Regarding your question about Dean Koontz' DRAGON TEARS - I may be off on the spelling of the city in California; my only copy at the moment is an audiobook, not hardcopy, so I can't double check. If you've got a hardcopy to verify the spelling, by all means correct the CK entry.

posted by DisassemblyOfReason at 12:52 pm (EST) on Sep 23, 2008

Thanks, I'm suspending the accounts.

Abby

posted by ablachly at 4:18 pm (EST) on May 9, 2008

Is that ALGOL 60 or that parvenu ALGOL 68?
I had FORTRAN II (before it got strings)
I keep waiting for these to come back.
Waiting...waiting...

posted by guido47 at 10:44 pm (EST) on Apr 21, 2008

"Look near the top of the Your Library page and see where it says Display Styles A B C D E (edit)? Click on the edit. This gives you a page where you can specifically change what you see for each style by using the drop-down lists. If you need more help please ask."

Thank you. I've looked there before but not found it.

Meanwhile, I note that some illiterate ass has marked -- also in MY catalog -- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (including that which is part of "The Oxford Mark Twain," thus wiping out that correct designation) as "Tom Sawyer (2)".

But I'd better not change it, else I be "Warned" and beat up on yet again for preferring accuracy over stupidity.

posted by JNagarya at 2:55 pm (EST) on Apr 7, 2008

"I apologize for being so agitated over your first few paragraphs that I responded before I see that you did respond to my point about series being about continuation of characters."

Which, of course, as I deatialed, doesn't necessarily make them a "series".

"However, rather than discuss it here between just you and me, I think that it would make more sense to discuss it on the talk thread I posted so some sort of agreement as to what a series is can be made amnong the whole LT community."

At this point I'm not interested. I've looked for, but not finding anything, queried Abby about the basics of "How to Scan Book Covers," but have't got response to that. I simply want out of the "Community Knowledge" "feature" so I no longer have to tolerate MY catalog being peppered with others' errors and non-standard subjectivisms, so then can eliminate or change them in MY catalog without being "warned" and hammered for having the gall to do so.

"(And do you realize that you can edit your library views to remove the shared Common Knowledge fields?)"

I've been told that -- this instance being about the third time -- but my queries -- of which there have been at least three in various forms -- as to "How" to do that have not been answered.

I began building my library at 12. Most/all my science fiction (as example) was published during the 1960s, bought upon first (paperback) publication, many of those first edition. I established my own card catalog in the early 1970s, which I've been in the process of liquidating, as I've maintained a computer database of my library since the 1980s.

There was a time when working with and potentially refining my library cataloging -- based directly upon and conformant with standards -- was a specifically private means of peace, stress reduction, and relaxation "away from the world". Not any more.

posted by JNagarya at 11:20 am (EST) on Apr 7, 2008

"And I agree that the Complete Works of George Orwell or of Mark Twain are not series."

If "The Complete Works of George Orwell" (as example) is not a series -- not that it's especially relevant -- then what is it? Otherwise, the "happenstance" or "coincidence" that a writer might write two or more short stories or novels (or whatever) with the same characters does not by itself a "series" make.

posted by JNagarya at 11:04 am (EST) on Apr 7, 2008

Again, it is a matter of edition. My edition of Baskervilles is published by Dell, as a "Dell Laurel"; none of my other Doyle, even if they were perceived as part of a "series" with Baskervilles (they are not) are published by Dell.

An easier instance: There apparently exists a "Complete Works of George Orwell" series. However, my edition of 1984 is published by The New American Library, as a "Signet" book. There is no "Signet" Orwell series called "Complete Works of George Orwell," therefore it is not part of, or properly identified as being part of, a "Complete Works of George Orwell" series (and yet I've had to tolerate that improper categorization in MY catalog because someone does get the fact that not ever book in pront by Orwell is part of that precisous "series").

My edition of Orwells Down and Out in Paris and London is a very early paper edition published not as a "Signet" but rather by Ace or Avon. And my Animal Farm is either a first edition or book club edition hardcover, published neither by The New American Library, nor by Ace, nor by Avon.

The same goes for my various Frank Herbert Dune books: none were identified at the time published -- and bought -- as volumes in an ongoing "series"; that was only a result of later hindsight, and perhaps specific statements by Herbert after he came to recognize that they were something like a "series. (Were there a "Complete Works of Frank Herbert" "series," would my Berkley Medallion edition of The Santaroga Barrier belong to it -- even if the weries had the same publisher? No, because when publshed my editon was not intended as such; it's in the publication details.)

Perhaps the best example is my Twain -- none of those instances being different than this: I have every volume in "The Oxford Mark Twain" series (if even that is a correct designation, as none of the individual volumes is part of a "series" with any other, even though four have the same characters), each of which is expressly identified, as example, at the top of the dustjacket face as "The Oxford Mark Twain". At the same time I have other editions of various of those volumes by publishers other than Oxford, therefore they are not part of that "series".

In addition, and more closely: I have Twain volumes identified as part of the "series" "The Writings of Mark Twain". However, one of those is a relatviely standard-sized hardcover, while all the others are small-format "limp leather" bound. Same "series" identification, and even same publisher, but different editions, therefore not actually of the same "series".

Take Asimov's "Robot" stories: they are not part of the "Foundation" series -- yet someone has identified them as such in "Commmunity Knowledge" tagging (which inaccuracy infuritates because it affects MY catalog, and yet I get beat up on for eliminating that error, which has several times been reentered by whoever hangs onto and insists upon that error; now I don't touch it -- I simply want out of that "feature," as that appears to be the only means to avoid having MY catalog peppered with others' inaccuracies and errors). The "Robot" stories are, rather, short stories, written over a period of time, then gathered together, as an "afterthought," into a single volume. That goes for both volumes of his "Robot" stories: not a series in any sense.

Nor does the fact that a number of short stories, or novels, has the same characters make them ipso facto series; see as examples The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer Abroad, and Tom Sawyer, Detective/i>. In order for them to be a "series," they would have to be expressly identified by the author (and the author could be in error as regards standard) as being such, or one would have to pick up where the other left off (or make express connection between the current and the prior).

Even then there are exceptions: though Huck Finn was intended by Twain to be a "sequel" to Tom Sawyer, and it makes express reference to Tom Sawyer -- both to the character and the book -- Huck Finn as a book ended up being of so qualitatively different (most immeditate difference: Tom Sawyer was intended as a "boys' book" -- and is clearly that; Huck Finn is by no means a mere "boys' book") that one cannot even begin to perceive them as parts of a "series". Those, as do Abroad and Detective, have (some of) the same characters, but are actually independent, "stand-alone" novels and novellas.

posted by JNagarya at 10:03 am (EST) on Apr 7, 2008