Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
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Amazon is going away as a data source
Otis wrote: "At Goodreads, we make it a priority to use book information from the most reliable and open data sources, because it helps us build the best experience for our members. To that end, we're making a ..."I've been steadily chipping away at the volumes on my rescue book list that I currently have physical copies of. Before I go further, I want to verify that ignoring the 'source URL' field, which is labeled 'required', is in fact acceptable in these instances when we are working from a copy in our hands.
Thanks.
Velma wrote: "Otis wrote: "At Goodreads, we make it a priority to use book information from the most reliable and open data sources, because it helps us build the best experience for our members. To that end, we..."If you check the box "I have a physical copy of the book" there is no need to supply the source URL. Only one of those are required.
Oh nooo, please! That means tons of work in order to keep all German editions in place because they are ALL from Amazon.de (well, with the few exceptions of manually added books, but this number is like ... not existent).
Is Google Books an acceptable source, or do they count as a bookseller?
Carolyn wrote: "Mayanka, can you give us a timeframe for when the librarian attributed edits 'update' will be complete?I've got over 700 books on my Rescue Me shelf, and I've done thousands of edits. I figure I'..."
I think it will be finished over the weekend. You can check on the status in this thread: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/7...
Another question (sorry!):I had this edition shelved:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12...
The tool told me that it was at risk for being merged, so I switched editions to this one, which is not at risk:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11...
However, the first one is still showing on my list of "may be merged". Is this supposed to be happening?
vicki_girl wrote: "Another question (sorry!):I had this edition shelved:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12...
The tool told me that it was at risk for being merged, so I switched editions to this one, whi..."
If you switch editions, the information for your books is cached so it may stay for a while but it will eventually update. However, when you rescue a book it immediately removes it from the list.
Mayanka wrote: "Velma wrote: "Otis wrote: "At Goodreads, we make it a priority to use book information from the most reliable and open data sources, because it helps us build the best experience for our members. T..."Thank you Mayanka, for the verification.
Sarah wrote: "Just to confirm and make sure I'm doing this right, if I am fixing a Kindle edition, is it okay to use the information from a Kindle book I own and select "I have a physical copy of this book present"? "And this is kind of a joke for a Kindle book. How can I have a physical copy?
For people with lots of Kindle editions, I'm planning on backing up my books on the 29th. That way all the data will be saved. Worst case scenario the books have to be manually entered again, but it's better than losing the data! the_cat wrote: "Maybe I'm reading this wrong. In the last 3 years I've edited and uploaded cover for around 23300 editions. I think half of them dont have an ISBN or reciews, only the data available from specializ..."
Have you gone to the rescue books page? If any of the books you are worried about are on your shelves, the link will tell you if they are in need of rescue.
I'm fairly certain however that this only applies to books imported or sourced from Amazon - if a book was manually added (which is more than likely the case for ones such as these) it shouldn't be affected.
Sarah wrote: "I'm not sure if it's acceptable as a source for this, but http://www.archive.org has scans of many, many out-of-copywright books. Hopefully that should suffice for some of these older works, since you can view a scan of the actual book to get the information."
I don't see why archive.org wouldn't work - a scan is just as good as a physical book for this purpose, IMO.
Mod
It's a sad thing we are forced to do such things. It justs points out the absurdity of this licensing/restricting/copyrighting system.That said I have to report that this book:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77...
appears in my "to save" list but there is no way it could have come from Amazon. In fact, thisi is true for the vast majority of greek (or translated in greek) books as Amazon just doesn't stock books in greek.
Marisa wrote: "Sarah wrote: "Just to confirm and make sure I'm doing this right, if I am fixing a Kindle edition, is it okay to use the information from a Kindle book I own and select "I have a physical copy of t..."Good point, we will update the text to say a physical copy or ebook copy. But yes, if you have the ebook physically in front of you, that is fine. Hope that helps!
After checking my Recue Me list I'm still hyperventilating. K. Is it possible to batch-change the source URL for every Spanish book (Spanish from Spain) with ISBN13 97884******** to this one?:http://www.mcu.es/webISBN/tituloSimpl...
hm
simply http://www.mcu.es/webISBN/ works fine. This is an official page from the Ministerio de Cultura. If the book has a valid ISBN it's listed in there. All editions.
For books on my list that say could be merged should I just wait and hope they will be merged most are audiobooks which I downloaded from audible which is owned by amazon so don't know where else I should go to get the info maybe the publisher??
Okay, I know you said the publishers website is acceptable. However, many publishers sell the books directly from their sites. So for the purposes of rescuing books, publishers websites are NOT considered ecommerce sites, correct?
