WTF? someone said they combined my book, now it's no longer in My Library???

I belong to the ULTB group and there was a discussion about books that show up claiming you're the only person on the site owning it, but in reality a bunch of other people own it and it just hadn't been combined. I posted a message asking how one went about combining, and I gave one very specific example with links to the page for my copy and also for the general copy. I received some follow-up posts, one saying the issue was fixed, but now I no longer have that book in my collection. Here copies of the two messages:

my message:
19> I have quite a few fake ULTBs. CAN SOMEONE TELL ME HOW I CAN HELP THE SITE OUT BY TELLING ME HOW I CAN DO THIS "COMBINING" THING??? Specific example: Here is the page for my "ULTB" copy of Sabotage Cafe: http://www.librarything.com/work/9704488/details/57837123 and here is another page for the same book, owned by 42 other members: http://www.librarything.com/work/2726217 How can I link my edition up with this page that already includes a number of combined editions, but not MY edition?

responses collated:
>19
Usually through the author page is the easiest way. However - there is some problem with your single copy as it shows as a 0 copies - and that is why it is not visible on the author page...
>19, >20
Following the link to alucek's copy of Sabotage Cafe tells me it is a private book. I thought you couldn't combine private works.
>22
It is the "bug" I suspect - if a book cannot be found it is presumed private. Although it can as well be private. .
If you remove the book info and just look at the work, it is http://www.librarything.com/work/9704488 which has 0 copies. I can combine it if needed but it should not be saying 0 copies if it really exists...
PS: And someone decided to combine both works anyway -- I still think there is an udnerlying issue here but oh well

So I STILL don't know how to combine books in general, and NOW I have the problem that one of my books has disappeared!!! Can anybody explain either of these issues?

I wonder if one of the reasons yours isn't showing is that it's a private book.

But presumably alucek would still be able to see the book even if it's marked private.

Isn't this the case when I mentioned that there is a problem with the book before the combining as it was showing as a 0 copy and before anyone from LT managed to look into it, someone went ahead and combined it?

The title sounds familiar...

This should be reported in Bug Collectors. Tim takes claims of books missing from a user's catalog pretty seriously.

Well I looked at all the editions listed on the Sabotage Cafe page, and the ISBN on the back of my book wasn't among those listed, but then I did a google search for my ISBN and found the book located at Amazon.com: apparently books can have multiple ISBNs: ISBN-13's and ISBN-10's. The number on the back jacket cover of my book is listed by Amazon as being the ISBN-13 of the edition whose ISBN-10 is the ISBN attributed to the most popular edition of the book listed on this site. So to add my "special" copy all I have to do is add the regular copy.

So that aspect of things got figured out, but it leads to the question: what if a book I buy in the future lists an ISBN-13 instead of an ISBN-10 and therefore appears to be a different edition than any already listed? How can you tell an ISBN-10 from an ISBN-13?

Also, the "disappearing from my collection" aspect of things did NOT get figured out. And I noticed that not only did the book disappear, but also, the link I posted to the copy that was in my collection before it disappeared (http://www.librarything.com/work/9704488/details/57837123) linked to a page with lots of information that I could see at the time I posted it, but NOW if I try to access that page, it gives me the same "private book" block that everyone else got. So this is definitely a serious issue. I will post info on the problem to that group.

> 6

How can you tell an ISBN-10 from an ISBN-13

One has 10 numbers and one has 13!

The reason for an ISBN-10 and an ISBN-13 is that they were running out of numbers, and have switched to 13-number ISBNs. For a certain period of time, books received two ISBNs, one with 10 and one with 13 numbers. So it is possible that a 10 and a 13-digit ISBN are the same book (both numbers will be on the copyright page). Recently published books have only a 13 digit ISBN.

http://www.isbn.org/converterpub.asp is how you convert them eventually - so you can convert yours if needed

Ok, I didn't look at the copyright page, just the usual spot on the back cover above the barcode. Still seems to be an issue capable of causing problems for LT though.

See http://www.librarything.com/topic/135357#3330733 .

I'm going to add a bug that dead books should not be shown as private. I think that's the right approach to them--to call them deleted if they are.

9> The two ISBNs are really the same. That is there's a way to convert any ISBN-10 to it's equivalent ISBN-13. I think they can also be converted the other way for a while, until the ISBN-13s start using numbers that are too large for ISBN-10s.

the ISBN will start 978 ignore these, ignore the last digit of both ISBN-10 and ISBN13. If the remaining 9 digits match it should be the same edition. The last digit is a check digit - for ISBN-13 the sum of the 1st 3rd ... 13th is added to three times the sum of the 2nd 4th .. 12th and the reault is divisible by 10. For ISBN-10 10 times the first digit puls 9 times the second, 8 times the third etc will give a multiple of 11 (X as the final digit counts as 10)