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Amazon is going away as a data source
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Felix
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Jan 21, 2012 11:11PM
I'd love to export my books but somehow the link/app just doesn't work and I get an error message every time I click on "export to csv". Do I have to activate anything for it to work?
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As with many others, I found out about this when I was trying to add a book. I've trawled through pages of responses in this thread and not found anything to answer my questions yet.
I've spent many many hours working on librarian fixes and my own personal shelving to work out what I own/want to read etc. of the 15K books I've shelved. If ANY of these books are left with a blank name/author I will be lost and my work so far will be in vain.
Meanwhile, my "Rescue Me" list is 3863 books!!! There's no possible way I can verify that many books in a week. Even if I didn't have to work and look after a baby, I still have 4.5K books in my house and I'd never be able to find the ones that need verifying.
(1.5 hours later this is down to 3777, so they must be working pretty quickly to fix the list. My heart's still beating fast, though)
Is there a way to get a modified list of just the ones that have no alternative edition? Then I can concentrate my efforts on that list. I know there's both "May be merged" and "May be deleted" books, but I'm not sure that the question is completely answered by that since some of the "May be Deleted" books have alternate versions. What am I not understanding here?
My first 35 pages (at 50 books per page = 1750 books) are in danger of deletion. Mostly these are obscure titles (French or Australian) that I actually own.
Could we also possibly view the list with the least popular books at the top (or a variety of sort options)? Then we can work on the books we know no-one else will work on.
Couldn't the titles be renamed to "RESCUE-ME-{OLD-TITLE}" and "RESCUE-ME-{OLD-AUTHOR}"? Then we can still work on them after D-Day. Even just a title of "RESCUE-ME-" or "RESCUE-ME-{ISBN}" would be better than nothing as I'd be able to search my shelves for "RESCUE-ME" post D-Day and fix them up. Blank titles and authors are an incredibly useless idea.
I've also scanned and uploaded at least 1000 covers of obscure old Australian and new French stuff - mostly with basic data that came from Amazon. I hear the covers will be kept as they were my edits (I bloody well hope so), but will the titles and authors of these go blank? If so, what use is it? I'll never find them again. I won't even be able to search for them. And if these titles are merged, what happens to the cover art that was uploaded for a specific ISBN (usually an unpopular Aussie one)?
I know you told someone else not to feel ill, Otis, but I do feel ill. I've put years of work into this. My hard work is of no value if I don't know which books I'm referring to.
How can we help to comply with whatever ruling is causing this without ruining what's important to us?
(And now I've gone and highlighted my most important questions because I realise I got ranty)
PS. My book collection is too large for your export tool even after it's been divided up into 3 different exports. It almost always gives me a 504 gateway error. I haven't been able to get a decent backup from Goodreads for ages. Help!
It would be helpful to know when the Goodreads team expect to have finished the 14 million import.My number of books at risk has fallen from 498 to 465 overnight, which is progress, but there's still a long way to go and this remains far more than I can personally resolve by 30 January.
Angela,Please do remember that Otis has advised that there is going to be a new source of info brought in next week which should mean that 14 millions books are automatically 'saved'.
"Early next week, we will be importing a database of 14 million ISBNs from a new source, so many of the books that seem to need rescue today may not actually be in jeopardy. We won't know until we import this new data source. So please don't spend a lot of time rescuing books—we don't want you to do unnecessary work. What we really need is for everyone to try rescuing a few books to see if the tools are working as we hoped. That way, once next week rolls around, we'll be ready to get down to the business or rescuing the books that actually are in jeopardy. "
Plus have you noticed how many on your list are in danger of deletion and how many may be mereged? I have about 700 books on my list but only about 40 in actual danger of deletion.
Like you I felt sick at first until I realised the above and also that we are all working together to address this situation.
Vivienne wrote: "Please do remember that Otis has advised that there is going to be a new source of info brought in next week which should mean that 14 millions books are automatically 'saved'."Yup, I realise this. But there's still a LOT of books left.
"Plus have you noticed how many on your list are in danger of deletion and how many may be mereged? I have about 700 books on my list but only about 40 in actual danger of deletion."
(Thanks for alerting me that somewhere in that list there was a change to titles which were in danger of being merged only - with that many books I honestly didn't realise)
My first 35 pages (at 50 books per page = 1750 books) are in danger of deletion. Mostly these are obscure titles (French or Australian) that I actually own.
Yeah, I'm worried with good reason!
