Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
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Amazon is going away as a data source
Bex wrote: "Also if a description is from amazon will it be rolled back to the default when all the amazon stuff is removed?"If the amazon descrip is the default, there will be no descrip unless you enter a new one. I have sometimes after rescuing a book gone back to an edit page and set a non-amazon descrip as default, then clicked "use default descrip" on the newly rescued book. Hope that helps.
Bex wrote: "I just want to check, is it okay that I'm entering minimum possible data right now? I'm working on a principle of "the more rescued the better" rather than updating all descriptions/covers/publishe..."That's what I am doing, otherwise I would never finish (and I have some friends who have rather big lists to weed though as well). I know descriptions and cover images are great, but if leaving them out means rescuing more books, so be it (I just became a librarian, so I don't even really know how to find/do cover images).
FWIW, on the FAQ thread, this is what GR suggests re: cover images:"http://www.tineye.com/ (Search for images similar to the one you provide)"
But I agree, we can get around to those later. Saving book data is much more important at the present juncture ...
Felix wrote: "Also, what's wrong with this edition: Der Weiße Wolf? The ISBN must be wrong because I don't get any results from the Nationalbibliothek."I have found the book with this ISBN 9783210246840, you will find it here: https://portal.dnb.de/opac.htm?query=...
I have saved some German editions and there are a lot of mistakes so it can be that the ISBN was imported wrong.
Gundula wrote: "I sent her both a message and a friend recommendation; we'll see if she bites."It worked! I just hope she'll understand about the (at least temporarily) vanishing covers ...
Themis-Athena wrote: "Gundula wrote: "I sent her both a message and a friend recommendation; we'll see if she bites."It worked! I just hope she'll understand about the (at least temporarily) vanishing covers ..."
I think I did mention it to her. I wonder where we will find cover images later, although I won't worry too much about that at present.
By the way, is there any way to figure out later which books you rescued (if later you want to add things like cover images and the like).
Yes -- if you click on the tiny "Goodreads librarian" link underneath your profile photo on your profile page, you're directed to a (series of) page(s) listing everyone of your edits in (reverse) chronological order.
Themis-Athena wrote: "Yes -- if you click on the tiny "Goodreads librarian" link underneath your profile photo on your profile page, you're directed to a (series of) page(s) listing everyone of your edits in (reverse) c..."Thanks, I might do that after I have rescued the books I need to rescue.
Same here ...
Themis-Athena wrote: "Yes -- if you click on the tiny "Goodreads librarian" link underneath your profile photo on your profile page, you're directed to a (series of) page(s) listing everyone of your edits in (reverse) c..."I am not seeing that 'Goodreads librarian' link on my profile page. is that because I am also an author I wonder?
Vivienne wrote: "I am not seeing that 'Goodreads librarian' link on my profile page. is that because I am also an author I wonder?"I suspect so, though I do find it strange as well. Surely there has to be a way for authors to be able to track their edits, too?
Stéphanie wrote: "Lucky You... I still have 800+ to rescue... x_x"*800*!!! Gasp! Good luck!!
Vivienne wrote: "Themis-Athena wrote: "Yes -- if you click on the tiny "Goodreads librarian" link underneath your profile photo on your profile page, you're directed to a (series of) page(s) listing everyone of you..."Probably. I have the same problem.
Hi, I work for a publisher: InterVarsity Press. We do upload all of our data to Ingram, so I'm hoping all of our books will be fine once you transfer the data.I just tried to add three of our new books to my group, and they are not in the database. Should I give it a week or so for you to find the data, or is there a way I can manually add these books for now?
I hope this isn't a problem already resolved, but I don't have time to read so many messages.Here's the quandary : I'm trying to "rescue" some French books in the list but I'm often stopped by Publication month must be equal to or after the original publication month.
I'm working on books I own and have them in my hands when I answer the notifications. Here's an example
La dynamique de l'Occident by Norbert Elias. The date written at the end of the book (as customary on French books) is October 1990. I understand the required date is the date of the present edition - which is October 1990! And that's when everything goes downwards. :)
So can you explain what's wrong and what I must to to go on, please?
Another good source for UK books is the National Library of Scotland:http://www.nls.uk/catalogues/online
Mod
Leah, the Ingram import is complete. You can manually add a book from the link on the right-hand side of the search results page.
Mod
rivka wrote: "Leah wrote: "Hi, I work for a publisher: InterVarsity Press. We do upload all of our data to Ingram, so I'm hoping all of our books will be fine once you transfer the data."Leah, the Ingram impor..."
Ah, thank you! I didn't see that because I was still in the "group add" section.
If someone needs help with German books I'm free to take over. Finally finished my ~400 to-rescue-books.
