Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
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Amazon is going away as a data source
Oh, yikers. I have physical copies of many of the books on my "rescue" list, but they were boxed for a move and haven't seen daylight since. What is considered an "approved" source for publication data?
Some the user/librarian added data is still being updated to reflect those types of changes. I believe there is a script running to clean these up, and correctly attribute the data to users/librarians rather than Amazon, that should finish up by Monday.
Shay, I've backed them up already, so the reviews themselves are safe and could be reposted if necessary, but I do have quite a lot of duplicates. I re-read a lot. I just kind of hope it wouldn't be necessary.
Becky wrote: "Shay, I've backed them up already, so the reviews themselves are safe and could be reposted if necessary, but I do have quite a lot of duplicates. I re-read a lot. I just kind of hope it wouldn't b..."The hope is that the new data being imported should address the vast majority of these books. GR believes that very few books will be left to rescue (from merging or deletion) after this data is available.
You can also select the link from post #1 in this thread and see which ones are currently at risk. If it is a reread, and you selected an edition at random to mark your reread, you can just move the review to another edition now to one that's not at risk. Then nothing will need to be redone.
ETA: Here's the link
http://www.goodreads.com/rescue_books...
Thanks for all who posted to answer my question about the kindle edition and yes , I found the data by the end of the book not the begining .
No, this one wasn't random - they are the specific editions that I read (or listened to, since one was audio). But I've had lots of frustration with these two books/reviews anyway, because at some point my original review was moved to the wrong edition (maybe a merge issue? Not sure), and whenever I try to change it, the system moves the OTHER review to that edition rather than the one I want to move. =\
Maybe I'll just delete them both and start over. It's really frustrating.
I wouldn't do anything drastic until middle of next week. The new data may rescue them.
Yeah, I'll wait - but even if it does rescue them, I might redo it anyway, because the endangered one is the "correct" edition, and the other isn't. Figures... :P
vicki_girl wrote: "Go ahead an rescue the book, but don't put in the publication date info; it's not required. After it has be rescued you can select edit and update the edition publication date and the original pub..."Done, thanks. I also found I was able to edit the book immediately, though I did need to refresh my rescue list so I didn't see it there any more.
I found the link, thanks to all who posted. Given the numbers others have listed, I felt relieved that my number is only 208, and that most of my list was only in danger of being merged, until I realized that the list you get via the link is excluding Kindle editions for some reason, probably because Goodreads wants us not to worry, and to deal with them later. I confirmed this by clicking on some of my Kindle editions, despite not being on my main list, they still have the rescue banner. I'm sorry but anyone whose shelves have the majority of electronic titles has the right to be worried. The list should contain all of someone's endangered books.
--Mahlon--
Shay wrote: "John, I think that the deadline is from Amazon's side. I think GR would be more than happy to have a deadline 6 months out. Unless the Goodreads team have been sitting on this for months, this just doesn't wash. 10 days is clearly unreasonable, and even if the Amazon lawyers are growling, there is no way that senior Amazon execs are going to want to hack off tens of thousands of Goodreads users who probably shop with them. (What if we were to boycott Amazon ... ?)
It's reasonable for Amazon to enforce their licenses but not to set unrealistic deadlines.
There's a paid-for library cataloguing service called Collectorz that I use, who got into a similar pickle a couple of years ago. After standing up to Amazon they were able to agree a sensible timeframe for whatever changes were necessary.
That's why my list is so small (only 44), most of my titles that would need rescuing are kindle versions.
Deedee wrote: "Brenda wrote: "OMG!!! Are you serious??? This is an impossible task:("I'm hoping most of mine are rescued by that 14 million they are talking about."
Same here. Will look again on Monday to see if the number's dropped any.
