Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
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Amazon is going away as a data source
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Mayanka, here is an example:The Coast Watchers This book is in danger of being removed
The Coast Watchers as is this one
The Coast Watchers However, ..."
Elizabeth, are you saying the first two editions are showing in your at risk list as "will be deleted" instead of "will be merged"? Or is the wording on the book page confusing? Thanks!
Thank you Patrick for the answers and information. It is very helpful and much appreciated!
Brian wrote: "vicki_girl: we'd have to check, but the most likely reason is that the publication date for this edition is actually earlier than the original publication date stored on the work the edition is connected to."Ummm...I'm confused. The publication date for that edition is 1986. The original publication date is listed 1933, which I put in nearly two years ago. It had previously been 1986, which still isn't earlier than this edition.
I was just going to rescue Secret Letters at Trebizon (I own most of the series), but when I clicked on the "rescue me" button, there was no space to fill in the title, just one for the author and then a place to write a description. Do I just not bother with the title? (other books of the same series are similar, when you click on "rescue me" there is no space to type in the title).
Gundula wrote: "I was just going to rescue Secret Letters at Trebizon (I own most of the series), but when I clicked on the "rescue me" button, there was no space to fill in the title, just one for ..."We only show fields that are sourced from Amazon. If the form doesn't show the title, it means the title is safe and has been sourced from elsewhere.
Patrick wrote: "You can view the "rescue books for other readers" page here (It's also available by clicking the link at the bottom of your rescue page):http://www.goodreads.com/rescue_books/at..."
Thanks for the link Patrick - when I click on it I get a list of books that need rescuing, but it's only one page? I don't see any links at the bottom to continue to the next page. However if I open up a new instance of the link, the books needed to be rescued are all different from the first instance.
Gundula wrote: "I was just going to rescue Secret Letters at Trebizon (I own most of the series), but when I clicked on the "rescue me" button, there was no space to fill in the title, just one for ..."Don't bother with the title in that case. It's only that author info that needs rescuing.
Mayanka wrote: "Gundula wrote: "I was just going to rescue Secret Letters at Trebizon (I own most of the series), but when I clicked on the "rescue me" button, there was no space to fill in the titl..."Alright, thanks, then I will go ahead and rescue the series (or those books of the series I own).
Jennifer E. wrote: "Patrick wrote: "You can view the "rescue books for other readers" page here (It's also available by clicking the link at the bottom of your rescue page):http://www.goodreads.com/rescue_books/at....."
Rescue what you can from that page. Then "refresh" the page- new books will come up.
Jennifer E. wrote: "Patrick wrote: "You can view the "rescue books for other readers" page here (It's also available by clicking the link at the bottom of your rescue page):http://www.goodreads.com/rescue_books/at....."
Ah, apparently it hadn't been turned on for everyone. That should change in a second.
Cool. *toddling off for home to start rescuing...*
Patrick thank you for your quick answers. What I meant was the list of books in need of rescue for a specific user, e.g. my husband's books. He's not a librarian so he can't access the rescue page. Is there a way for me to look at his rescue list for him?
Sandi wrote: "Patrick thank you for your quick answers. What I meant was the list of books in need of rescue for a specific user, e.g. my husband's books. He's not a librarian so he can't access the rescue page...."At the moment, there is not.
Mayanka wrote: "Sandi wrote: "Patrick thank you for your quick answers. What I meant was the list of books in need of rescue for a specific user, e.g. my husband's books. He's not a librarian so he can't access th..."Ok. I hope that will change before the 30th, otherwise I'll have to look through all his books one by one to check if they are safe...
Mod
Jennifer, to avoid having multiple librarians working simultaneously on the same rescues, that page has a randomized batch of books needing rescuing. Just refresh the page for a new random batch.
Here is a Kindle edition from Amazon.it still showing as at risk, fyi:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...
Mayanka wrote: "Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Mayanka, here is an example:The Coast Watchers This book is in danger of being removed
The Coast Watchers as is this one
[book:The Coast W..."
Elizabeth, are you saying the first two editions are showing in your at risk list as "will be deleted" instead of "will be merged"? Or is the wording on the book page confusing? Thanks!
It's not actually on my list, but it's one book I could remember I added everything, so I looked at the other editions. The words at the top of those editions is that "this book will be removed". If it is to be merged only, then, yes, the wording is confusing.
Patrick wrote: "For books that don't get rescued, how long will it be before there's a new data source?While each case is different, new data is our top priority at the moment and will remain so until we have records for every book."