Good point the_cat! The equivalent for greek books is biblionet.gr where most of the info our librarians use comes from.
vicki_girl wrote: "Okay, I know you said the publishers website is acceptable. However, many publishers sell the books directly from their sites. So for the purposes of rescuing books, publishers websites are NOT c..."You may use the publisher's site even if they sell their books. (Except for Amazon)
Michael wrote: "It's a sad thing we are forced to do such things. It justs points out the absurdity of this licensing/restricting/copyrighting system.That said I have to report that this book:
http://www.goodr..."
I don't think Amazon has to stock it, it's that GR got the info there:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9604...
rivka wrote: "An ebook in your possession is still a physical (albeit electronic) copy."Well, tell that to people who say that an electronic book doesn't have any physical entity LOL For me, all my ebooks are real books (and bits in my disks are physical, yes).
And Mayanka, I supposed it, but with all the questions about downloads, ebooks, piracy, and arguments from a side and other, it sounded strange, I pointed only because of that.
This comes across as nothing more than declaring war on independent authors. As a long time Goodreads member I am more than upset and likely to leave.
Susie wrote: "For books on my list that say could be merged should I just wait and hope they will be merged most are audiobooks which I downloaded from audible which is owned by amazon so don't know where else I..."It is perfectly fine to wait if you don't feel attached to the particular edition. All editions for works which have at least one edition not sourced by Amazon (marked may be merged) will definitely get merged if we do not find an alternate source for the edition.
Otis wrote: "> Is the rescue list specific to each user, and taken from their shelves?Yes it is. We will have a general list out after the big file import.
> I'm concerned, because I have improved many, man..."
So exactly what IS it you have against Kindle authors?
Mayanka wrote: "Marisa wrote: "Sarah wrote: "Just to confirm and make sure I'm doing this right, if I am fixing a Kindle edition, is it okay to use the information from a Kindle book I own and select "I have a phy..."That helps a lot, thanks!
On another note, I clicked the link here to go the "Rescue Me" tool, and it only has a fraction of my books that need rescuing. If I go to individual books on my shelves, it will say the book is in danger of being deleted, but the link here doesn't pick those up.
I'm trying to see the pattern - it may be that it's only Kindle books that are affected (I have a lot of those), although I'm almost sure some of the original books I had on the Rescue Me tool were Kindle also. Right now the only way I can see to check for sure is to go book by book, which is slow.
Michael wrote: "It's a sad thing we are forced to do such things. It justs points out the absurdity of this licensing/restricting/copyrighting system.That said I have to report that this book:
http://www.goodr..."
Look at the bottom of the Librarian Edits page for this book (link). It appears to have a lot of information from amazon.de, also it is here on amazon.com.
It's not uncommon for foreign language books to be on amazon.com.
I don't think Amazon has to stock it, it's that GR got the info there:Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: ..."OK, I see! I 'll fix it ASAP but most of the info there hasn't come from Amazon since it's in greek!
Well, the_cat, if it's possible if will be easier for me LOL.
I am concerned about ebooks. All of my ebooks come from either Amazon, Smashwords, Baen or Public domain sites. How am I supposed to "rescue" those?
Mod
I was just skimming through my "rescue me" shelve and almost every German book I have is on it. You can't delete every German edition on GR, can you? Please tell me you have a source for German books other than Amazon.de?! I'm really freaking out right now!And then I have another question:
Why on earth are there so many "may be merged" editions on my shelve when I'm actually certain that I entered or at least corrected or adjusted every possible detail? You really don't want me to enter them again, do you?
I'm panicking right now ... I put in so much work and this is all to be deleted -.- !
Sarah wrote: "Mayanka wrote: "Marisa wrote: "Sarah wrote: "Just to confirm and make sure I'm doing this right, if I am fixing a Kindle edition, is it okay to use the information from a Kindle book I own and sele..."Can you give me an example of such a book, Sarah? I will investigate.
rivka wrote: "Nyssa, if you own the ebook and have it in front of you, just get the info from it. Then you don't need an alternate online source."OH! When it asked if I had the book in front of me I was thinking "physical book", not my Kindle. Thank you for clearing that up!
Otis wrote: "At Goodreads, we make it a priority to use book information from the most reliable and open data sources, because it helps us build the best experience for our members. To that end, we're making a ..."I'll tell you what, Otis. Since Goodreads is declaring war on Kindle authors, give me the ability and I will just DELETE my novels from GR myself. And my membership.
Mod
Also, we're working on updating the data tables to more accurately show the source of each piece of data (author, title, ISBN, etc., etc.) which will also help for books where most of the info has been edited by librarians. But keep in mind, if the title and author were imported from Amazon, that book will be at risk to have its title and author removed. (The other info that you probably added, like cover and description, would still be in the system.)