John, I use Collectorz too, and I moved here when they had the Amazon issue, which is why I'm so disappointed it's come up again. I'm guessing that they never really came up with a good solution to the problem, because in the latest version of the softtware still doesn't give you the option of adding Kindle books automatically. I was using goodreads as an online backup to collectorz...sigh. I guess I'll just export my GR books back to Collectorz if need be.--Mahlon--
GoodReads Powers-that-Be: Without knowing precisely how Amazon set up their demand, I'm wondering if you can temporarily skate around the deletion of books in so short a time period.What I'm thinking is that when Jan 30 hits, any books which haven't been rescued become unsearchable and unviewable under normal circumstances...essentially becoming invisible on the site...but the data is still held somewhere temporarily, and users who had shelved a particular un-rescued book will be able to see the list (more or less like the current rescue page) and rescue it later if they can find the info (or time).
This way books whose data came from Amazon would still be removed from the site (hopefully matching Amazon's requirements), but the existence of these books would be stored in a way that allowed readers to backtrack and rescue later, without having blank reviews or ratings tied to something without any title and author. You wouldn't even have to save all of the info in the back DB...just the title and author would suffice to allow individuals to keep track. These books would also not be included in export.
It is, of course, possible that this idea simply violates Amazon's new terms, and even if it doesn't, it may be technically difficult to do in a week. But has something along these lines at least been considered?
Nile daughter wrote: "why is this book related to Amazon السكرية ?"It's not just that book. I'm seeing several books — if not all — on my Rescue List that absolutely have nothing to do with Amazon. *facepalm*
Nile daughter wrote: "why is this book related to Amazon السكرية ?"Because the base data apparently came from them: http://www.amazon.com/El-Sokareya-Nag...
Experiment wrote: "Nile daughter wrote: "why is this book related to Amazon السكرية ?"It's not just that book. I'm seeing several books — if not all — on my Rescue List that absolutely have nothing t..."
I feel the same !
This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For wrote: "Nile daughter wrote: "why is this book related to Amazon السكرية ?"
Because the base data apparently came from them: http://www.amazon.com/El-Sokareya-Nag......"
I got it , even though it seems very strange to me for anyone to add an arabic book (origanly written in Arabic ) and get its data from Amazon , I will fix it .
I'm a Data Aggregation Specialist for a major online real estate listing portal site. While I can't speak for Goodreads, I can tell you that you are sometimes given 72 hours to either correct whatever it is they've taken issue with or take the feed down. If their demands are not workable with your current business model then you have no choice but to terminate the relationship with said provider.This is a purely hypothetical example because I have no idea what the agreement was between GR and Amazon but if I've signed a license agreement to use data in a certain way, and I then use that data to power other things, apps on mobile devices for instance, and that is not within the scope of the agreement, I would receive a cease and desist notice as soon as the data provider noticed. In most cases they don't care how that affects your business. They own the data and they want to have complete control over how it's used. Many major data providers are scrambling to figure out how to keep a handle on where their data is going and how they can best be compensated for it's multiple uses. The explosion of apps, data syndicators and the like has made many companies sit up and take notice. You're likely to see more of this in the future with other sites you frequent that are powered by data feeds they license from someone else.
Deedee wrote: "Is this a good source for books?http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/index.cgi"
It's an excellent source of data (in my unofficial opinion) as all changes to the ISFDB are moderator checked first, and many entries are verified by one or more contributors to the site who actually have the book and check the data is OK.
Michael wrote: "Deedee wrote: "Is this a good source for books?http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/index.cgi"
It's an excellent source of data (in my unofficial opinion) as all changes to the ISFDB are moderator check..."
Since it is not an e-commerce site, i.e. they're not selling anything, it's fine.
Michael wrote: "Deedee wrote: "Is this a good source for books?http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/index.cgi"
It's an excellent source of data (in my unofficial opinion) as all changes to the ISFDB are moderator check..."
Yeah!
I've tried to click the link to rescue my titles but it is not working. It says I do not have the permission. Can you rescue my titles please?!