I've rescued the books on my list in danger of deletion - and I was rather concerned to note that several of them were tabletop Role-Playing Games. If anyone has a change, would they be able to do a sweep through tabletop Role-Playing Games, to see if anything else there is at risk.As a possible resource in that category (aside from, say, WorldCat), there's the RPGnet Index, which should have some useful information as well - http://index.rpg.net/
Angela wrote: "My first 35 pages (at 50 books per page = 1750 books) are in danger of deletion. Mostly these are obscure titles (French or Australian) that I actually own.Then I am a little confused as if these are obscure titles that you added yourself I wonder why they are in danger at all if you rather than Amazon are the source. Something to get clarified from Otis perhaps?
I added an old book (1960's)..one I received from Sunday School, some time ago...it's come up as 'may be deleted'....I put all the info in myself!
I am on the only one for whom Otis' link at the top doesn't work?
Mitch wrote: "I am on the only one for whom Otis' link at the top doesn't work?"I think it only works for Librarians .
Mitch, Nile daughter is correct and at this stage it only works for Librarians.
Vivienne wrote: "Then I am a little confused as if these are obscure titles that you added yourself I wonder why they are in danger at all if you rather than Amazon are the source. Something to get clarified from Otis perhaps?"Because I searched for the ISBN and Goodreads auto-imported the data from Amazon in order to give me a search result. Then I added my scanned covers (normally) and there was usually no need to update the rest of the info as it was correct.
If only they'd auto-imported from a different database. :(
Although, Goodreads could potentially buy a database of book titles themselves and use some fancy find/replace searches on ISBNs to replace all the Amazon data themselves. I wonder why they're not?
That is what they are doing with the 14 million book import that has just started, once that is complete there will be a better idea of the actual real number of books at risk.
Is there a chance to let us librarians see not only which of our own books, but also which of the books of our friends are in danger? Especially in danger of being deleted?I have quite some friends who are not librarians themselves and whom I'd love to help. Most of them have mostly German books so A LOT of them are in danger of being deleted ... And I don't know whether your import will cover (more obscure) German editions.
I hope everything goes well with the new source and that this new source will include also a lot of non-english books. I live in Belgium, Europe and most of the books I edited here were Dutch translations and a lot of original Dutch books. It seems that Amazon was the only source for those books.
I rescued 5 books and hope that the rest won't disappear.
My main source now will be the national library site.
Good luck to everybody!
Gundula wrote: "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 boo..."Can this help you?
http://www.d-nb.de/
dely wrote: "Gundula wrote: "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 Ger..."Perhaps, it's worth checking out (even for later). Thanks.
Nafiul wrote: "Well atleast we still have barnes and noble...rite??"We're supposed to avoid any site whose primary function is e-commerce. (Publisher sites are fine to use though.)
Gundula wrote: "Perhaps, it's worth checking out (even for later). Thanks. " On that site you can find all the informations about a book if you don't know where do find them otherwise.
I have for example Die Elixiere des Teufels - ISBN 9783596900633. If I write the ISBN in the search field of the DNB it finds me all the informations about this book. I think it is the only way to find easily and quickly the informations for German books.
dely wrote: "Gundula wrote: "Perhaps, it's worth checking out (even for later). Thanks. " On that site you can find all the informations about a book if you don't know where do find them otherwise.
I have fo..."
I hope you can search by author or by title as well. I generally don't remember long numbers all that well.
I think that I am going to wait until the mass data import has been completed early next week and then try to rescue those books that are still on the list (ha, it gives me a reason to sort through and organise my bookshelves, but I wish I could have more than just ten days for this, sigh).
Nafiul wrote: "Jennifer E. wrote: "Nafiul wrote: "Well atleast we still have barnes and noble...rite??"We're supposed to avoid any site whose primary function is e-commerce. (Publisher sites are fine to use th..."
I think it is because for the longest time, Amazon was one of the main sources for book data information (titles etc.) for Goodreads. Thus, many GR members, especially those who have large bookshelves are going to have lots of books in danger of being deleted.
Gundula wrote: "I hope you can search by author or by title as well. I generally don't remember long numbers all that well."Yes, you can but the site finds you all the editions with that title or all the books of that author. I use to copy/paste the ISBN.
dely wrote: "Otis wrote: "Yes unfortunately so. Although we are working on importing a feed of Italian books from Mondadori, so it will get a little better. Suggestions for other publishers to get feeds from are welcome! "We have Einaudi: http://www.einaudi.it/
Feltrinelli: http://www.feltrinellieditore.it/
Ubaldini: http://www.astrolabio-ubaldini.com/
Rizzoli: http://rizzoli.rcslibri.corriere.it/
and much more; these are only the first that I could remember. Can this help you? "
I ask again seen that nobody answered: can such a list help you for Italian editions?
