Audiobooks discussion

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Archives > Good Reads losing Amazon data later this month, will affect audible books

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message 1: by [deleted user] (new)

Not sure how many of you are librarians here but in case you are not (or have missed the discussion) you might like to know that GR is going to lose Amazon as its data source for book entries in its database as of 30 January 2012. I won't go into details as they are all contained in the discussion thread at that link which you can read even if you are not a librarian. In short though as far as I can work it out GR is losing Amazon as a source due to Amazon's increasingly onerous terms of service which make it virtually impossible for the relationship to continue.

The reason I raise it here is because the loss of data could be problematic for those of us who have listed or created audible editions of books as these are likely to be deleted. GR is working on finding alternative data sources for all editions of books but I can't see how they will find a non Amazon source of audible books as audible is an Amazon company. In addition, GR is looking to an alternative ISBN-based source of data and as we know audible editions do not have ISBNs.

From what I can gather any audible editions of books will either be merged with other editions of the same book OR deleted all together if there are no alternative editions (any reviews you have done will be assigned to a 'blank' book with no other data so they will not be lost all together)

As GR is still working on the issue and may yet come up with a solution that solves everyone's problems I don't want to panic anyone but just thought I'd let you all know that this is being discussed at length over in the librarians group though there is only limited discussion of audio books / audible editions as a problem.

I'm going to do an export of my GR books to a csv file before the end of the month - that way if GR does delete some books or some editions I will at least have my own record that can be imported back in once the new rules or data sources are established and I thought others might like to do the same.


message 2: by Kara (new)

Kara (sterlink) | 52 comments Thanks. Good to know.


message 3: by Ellen (new)

Ellen Librarian (ellenlibrarian) | 69 comments Thank you for this information. It's a troubling omen of what may be coming down the line with Amazon as it scoops up so much of the book market. I've just joined the librarian group so I can stay up on these issues.


message 4: by Janice (new)

Janice | 0 comments Bernadette wrote: "Not sure how many of you are librarians here but in case you are not (or have missed the discussion) you might like to know that GR is going to lose Amazon as its data source for book entries in it..."
Bernadette, would you explain how to do the export of Goodreads files that you mentioned? I am not very techno knowledgeable, but would hate to lose all my audio book information that I have stored on this site. Thanks for the info, and any assistance you can offer.


message 5: by John, Moderator (new)

John | 3917 comments Most Audible books are actually "re-issues" of books from other publishers, so should be "merged" into those anyway, I think. The ones with Audible, Inc. as the publisher haven't had their unique ASIN numbers picked up; I've always had to add those manually.


message 6: by [deleted user] (last edited Jan 23, 2012 04:21PM) (new)

John wrote: "Most Audible books are actually "re-issues" of books from other publishers, so should be "merged" into those anyway, I think. The ones with Audible, Inc. as the publisher haven't had their unique A..."

I have about 40 audio books on my list of "might be deleted' books (the list provided to librarians by GR) and most of these are audible re-issues - I guess it depends whether the books appear in other databases such as WorldCat and wherever else GR is getting new data from. I could be wrong but I don't believe there is a single data source for all the world's in-use ISBNs - each country having its own allocation agency - so it is a matter of getting data from a range of sources, especially when it comes to non-American books (many of the books on my át risk' list are not American editions of things, which makes me think GR is relying heavily on American data sources)


message 7: by Linda (new)

Linda Boyd (boydlinda95gmailcom) | 63 comments I hope this is not a stupid question - I am new to audiobooks and I have been adding them to my read shelf as audio - so does that mean that the pictures will not show up because audio books do not have ISBN numbers?????


message 8: by John, Moderator (new)

John | 3917 comments Audiobooks do have ISBN numbers; Audible ones do not, they have ASIN's.


message 9: by MissSusie (new)

MissSusie | 2421 comments The audiobooks I've "rescued" from my list I have just gone to the publishers website and entered their info may have to go in and put in thenarrator again since there isn't a line for that on the rescue page but there is a new database that will be uploading then we will see which ones really need to be rescued


message 10: by binter (new)

binter | 218 comments Ellen wrote: "Thank you for this information. It's a troubling omen of what may be coming down the line with Amazon as it scoops up so much of the book market."
I agree Ellen. NPR just had a piece yesterday about "predatory" Amazon. Sometimes, buying from the cheapest vendor isn't the best idea for the long run. http://www.npr.org/2012/01/23/1454681...


message 11: by Janice (new)

Janice | 0 comments LS wrote: "The Export feature is here. There's a link on the right side there for downloading the list of books as a csv file."

Thanks, LS, that worked!


message 12: by Sarah (new)

Sarah Booth (boothacus) I may be completely off the mark, but what about getting the information about the books from the Library of Congress?


message 13: by Marje (new)

Marje | 13 comments Goodreads’ new data source is book wholesaler Ingram. Goodreads will pay to license data from Ingram, and will supplement it with book records from the Library of Congress and other sources.

The above is from this article:
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-as...


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