Victoria wrote: "I've tried to click the link to rescue my titles but it is not working. It says I do not have the permission. Can you rescue my titles please?!"I have the same thing; I think it's because we are not librarians. I really wish they would make this "rescue titles" thing open to all GR members; otherwise, many of us are going to have a very rude awakening post January 30th (I am especially worried about my French and German books, sigh).
Gundula wrote: "Victoria wrote: "I've tried to click the link to rescue my titles but it is not working. It says I do not have the permission. Can you rescue my titles please?!"I have the same thing; I think it'..."
Doing so would put normal users on the same standing as Librarians, which would defeats the purpose of granting Librarian privilege. When you use the "Rescue Me" function, it overwrites all the previous data even if you left some boxes blank.
It's not hard to become a Librarian, there is no test or anything of such. Give them a good reason on why you want to become a Librarian and Goodreads will let you.
Now that librarian stuff actually takes some effort and attention to detail, will Goodreads find a way to weed out librarians who can't/won't/don't follow the rules?
If I rescue a book and use the ULR for a publisher, do I also need to include page numbers, publication dates and the material in the lower part of the form or is that information only for books that we have physical copies of?
If the data is on the website I would.It is not clear if GR are going to then use those links to update book information or not.
I suspect that the URL field is "proof" of where the data came from, in the same way if you have the book in hand you tick the I have this book box.
This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For wrote: "GoodReads Powers-that-Be: Without knowing precisely how Amazon set up their demand, I'm wondering if you can temporarily skate around the deletion of books in so short a time period."Amazon's TOS require that we delete all data that we might have cached. Though we do think we can delete all their data and still keep enough data to ID the record. We are working on that. We hope to lose as few editions as possible.
Moderatrix Lori wrote: "I'm a Data Aggregation Specialist for a major online real estate listing portal site. While I can't speak for Goodreads, I can tell you that you are sometimes given 72 hours to either correct what..."
Lori, while I can't comment on the specific nature of our relationship with Amazon you do bring up good points about why it's better to have data you own yourself - or at least have a very secure license for. Amazon's license has always been a risk for us b/c they could pull the plug at any time. The new data sources will be much safer and better long term for Goodreads. I know it might be a painful transition, but stick with us - this will help ensure we're going to be around for a while!
Also: will you message everyone in the librarian group about this? I think it's a bad sign that I'm an active user and librarian and only knew about this from someone tweeting me about it today. The more people know, the less likely they'll keep adding more Amazon-sourced info without realizing it's verboten.
What do we do about books that have been published by CreateSpace (https://www.createspace.com/)? It's an Amazon company and I've been trying to find book information about one published work but the publisher doesn't seem to list them (or?) so all the info is from Amazon. The reason I ask this is because whilst many are kindle books, there are plenty of paperback books as well that are sold primarily only through amazon and since many are self-published, it would be a shame if they were deleted (most don't really have another edition), especially since these are new aspiring authors :)
Otis wrote: No, in this case it's still whats legally called a "derivative" of Amazons. We need a new source that has all the data to rescue it. But feel free to make your same corrections if they exist in the new source too.So a couple of follow-up questions that I haven't seen asked or answered:
For most of my entered books, I've been using the "Add to Goodreads" javascript bookmarklet, which has only worked to import from Amazon. I would presume that I should stop using this, right?
Further, if we do have to stop using that, will GR be developing some other bookmarklet/tool/whatever to import online book data when the books is not already on GR? Or anything at all to reduce the effort (and error rate) of manual data entry? Even something that will simply recognize a book page and attempt to open the corresponding GR book page would be handy, though of course importing data GR doesn't have is handier still.
Meanwhile, I have rescued a few of my more obscure entries, and have a few more yet to do which seem unlikely to be in any mass import, so thanks at least for providing the rescue tool, and ensuring that it doesn't clobber other data (I've been comparing the book pages before and after, and it seems to work remarkably well).
Ridley wrote: "Now that librarian stuff actually takes some effort and attention to detail, will Goodreads find a way to weed out librarians who can't/won't/don't follow the rules?"I second this motion.
