'Format' not always showing in API

[Grunthos]

This book:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/73...

clearly shows (correctly) that it is Hardcover.

The book.show, book.show_by_isbn and review.list APIs all return a blank format, eg.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/73...

I had thought that missing data was caused by Amazon rules, so I assume this is a bug.

[Brian]

Are you a librarian by any chance? If you are, go to the librarian edits page and you'll see that the data came from Ingram. We can't forward a lot of data we get from them in our API due to our agreement with them. Format is unfortunately among those data.

[Grunthos]

Sadly, I am not a librarian. But thanks for the explanation.

I don't suppose it's possible for users to 'override' proprietary data based on their own books so that it becomes available via the APIs?

[Brian]

That is absolutely possible...though you either:

- must be the user who first entered the book (and no one has changed your data afterwards)
- or must be a librarian (anyone can apply, part of the fun is finding out how ;) ). It's enough to have a copy of the book (or a record of a version you had at one point) and enter data from that to update an existing book.

[Grunthos]

I am now a librarian, and now I don't see any way to set the format to 'Hardcover' (and become the source of the data) when it is already hardcover...is this something I am supposed to be able to do?

[Michael]

I think if you set it to blank, then save, then set it to hardcover again, it will set you as the owner.