an intro to being a librarian

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Thanks for clarifying my meaning. :)

There are occasionally recent books without ISBNs too -- some ebooks, chapbooks, small press books -- and those are fine to manually enter too.

[Mark]

Michael, Rivka - yes, and thanks! Unfortunately, these books do have ISBNs; yet I do not have the entire set because I acquired them (alas) second-hand... I suppose I shall have to enter them all separately without an ISBN :/ But, thanks for all the help!!

[Patty]

I'm a new librarian and I'm wondering where everybody finds stuff that needs to be fixed. I don't like having to find stuff on my own. I'm much better at being told what needs to get done, like on the Yearbook Committee thing at school. Help?

[Lisa]

Patty,

Check the threads in this group. Here's one with some authors that need work:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2...

Also, with your own books sometimes you'll notice misspellings or the wrong page number or a missing cover, or something else, and you can just fix them as you see them.

[vicki_girl]

You can also check out post #123 and posts 140 onwards in the following thread:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/6...

Starting with post 140 there are many one name authors that need fixed. These ones tend to be easier since most of the books can be found on Worldcat.org

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Or Google Books, or both. I like to use them to cross-check each other.

[Patty]

Thanks to all.

[Laura]

So when I first got my librarian status, I edited a couple of trivia typos with no problems. Today, however, I don't seem to have an edit button. Am I just being ditzy, or is there a glitch?

[Lori]

Heather - I'm working on Chesterton

[Lori]

I got a lot of the Chesterton finished but it still needs work.
1. There are still a few of the Father Browns that need more research to determine what the contents are.
2. Some of the titles in German, French I couldn't translate and none of the Russian one.
3. Several of the combined titles still need looked through to make sure they weren't incorrectly combined.

In addition to the Father Browns all being combined(which I separated and recombined properly - except as mentioned above), so were all of the "Collected Works" volumes. I separated all of them and numbered the volumes.

Lori

[Neva]

How many of us are real-world librarians? I am. Anyone else? I'm having to do some adjusting here.

[Lisa]

Neva, You might be interested in this thread:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/8...

[ElaineY]

Hi, I'm new here and have been searching the Help section to find out why the box containing the book's data does not show the author? I thought it was just my books and I hadn't saved them properly but every books on Goodreads is the same. It shows all the data except the author's name. How do I get that to appear?

[Lisa]

Elaine, Do you mean the book description box? Neither the title or author appear in them; each appears outside and above them. Why do you want the authors to appear in the box?

[H. R.]

new librarian question. I have some rather esoteric volumes that are not listed in the goodreads database (e.g. pre-ISBN books, particularly cold-war political and social books from the 1950s, and small-press publications from southern Africa).

Can a goodreads librarian add books?

[Lisa]

Nick. Yes! I've added many, many books OOP, pre-ISBN. Just make sure you put in as much information as you have: Library of Congress catalog numbers, date of publication, etc. etc. Whatever you have.

If you do a title/author search that page includes a link to manually add books.

Here's the direct page link:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/new

Edit: Put information that doesn't have its own field in the book description box.

[ElaineY]

Lisa wrote: "Elaine, Do you mean the book description box? Neither the title or author appear in them; each appears outside and above them. Why do you want the authors to appear in the box?"

Oops. Thanks, Lisa. I'm not going to explain why I never saw that. Talk about a senior moment!

[Lisa]

Elaine, Oh, no problem. Lots here easy to miss as there's so much information.

[Severine Bambang]

Hi all,
I'm new here.
Sometimes I found books with different pages number with the books I had.
Even that the books had the same ISBN.
If I googling, then it will show up that there are 2 versions of page number for this book with the same ISBN.
Should I add a different edition for these books?
Or should I check the other publication details first?

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Welcome! :)

The page numbers on GR mostly come from Amazon. They are frequently incorrect. My suggestion is to check the Librarian Change Log for the book (link on the right side of the edit page, under the cover, just below "Add an ebook to this work"). If no one has changed the page number before, you should be safe to change it. (This is especially true if the publisher and publication date are in agreement.)

[♥Tricia♥]

Well even if a librarian has changed it, taking numbers from amazon or whatever.. it may still be wrong. I have seen this.. having the book in hand.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

True. If someone has changed it, I would contact them and ask why.

[Vicki]

Suggestion for helping new librarians. I just became a new libriarian today and have spent most of the day reading the threads here and on the feedback group. I have noticed that it has been mentioned several times about some of the new librarians not knowing about these groups.

Perhaps it would help to include a mention of the groups in your email when you accept a new member. I know that I have learned a lot by reading the threads.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

You might want to mention that idea in the Feedback group.

And welcome! :)

[Sara ♥]

Hey--I swear I've seen a thread on this, but I can't find it. Is there a way to change which edition of a book pops up when a person searches for that book? I was thinking that maybe it auto-sorts based on which version has the most reviews... ?