1) What about books from the UK? There are a lot, especially older ones, that are not in the Ingram database.
2) Also what about books that are old, maybe without isbns, not published in the US only in the UK) and are only shelved on a few or only one shelf? I am concerned that those books, of which I have quite a few, will have the rating moved to a no-title, no-author entry and if the books doesn't have a review (and most of mine don't), how will I will know what the rating refers to?
3) When rescuing books, does the cover pic need to be deleted (as it is from Amazon) and a new cover pic uploaded?
Problems aside, I am REALLY glad that Goodreads will be totally independent on not reliant in any way on Amazon.
Mod
If the cover image is from Amazon, the rescue page will give you the opportunity to upload an alternate image. Not all books needing rescue have Amazon-sourced images.
For people concerned about finding cover images outside of Amazon, I might suggest the site TinEye. You can enter the web address of an image (the image itself, NOT the webpage it's on) and it will search the internet for similar pictures.
There are also plugins for all browsers that allow you to right click on an image and get a menu option to search TinEye.
I make no promises that it will find an image for everything, but it's definitely a quick way to search!
rivka wrote: "Petra, wouldn't books without ISBNs by definition not have been imported from Amazon?If the cover image is from Amazon, the rescue page will give you the opportunity to upload an alternate image...."
There are loads of books without isbns on Amazon. I have a lot of old, rare Caribbean books that I found on Amazon. Those I have put on GR I assumed the data would have been overwritten but Amazon, not necessarily a correct assumption.
If someone has manually entered a book and also given it the ASIN that the Amazon seller assigned to it, will these be removed?
Mod
Yes, but except for a very brief period when all sorts of odd things were importing, the only non-ISBN books that have imported from Amazon are Kindle editions.
Petra X wrote: "Those I have put on GR I assumed the data would have been overwritten but Amazon"
No, if you manually entered a book, Amazon never overwrote the info unless someone clicked "switch to Amazon" -- which didn't work for non-ISBN books, as above.
Mod
No. The person who manually entered the book will show up as the book source, and it will not be at risk.
vicki_girl wrote: "Brian wrote: "vicki_girl: we'd have to check, but the most likely reason is that the publication date for this edition is actually earlier than the original publication date stored on the work the ..."My original post was speculating about what the cause might be. The case that I described is the most common cause for what you noted, and is something that will be cleared up soon. If it's not the case I described, then give a shot at rescuing the book. Let us know if that doesn't take either.
Are Audible.com editions an issue at all?
Jennifer E. wrote: "Are Audible.com editions an issue at all?"Even though audible editions use ASINs, I've always had to manually add mine as they don't import properly. So I think they should be okay.
Mayanka wrote: "Gundula wrote: "I was just going to rescue Secret Letters at Trebizon (I own most of the series), but when I clicked on the "rescue me" button, there was no space to fill in the titl...". We only show fields that are sourced from Amazon. If the form doesn't show the title, it means the title is safe and has been sourced from elsewhere. Just a word of caution - I had several books that didn't ask for an author field, and after they were rescued the title appeared in both the title and author field. It was fixable by editing the book from its page afterwards, but it was easy to miss.
vicki_girl wrote: "Here is a Kindle edition from Amazon.it still showing as at risk, fyi:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13..."
Here's another Kindle edition showing up:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...
I am a Goodreads author and have three books listed here - one of them (Spare Change) is #1 on the GR Listopedia list of best unknown Books - how can I find out if these books are in jeopardy of disappearing?
rivka wrote: "Velma wrote: "Is there any indication about whether or not the new data to be imported in the 14m title db will overwrite the data we are manually entering when rescuing titles?"No, books that ha..."
Thanks for the reply (& the good news), Rivka and Jan!
Mod
The number of at-risk books is slowly dropping. The importing must be working...
Thanks so much to Patrick, and everyone else working very hard, and giving us information. Much appreciated:)
Sorry but I have to be honest here. This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of. Love goodreads and it's helped me reach a larger audience BUT!!!Your getting the open source from Ingram??? Ingram Entertianment. A company that is barely staying in business. It's like saying gee guys! were going to get our open source info from Borders.
If you didn't want to pay Amazon or whatever it is you guys are doing to get their information, you should have done it.
Ingram was a stupid move... sorry... they barely buy anything and their distribution channels are atrocious. What are you going to do when they go bankrupt? Go back to Amazon?