Most of all we would like to know how much this new source covers editions not published in English.
Hey, I have what is likely a very, very silly question. For books that I own or that I have out from the library (that require rescuing), do I still need to fill in the URL space? I hope not.
You don't have to provide a URL if you own the book.
No, you can check the box that you have a physical copy in front of you.
I have to admit that I'm fretting a little bit because of all of the Japanese language mangas that need to be rescued. Almost every single one that I click on has a "save me" box at the top and it's pretty daunting to think about all of the zillions of manga that's on this site. I'm a little worried at the idea of the vast majority of Japanese manga getting removed from Goodreads.
Jan wrote: "No, you can check the box that you have a physical copy in front of you."Wow, this is going to take ages. I knew that my supremely unorganised bookshelves were going to bite me in the butt one of these days, ha. RIght now I am making a list of all my to-rescue books that I have copies of (then I will need to actually locate them in my bookshelves, sigh). I might wait until after the mass import on Monday, but no matter what, it's going to be a major piece of work, sigh. And I still have some books in boxes from when I moved two years ago.
Nafiul wrote: "Well atleast we still have barnes and noble...rite??"i'm pretty sure B&N went away a few months ago as a data source
I know, Gundula ... how this gives me a headache just thinking about it. I have books in boxes, books that came from the library, books that I gave away or sold or donated ... I am slightly reassured that a couple hundred of my books have silently disappeared from the "rescue me" list. Hopefully the import will move even more to the "safe" list.
Gundula wrote: "Jan wrote: "No, you can check the box that you have a physical copy in front of you."Wow, this is going to take ages. I knew that my supremely unorganised bookshelves were going to bite me in th..."
Can someone post the bare minimum amount of information needed to save a book? For the people who have to rescue a significant amount of books? That way they could input just the basic info and save the book and put the details in later?
Title and author, all the rest gets overwritten if you don't enter something.But I've noticed that often most data is already secure, and it's only title, author, publisher and publisher year (+sometimes pagenumber) they want. Once I had found a good site for all my Belgian editions, it actually went rather quickly.
I just rescued Das Lächeln der Fortuna, but I think I might have made a mistake, because the book I have, has a different cover image, sigh. What can be done to fix this? Sorry, I am new to being a librarian. Also, for the descriptions, is it alright to add the one from the back of the book (if you have the book in front of you)?
Yep, Gundula, that is the best description generally.Don't worry about the different cover image at the moment. You might need to make an alternate cover edition later on if you want the correct cover, just keep a note of it, so you don't forget.
The description from the back cover is OK.
Angela wrote: "Because I searched for the ISBN and Goodreads auto-imported the data from Amazon in order to give me a search result. Then I added my scanned covers (normally) and there was usually no need to update the rest of the info as it was correct...."
I wonder though since you own the books that clicking on the 'I own a copy' might not be the solution. You wouldn't need to find an ULR for each of the titles. Some times all that is 'required' is author and name. Not sure then what happens to the other info but once saved you can then always go back and re-edit the page numbers etc.
Is it possible to have a list of Italian ISBNs for editions "at risk" (starting with 97888), sorted by popularity perhaps? The librarians of the Goodreads Italia group are willing to help rescuing books aside from their own, it could be useful.
Sandra wrote: "Yep, Gundula, that is the best description generally.Don't worry about the different cover image at the moment. You might need to make an alternate cover edition later on if you want the correct ..."
You know, the one good thing about having to actually physically add a lot of my German language books is that I can now add a detailed description of the book. But it's still a lot of work, sigh.
Vivienne wrote: "I wonder though since you own the books that clicking on the 'I own a copy' might not be the solution."I've done that with a couple of books, but it involves typing the titles out and leaving the book with missing data (not ideal). Also, I'm just not going to be able to do it for all of the 1750 books on my "may be deleted" list, let alone the rest. :(
Angela wrote: "Vivienne wrote: "I wonder though since you own the books that clicking on the 'I own a copy' might not be the solution.""I've done that with a couple of books, but it involves typing the titles out and leaving the book with missing data (not ideal)."
There are many cases where if you just put in the author and title there will still be information there from another edition. However, that can be trouble, too - I have found descriptions sometimes turn up in another language and need to be fixed.
I have had several books where I try to enter the date of publication, which I know to be correct, and it won't let me using the update tool because it says I can't enter a date before the date of publication. I'm not sure why that is happening, but it's possible to go back later and fix it.
I have also found several books while using the update tool where it doesn't give me a field for author. I'm posting this as a word of caution - I didn't notice with a few of them that when there wasn't a field to enter for author, it put the title as both title and author! I then had to go back and find a few of those to fix.