Is there anyway to download my goodreads data before this happens?I won't be a member anymore, because the site will lose what I use it for if it won't have publication dates and books sold only as Amazon Kindle versions.
Katie wrote: "Is there anyway to download my goodreads data before this happens?I won't be a member anymore, because the site will lose what I use it for if it won't have publication dates and books sold only ..."
In this thread, previously, it was specifically mentioned that Amazon Kindle only editions will still be available from Amazon because they are the publisher of said data..
Katie wrote: "I won't be a member anymore, because the site will lose what I use it for if it won't have publication dates and books sold only as Amazon Kindle versions. "Neither of these things is happening. It will still have dates, just not sourced by Amazon, and it will still get a feed of Amazon-only books.
Katie wrote: "Is there anyway to download my goodreads data before this happens?I won't be a member anymore, because the site will lose what I use it for if it won't have publication dates and books sold only ..."
As Craig and Ridley pointed out you don't have to worry about kindle-only books. Otis has said several times they are safe. But if you want to export your data as a backup, go to My Books - in the far left column of links you'll see import/export towards the bottom. Click on that and choose export to .csv file and you'll have a file on your computer of all your books and their related information.
I have successfully rescued a few of the books on my list in danger of deletion and they seem to have worked.Certainly will check back next week to see how the import goes before doing too many more. :)
I second the motion about messaging all librarians....I am also active and co-mod a large group.....I only found out about this when MissJessie posted a thread in my group a couple of days after the announcement by Otis.
It would be useful to be able to see the "doom list" from other users... otherwise the only way to help them is to click at every book on their shelves.
I think it wise to remember this thread was set up for no other reason than to test the system. We were specifically told not to go to great lengths until AFTER the import. All this fretting may be more work than is necessary.
I also am a librarian, plus a co-mod to a reasonably large group, and I found out simply by accident...clicking on a book, and discovering the 'save me' note! Absolutely no message to me, or a large amount of others from what I can gather, about all of this.
I'd also likewhat the_cat suggests. After the import I really want to check my non-librarian friends their books, especially my mom's, who has a large collection of Dutch books shelved.
Perhaps a PM should go out to all librarians after the import so we can scour our little fiefdoms for books to rescue?I'm picturing OOP category romance now, all of which was from Amazon, shelved by maybe 4-5 people apiece and super spotty in book databases, and I worry for the little guys.
Ridley, I'm eying my categories as well, and I don't even have really, really old ones.I've found that the fictiondb lists quite a lot of them, but I'm not entirely sure if this is the kind of website we can use for this.
I'm keeping an eye on strange library editions of audiobooks... haha!
I just got librarian status and from my over 4000 books, 1495 will need to be rescued. For some of them, I have physical copies, but for many of my to-read books and many of my German language books, I think I will be SOL because I got much of my information from Amazon Germany in the first place and do not really know where to look otherwise. I know one thing, any read and reviewed books I end up losing and any German language books I end up losing will not make me a happy camper (and there is simply no way I am going to be able to rescue 1495 books from now until January 30th, especially if I have to find new websites for information etc.). This was and is extremely short notice, sigh. But I am hoping that after the mass import on Monday, my huge list of 1494 books to be rescued will be much lower (at least I hope so). But nevertheless, I will not be happy if I lose books, especially if I end up losing any reviews. Boo Amazon!!
I just checked my exported file, and it includes my review for each book. So... export all your books before the big day!
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It is a kindle edition , I own it and I am reading it now yet I do not have the required data on my kindle , only on Am..."
My understanding is that if you have the Kindle edition in your posession to verify, you should just be able to select the option in the "Rescue" for "I have a physical copy or ebook copy of this book present." (They just added the phrase about ebooks). You wouldn't need to enter a source URL. Other than that, there's really not a lot of required information you have to enter - just the title and author name. It's okay if you don't put in publisher, date of publication, etc.