not the one who's going to hit the "live" button and pray I caught everything.
I'd really like the "Rescuing a book is easy" title taken off the rescue page. I'm willing to rescue these books, but there's no denying it's a huge pain.
hmmm, the rescue seems to work, so I will just sit and wait for the data-import and the go to work (i will also do books not on my shelf if i come across and there's time - but i think a lot of you will ^.^)
Lori, I think I detect some assumptions in your own response ... but it's clear we're just talking past eachother at this point.Thanks to Michael for providing a partial update here.
Helen wrote: "I've only had one book with a date problem. I will end up with loads of cover roblems as I don't know how to get them :("You can save the cover pics who are on GR and then add them again in the tab of the book.
I have over 500 to rescue from my book lists. I would say 98% of them I have actual copies of. To rescue all of them would probably take the rest of the year. Typing every title and author every time is time consuming - why when the ISBN number is there can't the title and author be there too to save time? Surely it wouldn't be that difficult to do!Ok Rant over!
Mod
Because that is exactly the information we cannot use unless and until it comes from another source.
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "They were asked to test the system. Test. Try a couple of books to see if it works. That's it."We don't know where GR will take these new data and we ("we" means non-english readers) don't know if our editions will be again there. We have asked but nobody said us something. Only Otis said that GR will refer to Mondadori. This is not enough, we have a lot of other editions who aren't Mondadori. If GR needs more names of Italian publishers we are ready to help, they must only tell us and we are glad to be usefull.
I haven't tried a couple of books, I have tried and I will try to save as many foreing editions (above all Italian) as possible. For us it is a big risk to wait and see what will happen.
I don't blame GR and I am sure they will do the possible for every member but if they could only say that there will be a huge quantity of non-english editions we would be more relaxed.
A related question, although not about the save tool:Are we still allowed to use Amazon cover images? I have read earlier that this is okay under "fair use" but I'm not sure if the Jan 30 changes affect this.
I tried to look through the hundreds of comments, but didn't find a direct answer to this question.
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Of course not, I am confident.
But it would be appreciated if somebody could answer the questions we make. This would surely calm members.