KDP Select is taking books away from everyone, it will just grow as months go buy. 99% of all eBooks are Amazon... Tha'ts the numbers from all of my author friends. All sales are thru Amazon.
Bad business decision. Really bad.
Lobstergirl wrote: "The number of at-risk books is slowly dropping. The importing must be working..."Hallelujah! XD
I noticed it working too, albeit slowly, my list has been steadily dropping on both the may be merged and may be deleted sections.
Rose wrote: "I noticed it working too, albeit slowly, my list has been steadily dropping on both the may be merged and may be deleted sections."I had 86, am now down to 36. =D I'm definitely count myself as one of the luckier ones in this big headache of a change.
rivka wrote: "Petra X wrote: "There are loads of books without isbns on Amazon."Yes, but except for a very brief period when all sorts of odd things were importing, the only non-ISBN books that have imported f..."
Thank you for addressing my concerns. I would still like to know how if a book isn't rescued and loses its title and its author and we haven't written a review only rated it, how we will know what the book was in order to, I suppose, add the title and other details manually?
Petra, I don't know for sure, but I'm hoping the ISBN will stay? Considering that we don't have to re-enter ISBN when saving books, it must be one of the fields that isn't in danger?Like Stephen, I am also concerned about using Ingram as a data source... Was google books not an option? I've been able to find even most Danish books there.
Mod
I know you said that my reviews wouldn't be deleted, but what happens if I reviewed a book and it doesn't get rescued?
First, let me repeat, your reviews and ratings really won't be deleted. There's a good chance that we will get data for your book from Ingram or the Library of Congress. If neither of those things happen, and you can't find a copy of the book or a valid source for data, then that particular book might be removed, which means that your review or rating would be temporarily moved to a blank edition without an author or title, where they will be stored until we can find a new source for data for that book, which we're confident we can do for every book in the catalog.
Okay, maybe this is a dumb question, but can someone recommend a few good websites for English books? The audiobooks (my majority) are no big deal, because there are 2 main publishers and they have great info on their websites, but I'm struggling with the regular books! I search google, and all I get is page after page of Amazon/abebooks/Powell's/etc. I've been trying worldcat, but it doesn't seem to have much info on individual editions... mostly just the whole work.
Mod
Experiment wrote: "Rose wrote: "I noticed it working too, albeit slowly, my list has been steadily dropping on both the may be merged and may be deleted sections."I had 86, am now down to 36. =D I'm definitely coun..."
Eight hours ago I had 433 at risk, now it's down to 356. Great news, but still some way to go.
Maybe I just have strange editions... It seems like the more popular the book is (i.e. the more editions), the harder it is to find good info on WorldCat...
also you can try Google Books, i have gotten several hard to find info from there.
Or maybe I'm just frustrated that they don't list the book format or a more specific publication date (just year)... *shrugs* I want complete information.... But I guess that doesn't matter as much as saving books!
Stephen wrote: "Sorry but I have to be honest here. This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of. Love goodreads and it's helped me reach a larger audience BUT!!!Your getting the open source from Ingram??? Ingram Entertianment. A company that is barely staying in business. It's like saying gee guys! were going to get our open source info from Borders.
If you didn't want to pay Amazon or whatever it is you guys are doing to get their information, you should have done it.
Ingram was a stupid move... sorry... they barely buy anything and their distribution channels are atrocious. What are you going to do when they go bankrupt? Go back to Amazon?
KDP Select is taking books away from everyone, it will just grow as months go buy. 99% of all eBooks are Amazon... Tha'ts the numbers from all of my author friends. All sales are thru Amazon.
Bad business decision. Really bad. "
Thanks for the feedback, Stephen. We endeavor to get as much data as possible directly from publishers, and we'll continue to increase our data coming through those channels over time. In the mean time, we needed a fillip in the data department, and Ingram made the most sense for several reasons. Individual booksellers were out of the question for what should be obvious reasons, but we're pursuing several different sources at once to try to make this transition as smooth as possible.
Sara ♥ wrote: "Maybe I just have strange editions... It seems like the more popular the book is (i.e. the more editions), the harder it is to find good info on WorldCat..."I've tried going to the publishers' sites directly and the searching...or putting the publisher's name in the google search field. You can also try adding "-buy -amazon" (searches for pages WITHOUT those words) to exclude bookseller sites like amazon.
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The time is short, but I've actually been enjoying getting reacquainted with those of my books which need rescuing.