Combining separate volumes into a single work

[Mark]

What's the correct policy of combining separate volumes of a book into a single work?

As an example, consider Anna Karenina. My personal copy of this works is this Danish language two-volume set: Anna Karénin (I. Bind) and Anna Karénin (II. Bind).

Would it be correct to combine both of these volumes into the overall work?

This seems intuitively correct to me, but I thought I'd better ask before going ahead and doing something I'm not supposed to do.

[Cait]

No, partial volumes don't get combined with their larger work and they should not be combined with each other either. If there are other editions which split this book in two, combine each of your editions with the other half volumes.

[Tntexas]

Cait wrote: "No, partial volumes don't get combined with their larger work and they should not be combined with each other either. If there are other editions which split this book in two, combine each of your ..."

Just out of curiosity, could you provide a connection for the two volumes by serializing them?

[Cait]

Tntexas wrote: "Just out of curiosity, could you provide a connection for the two volumes by serializing them?"

Yes, you could create a series for the partial volumes, and either put a link to the whole book in the series description or include the whole book in the series listing with a numbering of "complete" -- I've seen it both ways, and I don't think we've had a policy discussion on it yet.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

We haven't. But maybe we should. I'm not a fan of the latter.

[Cait]

Probably we should, then -- I tend to prefer the latter. :)

[rivka, Former Moderator]

But it means that the original book, which was never part of a series, ends up with a link to a "series" it comprises in its entirety.

That seems rather off.

[Cait]

That seems more like a feature than a bug to me -- it's a fast way to show that a particular book has also been published in parts. Since reviews on the parts don't show up on the whole volume, if you don't know that the book has been published in a non-combinable way then you'll miss out on some reviews of it.

[mlady_rebecca]

rivka wrote: "But it means that the original book, which was never part of a series, ends up with a link to a "series" it comprises in its entirety.

That seems rather off."

I agree with Rivka. If I see a series designation, I'm going to be expecting a proper series. It's misleading.

[Tntexas]

mlady_rebecca wrote: "I agree with Rivka. If I see a series designation, I'm going to be expecting a proper series. It's misleading."

I agree that they're technically not a series; but without some way of combining them, the individual volumes wind up floating around all alone in outer space so to speak. So working within the confines we have, what would be a good way to associate/attach a volume 1 and 2 (etc.) together when they can't be combined with each other or the original work.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

I'm not against a series to link together 1 & 2. I just think the link to the complete book should be in the description field, not as a series volume.

[Mel]

Couldn't something not exactly the same as, but in the lines of, a listopia work as a fix. It would not be a series per se but the books would remain together, giving people the chance to find them all.

[Valia]

I have a different problem, but I feel that it's related to the topic of this thread.

I have Russian translations of three works by Rosemary Hawthorne combined into a single volume, and I want to add a record for that book. What do I mention as "original title" and "original publication year"? And I guess, I shouldn't combine that volume with any of the three original books?

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Valia wrote: "I shouldn't combine that volume with any of the three original books?"

Correct. For original title, I would put something like "title 1 / title 2 / title 3" and indicate in the edition line that it is an omnibus or collection.

Original publication year would be the date the last of the three books was initially published.

[Valia]

OK, thank you!

[Peter]

rivka wrote: "I'm not against a series to link together 1 & 2. I just think the link to the complete book should be in the description field, not as a series volume."

Or how about listing it (as we already do for omnibus volumes in series) as "1-2"?

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Again, that would put a series link on the original book's page, and that makes no sense to me.

[Jim]

Have we solved this problem in the last eight years? I'm looking at Asimov's Understanding Physics, and the fact that, if we only serialized the three distinct volumes, a reader who only views the omnibus edition will have no indication that the separate volumes exist at all, when the naïve user would expect that they would show up under "editions." I understand that and why they shouldn't go under "editions," but I think that putting the omnibus and the distinct volumes in the same series fixes this problem in the easiest and most effective way available to us. Rivka is right that, in a Platonic sense, this is not correct behavior, but barring better tools, I think it's the right answer here—especially when you can mark the omnibus edition as not one of the primary works.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Neither the policy nor the site functionality has changed.