I have rescued a few books so far that I have physical copies of. It's going to be taking ages and I am a very slow typist (I am also writing descriptions for the books so that is taking even longer). You know, I don't mind that much doing this work, but I have to admit that I am really beginning to resent the fact that we have not been given all that much time to do this. Also, every time I submit a rescued book (or if I edit the description etc. of a rescued book or any book at all, it seems), I get this stupid "page unavailable" error message. The book has been rescued or edited alright, but I somehow have to click onto the homepage to get back and see what is going on. Sometimes Goodreads is more annoying than anything!!
Sarah wrote: "Angela wrote: "Vivienne wrote: "I wonder though since you own the books that clicking on the 'I own a copy' might not be the solution.""I've done that with a couple of books, but it involves typi..."
I got that publication date issue as well, bummer. I am not going to worry too much about it, but it is frustrating to know that the book you have has the correct publication date and then to be told that there is some kind of stupid "error."
If after you type in title, author, & source, then submit, go to the librarian change log for that book: you can click the undo on the description that has "disappeared", rather than typing it back in the same.
I repeat my requests because there are many messages on this thread, I'm afraid they went unnoticed.dely wrote: "Otis wrote: "Yes unfortunately so. Although we are working on importing a feed of Italian books from Mondadori, so it will get a little better. Suggestions for other publishers to get feeds from are welcome! "
We have Einaudi: http://www.einaudi.it/
Feltrinelli: http://www.feltrinellieditore.it/
Ubaldini: http://www.astrolabio-ubaldini.com/
Rizzoli: http://rizzoli.rcslibri.corriere.it/
and much more; these are only the first that I could remember. Can this help you? "
Apart from these links that dely provided, I can add
http://www.adelphi.it
http://www.minimumfax.com/
http://www.elliotedizioni.com
http://www.laterza.it
http://www.guanda.it
http://www.neripozza.it
http://www.polilloeditore.it
http://www.mulino.it
http://www.sellerio.it
http://www.skira.net
http://www.fandango.it
http://www.meridianozero.it
http://www.garzantilibri.it
http://www.iperborea.com
http://www.fanucci.it
Of course there are many many more Italian publishers!
I can also suggest this as a source: http://www.internetculturale.it
I would also like to know how much this new source covers editions not published in English.
And then, Is it possible to have a list of Italian ISBNs for editions "at risk" (starting with 97888), sorted by popularity perhaps? The librarians of the Goodreads Italia group are willing to help rescuing books aside from their own, it could be useful.
Maybe I'm asking too much, but it would be really appreciated if someone from the staff could write something here explaining how the GR Italian community can help, if you need proposals for other feed sites, etc.
Angela wrote: "Vivienne wrote: "I wonder though since you own the books that clicking on the 'I own a copy' might not be the solution."I've done that with a couple of books, but it involves typing the titles ou..."
Angela, since you have so many books, and the export is troublesome for you, I wanted to offer a possible alternative solution. Could you maybe print your list? It may take a good bit of paper but it would be better than it all disappearing, I think.
On the My Books page, select the 'all shelf'. Then select shelf settings. Use the check boxes to select the bare minimum of data, like title, author ISBN. Or you could display everything, if you don't mind using the paper. Then select print on the far right.
I don't know if this will help you, but I did want to offer another option, just in case it would help.
Gundula wrote: "I got that publication date issue as well, bummer. I am not going to worry too much about it, but it is frustrating to know that the book you have has the correct publication date and then to be told that there is some kind of stupid "error." "The best solution for this is to rescue the book by entering just the title and author. After it is rescued, you are taken back to the book page. You can then select edit and fix dates, etc.
vicki_girl wrote: "Angela wrote: "Vivienne wrote: "I wonder though since you own the books that clicking on the 'I own a copy' might not be the solution."I've done that with a couple of books, but it involves typin..."
You could also print to PDF instead of paper by using something like Cute PDF which is free. You need to download but it allows you then to create a pdf document instead of printing
Deon wrote: "If after you type in title, author, & source, then submit, go to the librarian change log for that book: you can click the undo on the "items" that have "disappeared", description, publication, pag..."Just to make sure, is it okay then to "undo" and bring back information that would have come from Amazon originally? Like description, etc.?
Sarah wrote: "Just to make sure, is it okay then to "undo" and bring back information that would have come from Amazon originally? Like description, etc.?"
I would say no. The rescue form specifically says not to use Amazon data. I would only use the undo feature to put back data you have another source for, but don't want to type out by hand.
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