Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
Book & Author Page Issues
>
Uncertain About Editions Being Combined
date
newest »
newest »
This has been brought up before. Otis has said the official policy is to combine them - http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/3...
blech. ;) Thanks, though! And thanks for having the details right at your fingertips so that I can follow the logic of it.
I don't know -- if the contents really are completely different in each year's book, that sounds more like a series with annual volumes than a single book with annual updates.
If the content is different for each year they would fall under the exception:http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/7...
There is no exception there Amanda. All the Cooks Illustrated Annuals are combined. The link I provided is the official reponse. Otis has said to combine them so we combine them.
I think the thing that I still find confusing (have been thinking about this over the past 2 hours) is that the books mentioned as Annuals in the discussion from 5 years ago are "Writers' Markets, Physician's Desk Reference, various CRC books, Llewelen's Almanacs, Shooter's Bible, Guinness Book of Records, certain Janes publications". While some of the content of these books will change from year to year, most of the content remains either the same or updated. PDRs, for example, will have all the same medication information plus updates on new meds or generics to meds already listed, etc. The Guinness Book will have many records that remain unchanged, some changes, and some new categories.
Not a word in the annual cookbooks is repeated from the year before. The introductions, the recipes, the photos, the index, the chapter titles, the categories, all different. (heck, the TITLE isn't even the same, all three are listed as "Cooking for Two: More Than 200 Foolproof Recipes for Weeknights and Special Occasions", but that's only on the 2009 cookbook, the 2010 and 2011 books don't have anything after "Cooking for Two") I feel that this makes the cookbooks more like Year's Best Sci-Fi anthologies, in that the same publishing arm puts them out each year, but the content is completely different.
What made me first question this a few weeks ago (it's been stewing in my head for awhile) is that I used the GoodReads app when in a bookstore, to decide whether or not to buy a reduced-price copy of the 2011 America's Test Kitchen Cooking For Two. I couldn't remember which years I already had, so I searched for the book, specifying the year, on the GoodReads app, and it showed as already being in my library, even though I actually didn't own it, because I owned an earlier "edition".
Is it possible that books like these, which have no content in common, would be the "gray area" that Otis refers to in his final note in that 5-year-old thread? In which case a judgment call might go the other way from combining them.
As someone who owns several of these same books, I completely agree with Robyn. Because they are combined, I've decided not to shelve them at all, which is kind of sad.
The cookbooks mentioned here don't fall into the same category as the books that Otis ruled on. They're books you collect, as opposed to a single book you upgrade to get the most recent version. Personally, I'd say separate them and list them as a series. Hopefully, Rivka or another staff member will chime in with a more official response.
Bump.This could really use some official comment.
Mod
rivka wrote: "Kim wrote: "Otis has said the official policy is to combine them - http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/3...""But the cookbooks aren't directly mentioned in that particular thread so my question is: Would they fall into the gray area Otis mentioned in his last response where we're allowed to make a judgement call since they're more like the annual anthologies that were asked about at the end of the thread than the "Writers' Markets, Physician's Desk Reference, various CRC books, Llewelen's Almanacs, Shooter's Bible, Guinness Book of Records, certain Janes publications, etc.?" that were asked about at the beginning of the thread? Because the content of these cookbooks is completely different each year (like an annual anthology's) that's the reply I think would apply here, not the they-must-be-combined one. But I don't want to make a wrong assumption and step on anyone's toes.
Kim wrote: "There is no exception there Amanda. All the Cooks Illustrated Annuals are combined. The link I provided is the official reponse. Otis has said to combine them so we combine them."After reading through that thread, I think I take exception to this statement. Here's why: First, the cookbooks are never mentioned by name so there is no place where it absolutely states that the cookbooks in question must be combined. Any decision that's made about them based on that thread is a guilt-by-association type conclusion. Second, the next-to-the-last question in the thread asks if annual anthologies are supposed to follow the same rule (the poster assumes they aren't), and Otis replied that that's a gray area where the poster could use his own discretion. Since the content of the cookbooks in question is completely different from year to year, I would assume they fall more into the annual anthology category (and are therefore in a gray area) than the annual publications that were mentioned at the beginning of the thread. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but that's what I take away from it.
Tntexas wrote: "After reading through that thread, I think I take exception to this statement. Here's why: First, the cookbooks are never mentioned by name so there is no place where it absolutely states that the cookbooks in question must be combined. Any decision that's made about them based on that thread is a guilt-by-association type conclusion. Second, the next-to-the-last question in the thread asks if annual anthologies are supposed to follow the same rule (the poster assumes they aren't), and Otis replied that that's a gray area where the poster could use his own discretion. Since the content of the cookbooks in question is completely different from year to year, I would assume they fall more into the anthology category (and are therefore in a gray area) than the annual publications that were mentioned at the beginning of the thread. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but that's what I take away from it. "
I would agree. Based on this statement by Otis:
Seth | 12 comments Great. Will do.
Should I assume this doesn't apply to annual anthologies (Year's Best , award winners, etc.)?
Otis, Chief Architect (new)
Sep 06, 2007 11:19am
Otis Chandler | 315 comments I think thats a judgment call you can make. The lines are certainly gray, but the general consensus is that if people generally view the logical entity of the book as one thing, it should be combined.
Sorry if I'm butting in, but it seems to me like Otis's last statement, which MrsJoseph just quoted needs to be taken more into consideration than his first statement, because this REALLY seems like the gray area.Books like the Guinness Book of World Records should TOTALLY be combined, as should reference materials that have new editions released (since they're MOSTLY the same). BUT as random housewife #1118 (me), it doesn't seem logical to combine cookbooks that don't have the same recipes in them. If I were unaware of this conversation and saw a bunch of cookbooks combined, I would assume they were exactly the same recipes, except that maybe they had a new cover or were reformatted, or maybe they were updated to say "butter" instead of "oleo" or to cut back on the fat.
In my mind, these particular books should be a series, NOT combined as if they were the same book. Because they obviously aren't.
Agreed with the above. These do not seem to be the same books at all, and I think should be excepted from the "combine everything" rule.
Paula wrote: "And here it looks like we said do not combinehttp://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/3..."
Perfect! So, they should not be combined.
FWIW, as the person who originally started this thread back in early April, my opinion remains unchanged: I think they should not be combined. I'm hopeful that rivka will come back to this thread and see that she has said previously (in the link Paula shared, thanks Paula!): message 2: by rivka, Volunteer Mod
Jun 02, 2010 09:48am
I think that makes them do-not-combines. But I strongly recommend librarian's notes on all known examples, because some of us (me!) had no idea.
I know it's hard to give a hard-and-fast rule, since the contents aren't necessarily obvious. But hopefully this will go to "do not combine, add notes!", as that would make my own usage much easier. Especially next year when the 2013 comes out! haha! :)
Every year, America's Test Kitchen puts out an Annual cookbook of recipes that serve two people. It's called, sensibly enough, Cooking For Two Cooking for Two: More Than 200 Foolproof Recipes for Weeknights and Special Occasions.
Each year's cookbook is completely different from the year before. No recipe is duplicated. These are entirely different books. Yet they are all listed as editions of the same book. As someone who buys the cookbook every year, and who will therefore be listing each new book separately on my shelves, and who wants the reviews of other readers to be specific to the book in hand (maybe the 2009 cookbook was overwhelmingly 4 stars, but the 2011 is only worth 2 stars), combining them all is like combining every Reader's Digest Condensed Book into a single book with hundreds of editions. The contents are not the same.
So, shouldn't they be separated? Or am I missing something?
Thanks in advance for any help with this either way!