Hey, I´ve got almost 100 German mangas to save from merging :(May I suggest you take the required information from the four German manga publishers? That would be:
EMA/ Egmont Manga & Anime: http://www.manganet.de
Carlsen Manga: http://www.carlsen.de/web/manga/a_bis...
Panini comics/ Panini manga: http://www.paninicomics.de
Tokyopop Germany: http://www.tokyopop.de (click Bücher)
Silvia wrote: "Hey, I´ve got almost 100 German mangas to save from merging :(May I suggest you take the required information from the four German manga publishers? That would be:
EMA/ Egmont Manga & Anime: htt..."
Currently, I'm working on two lists from non-librarians, but I will come back to you if I have the time.
You don't need to be a friend to rescue a person's books. All you need is their GR ID# and plug it into the link http://www.goodreads.com/rescue_books...(learned this in the feedback group)
Thanks, Elizabeth! I've been working through my friends' list, but I'd like to help Silvia, too. This will make it easier to find her list. :)
The first rescue I decided to look back at revealed something I do not think should be happening, and I'm guessing that if I've discovered this on the first random selection, it's happening a lot (but I admit that without further investigation, I'm speculating on that particular point):http://www.goodreads.com/book/edits/1...
It appears the open library import filled in the publisher as MacMillan. Then I came along the next day to rescue a friend's book, and was asked on the rescue page to add publisher. Since this was not required to save the book, and I was trying just to save it and so not tracking that info down independently, I left the publisher field blank. This appears to have overridden the open library data (which I assume was good data). Bare-minimum rescues are effectively deleting good and usable data acquired from the import-- that's what I think I'm seeing here, is this correct?
Also I am listed in the chart as having set the publication dates, whereas in the details it can be seen that this information (the day, at least) was set by open library. With rivka's suggestion that we the librarians could potentially become the fall guys should a legal problem arise, ("That's what you are legally taking responsibility for"), I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable that these processes of saving records are working accurately.
I see that the wording of "I own a copy of the book" has changed - if we have a 'personal record' that's ok, too. So, perhaps, if you're confident of your data and can confirm it by opening a box or visiting your father if audited, you want to use that checkbox. Your call.
Mod
It does look that way. I'll report that as a bug.
Brixton wrote: "With rivka's suggestion that we the librarians could potentially become the fall guys should a legal problem arise, ("That's what you are legally taking responsibility for")"
You are reading far more into what I said than what I meant.
Oh my! So, if we don't input the information but touch a record that has been populated by open library - we delete any info that was imported?
Mod
That's a bug then, because I am sure many of us are entering the bare minimum.
What's this about legal problems? I missed the original post.
What's this about legal problems? I missed the original post.
Mod
So, this doesn't apply to other books, where we supply the url? thanks for clarifying.
Mod
Yes! I'm mostly using worldcat or publisher sites. I dug out the few at-risk books I owned from storage, too.
Brixton wrote: "P.S. Only because this amazon problem has forced me to look at some books I haven't paid any attention to since I added them four years ago when I joined, I've noticed a mess has come of publication dates (both to dates of edition and dates of original publication). Has anyone else seen a significant number of their books listed with much more current publication dates than they should have? ."
Yes, I've seen a lot of messes made by well meaning librarians. I've noticed many even before this crisis.
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "You don't need to be a friend to rescue a person's books. All you need is their GR ID# and plug it into the link http://www.goodreads.com/rescue_books...(learned this in the f..."
Thank you, Elizabeth!
I'm afraid at the beginning of this, I "saved" 2 or 3 books using URLs from "not okay" sites. Unfortunately, I can't remember which books. What will happen to these books/editions?
Gundula wrote: "I am sure the issues GR was facing with Amazon were a long time developing. So why wait until the end of January to mention this? I know one thing, if come February, many of my German and French language books are missing, I will be more than a little ticked off. I know that this is probably mainly Amazon's doing, but GR staff should have mentioned the problems with Amazon earlier, and it should have been mentioned to ALL GR members, not just librarians."I too am upset about the lack of communication. I'm not a hardcore librarian, though I have made it into the top 5 or 10 on several occasions; for almost four years I have voluntarily done a certain amount of decent work (not that I've never made mistakes, to be sure) for goodreads, and certainly would have begun helping earlier with this crisis had I known my help was needed-- and yet I was not alerted to this problem until late on the 25th, via a notice sent by email.
Five days notice? For the first time ever in the history of all decisions made by goodreads (I was even publicly supportive of their decision to abandon bookswap, though it was my favourite feature and a treasure trove for finding combining work), I am extremely displeased that all librarians were not immediately and proactively recruited to help work on this. I did not hesitate to start work as soon as I heard of it, but, since having discovered that my rescues may still be at risk because I was operating with incomplete information, I have stopped rescuing entirely and have instead been playing catch-up for the last 18+ hours on this thread and backtracking on what I may or may not have done wrong so far. I take pride in doing good work, I'm obsessed with database consistency and making information useful and easily retrievable; under the present circumstances I am without confidence that anything I'm doing is right or accurate or will even last beyond the next three days.