(Edit - NOTE: I've got a book I was editing that is the paperback version (where the hardcover is no longer in print), so if people go to read the book, they'll probably be reading the paperback. I thought it would be appropriate to have the PB as the primary edition.)

[Lisa]

saranicole, It is the edition that has the most ratings that shows up first. Hopefully, more and more GR members are learning that they can add the edition they want. With this particular book, if members select the paperback, eventually it will be the most popular edition and it will show first.

[Sara ♥]

All right. That's what I thought. Thanks!

[Sherry]

Hello, I'm brand new here! Just a simple question, I guess. I found a book listed - only one edition listed - published in 1995, with no cover art uploaded. I own a much older edition of the same book, published in 1965. Should I create a second entry with my edition's info and cover art, then "combine" editions? It would NOT be correct to upload my older cover art for the newer edition's entry, right?

[Lisa]

Sherry, Yes, that's the exact process. Manually add your book edition and combine it with the existing edition. Thanks for checking.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Welcome, Sherry! :)

Sherry wrote: "It would NOT be correct to upload my older cover art for the newer edition's entry, right?"

Not unless you know the cover art stayed the same for the later edition (possible but unlikely).

[Ron]

I have almost the opposite problem with cover art: I have a copy of a book which is in the database with correct ISBN-13 and data, but the cover art is different. I don't want to change the cover in the db, but is there a place to file the alternative cover art?

[JG (Introverted Reader)]

No, but I think it's buried somewhere on the official to-do list. Manually add your book, but leave the isbn field blank. Add your cover art, and make a note that this is an alternate cover for whichever isbn in the description field. Here's an example for you.

[jenjn79]

Sometimes books are reprinted with the same ISBN but a different cover. Right now, GR has no way to upload alternate cover art, and changing the cover art is a bad idea because there are people who shelved that book with that specific cover art. So the only alternative right now is to manually add a new edition to the database but to leave the ISBN fields blank and put it instead in the Description field with a Librarian's Note about how it is an alternate cover edition. You can also put this information in the Librarian's Note feature (available near the top of the book edit page) so that it will be more noticeable to Librarian's and the edition less likely to be deleted because someone thinks its a bogus edition. It is also a good idea to make sure to fill in as much data about the book as you can...this will also help make sure the blank ISBN edition does not get deleted by accident.

Oh, and make sure to combine your new edition with any other editions.

EDIT: LOL, JG got the answer typed quicker than I did ;)

[JG (Introverted Reader)]

But you were much more thorough in your answer!

[Ron]

JG and Isis FG, thank you both very much for your very useful answers; I have tried to do as you suggest. I did not find the Librarian's Note feature, so I left a Librarian Comment instead, and I hope it will suffice.

[JG (Introverted Reader)]

A librarian note is much easier to see. The link to add one is located just above the title field on the edit page of any book. It's not very obvious.

[Ron]

Thanks again for your quick response; I found the Librarian's Note feature and have added the note to the alternate cover entry.

[Sara ♥]

Love the Librarian's Note feature! I never noticed that link before! How awesome!

[Vicki]

JG wrote: "No, but I think it's buried somewhere on the official to-do list. Manually add your book, but leave the isbn field blank. Add your cover art, and make a note that this is an alternate cover for w..."

Wow! Thanks for adding the link to an example. For new librarians having an example or a before and after would be so helpful. I wish more people would do this.

[Ron]

Yes, JG, thanks; I agree with Vicki that having an example to follow was very useful.

[Severine Bambang]

I have a question.
I have a book which contains actually two books with separate page numbering (1-497 and 1- 500)
Should i keep the page number blank for this book, or use the total page number?

[Lisa]

My opinion is that if it's an omnibus edition to make the page number 997.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

I agree.

[JG (Introverted Reader)]

Ron wrote: "Yes, JG, thanks; I agree with Vicki that having an example to follow was very useful."

You're welcome!

[Cassie]

Sorry if this has been asked before:

Should I combine a book that is actually just a short story taken from an anthology with the book? Or should the short story entry be deleted? Or should it be left alone?

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Assuming it has no ISBN and was never actually published separately (as the occasional novella-length short is), I would combine it with the anthology and then delete. That way any reviews move over to the anthology, rather than being lost.

[Cait]

C, unless the short story has been published as a stand-alone, it doesn't belong in the system and needs to be deleted. If it has been published alone, it shouldn't be combined with an anthology containing other short stories.

Edited to add: rivka makes a good point about combining-and-deleting to preserve the reviews. Also, I need to type faster!

[rivka, Former Moderator]

[image error]

[Cassie]

Thank you for your responses and the awesome ninja face. Noobie librarian that I am, I'm not sure how to combine books with different authors. The short story I'm referring to is Day Off by Jim Butcher, and it is from the Blood Lite anthology. I hate to shove duties off on someone else, but maybe a better librarian than I could take care of it, or tell me how?

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Step 1: Change the author on the short to the author on the anthology (by editing the short's book record).
Step 2: Combine.
Step 3: Delete.
Step 4: Profit!

. . . wait a minute . . .