Oh, well, all I can do for now is damage control. I'll try to get as far as I can and save going through the roof for the 30th.The problem with most of the books I've been working on recently is that they are actually book club editions which were never officially on sale. Amazon has just the second hand editions and therefore the info. So I guess you won't find another source for them.
J.R. wrote: "So exactly what IS it you have against Kindle authors? "We love Kindle authors, and to clarify, none of the people who published through the KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) are at risk of losing their books (or even the Kindle editions of those books). We will still be getting a regular feed of all of those works from Amazon.
Please keep in mind that it is works that are at risk, not editions, and there should, in the end, be very, very, very few works that are actually at risk. And I can guarantee you that none of them are by indie authors published through KDP. Hope that clarifies, but feel free ask any follow up questions you have.
I put in so much work and this is all to be deletedAgain, we expect very few books to be deleted, once the 14m file is uploaded. We are only asking for librarians to prepare us for next week at this time.
Since Goodreads is declaring war on Kindle authors
Again, we are planning to keep all kindle editions. At the current moment they are Amazon sourced so the rescue buttons are appearing, but we aim to change that shortly so don't bother about them.
I've already changed some of mine to just "ebook". The way your message is worded it certainly sounded like all Kindle editions were going away, especially since that's all that showed up on my "Rescue Me" list. I am happy to hear that that is not the case.I'm going to leave the ones I changed though, as I do not want to go through all of that again.
Patrick wrote: "J.R. wrote: "So exactly what IS it you have against Kindle authors? "We love Kindle authors, and to clarify, none of the people who published through the KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) are at ris..."
You just said information would not be allowed from Amazon. So WHERE are you going to get information on KDP novels, pray tell?
I'm not sure if I have understood everything here, frankly I don't have time to do that now, but I tried to click on the first "rescue me" link on my list: ISBN 9788806205560http://www.goodreads.com/rescue_books...
It's an Italian translation of a book originally published in English: the page doesn't ask me to put the translator's name. If I don't put it, the "new" book page will be incomplete? What happens when the authors are more than one? there's only one Author Name field
Cover Image: I have to find them all over again on the web THEN save them to my hard disk THEN upload them?? Please could we just put the URL of the image instead?? Like Librarything does??
What about the description, there's no field for that, does this mean it will be kept, I don't have to re-enter it?
I don't know, I'm pretty pissed off, tell you what
After rescuing some books I had the physical copy, I saw in my list of librarian edits a large amount of edits I'm not making by myself. I suppose that has something to do with this problem/thing?
Mod
Cover images and descriptions from Amazon will be removed; all other will not be. But keep in mind that if a book has been rescued, you can always add a cover or description after the January 30 date. (Assuming it hasn't be sourced from somewhere else by then.)
J.R. wrote: "You just said information would not be allowed from Amazon. So WHERE are you going to get information on KDP novels, pray tell?"The Amazon API includes books published on the Amazon KDP and books from many other publishers. We are losing the "many other publishers" part, not the KDP. We are going to get a feed of KDP books from Amazon directly.
How do I know which data comes from Amazon and is in risk of delete and which doesn't? I don't remember how many and which covers I uploaded in a year. I have to fill all the fields of the "rescue me" page always, to be sure?
Renske wrote: "After rescuing some books I had the physical copy, I saw in my list of librarian edits a large amount of edits I'm not making by myself. I suppose that has something to do with this problem/thing?"Renske, yes, that's related to this effort but it's a separate script I'm running right now to read through the librarian logs and make sure we're attributing the right librarian to fields that you've changed (if you scroll to the bottom of librarian edits for a book, we show where each field came from). A side effect of this script is that it'll look like you've made some edits for books you edited in the past.
Mod
Renske, that's due to updating the logs and data tables to correctly source each element of each book.
Patrick wrote: "J.R. wrote: "You just said information would not be allowed from Amazon. So WHERE are you going to get information on KDP novels, pray tell?"The Amazon API includes books published on the Amazon ..."
Thanks. Sorry to throw a hissy fit but that really threw me. I'll post where other KDP authors are throwing similar hissy fits.
How do I know which data comes from Amazon and is in risk of delete and which doesn't? I don't remember how many and which covers I uploaded in a year. I have to fill all the fields of the "rescue me" page always, to be sure? If it's on the rescue page its from Amazon.
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I've got over 700 books on my Rescue Me shelf, and I've done thousands of edits. I figure I'll start worrying only after the update is complete and the new source is uploaded.
We will have a bit of time after those events to actually work on our Rescue Me shelves, correct?