The volunteers are the greatest asset goodreads has got, without whom, etc. I'm perplexed as to why we were not rallied to the front. It seems those who actively check this group had an additional five days lead-time to knock out some of the issues and questions, and I'm glad for that, but as a more passive librarian coming to this issue on such short-notice, it would have taken me my five precious days just to read through the 20-some pages I found of this thread on the day I was notified. That did not seem like the best use of time given the disaster at hand, especially for the non-American users and/or user libraries heavily or entirely made up of non-English titles. Now participating in this thread is probably not the best use of my time either, but it's where I've landed since feeling lost about all this. No good playing Captain Hindsight, I suppose, but this failure to proactively communicate with and recruit/rally librarians-- and the loss of records/users which undoubtedly will come as a result of that failure-- has made me a little sad: I've lost confidence in this site's future.
Brixton wrote: "Five days notice? "So if someone tells you something, but you don't read it for several days later, they are responsible for your not knowing? This was double the five days notice.
I can hear you saying even 10 days is not enough. So, you think back at the beginning of the month, GR should have told us, "Oh by the way, all the data we have imported from Amazon for several years is going away and we don't have any way just now of saving that data." And you're telling me that would have been OK? How long to do you think it took for them to program a way of both their reimporting data that would overwrite Amazon, and a way for member librarians to also get data that would overwrite Amazon?
This type of complaint is ridiculous on its face.
Is there anyone working specifically on French books/editions? This friend has 39 books at risk for deletion, and I cannot help at this time with French:http://www.goodreads.com/rescue_books...
Thank you~
This thread has got very long, 3 pages since I looked yesterday. I was wondering whether GR can arrange an import from the British Library to cover any UK books still at risk?
I just rescued about 100 German books and there's still no end in sight. Please, please, please arrange sth with the German National Library.
****For anyone coming into this late, here is a FAQ with the info you need to do book rescues in one place.*******
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/7...
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/7...
Mod
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "So if someone tells you something, but you don't read it for several days later, they are responsible for your not knowing? This was double the five days notice..."You have not understood. I read the notice within minutes of receiving it, by email late on the 25th. And as a long-time volunteer coordinator of many types projects, I would consider it bad manners and bad policy to call a volunteer concern or complaint "ridiculous." Volunteers do what they can, and do not do what they cannot; their only "pay" is advancement of the cause and/or esteem of their peers, undermine that and you lose your volunteer. We are all doing what we can with what we've got, but volunteers and users do still have the right and sometimes an obligation to voice concerns.
Cara wrote: "I just rescued about 100 German books and there's still no end in sight. Please, please, please arrange sth with the German National Library."I will help you as soon as possible, I am already rescuing books of a Swiss friend.
I wanted also to ask if somebody knows a good site for French editions. Thank you.
rivka wrote: "If you select the "I have this book" option only when you actually do, there are no legal problems."See, this makes me even more nervous. GoodReads should make certain that their volunteer librarians do not have any individual legal liabilities. GoodReads corporate insurance should cover any issues with the site.
Also, please keep in mind that an individual's ownership of a particular book can be fluid. I might have a book today, and tomorrow donate it to a charity shop, give it to a friend, sell it, or lose it. It would be very hard to prove ownership of one book on a given date ...
Brixton wrote: "You have not understood. I read the notice within minutes of receiving it, by email late on the 25th. And as a long-time volunteer coordinator of many types projects, I would consider it bad manners and bad policy to call a volunteer concern or complaint "ridiculous." Volunteers do what they can, and do not do what they cannot;..."The notice was posted on the 20th. I, too, am a volunteer. Let's just work with what we have.
I have a friend who has 4710 books on his shelves. Even after the big import, he currently has 376 at risk of which around 200 may be deleted. They are all in the English language, though many seem to be fairly specialist academic books.I don't know whether is a Goodreads librarian, or whether he has even logged into Goodreads in the last week. I suspect like many of us he has a life, and comes to his hobby when he can. I do know he is an ardent booklover and writes some incredible reviews.
I do hope the Goodreads team have told him that his books are at risk and advised him about how he can save them.
Please don't tell me I should step in and save his books. I've saved dozens of my own that the Ingrams database didn't fix. (Not obscure: but UK editions, many of popular authors.)
To me this is an overwhelming example of why the process over the past week has been poor and why Goodreads users need more time to save their books.
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Also if a description is from amazon will it be rolled back to the default when all the amazon stuff is removed?
One other silly question, is there a way to see all books that don't have a cover or description or page number or xyz? I'd be willing to start going through them to help if needed but other than my books & friends books I have no real way of finding/sorting them that I can see. Thanks!