Book descriptions?

On the Goodreads thread Jesilyn write:

"I like being able to click on the cover of a book and the first information on the page is a description. When I pick up a real book for the first time, I look at the back (or inside flaps) first. When I look at a book for the first time online, I want the description as easy to find as it is on a paper copy."

LibraryThing has a lot of book descriptions, from libraries and Amazon. (We'd rather show the former, when we have it.) Both tend to come from publishers.

At present, "book descriptions" is low by default. It only includes the Amazon ones.

I move they should be moved up high on the page, but made thin—that is, only a sentence of so of the summary shown, with a link to see it all. And we should prefer library ones.

yes please.

Hm, I guess. No objection if it's not too much "in your face".

To play devil's advocate: I'm happy to have more descriptions added, but would rather keep them lower on the page instead of bringing them higher up. Members can already move that module further up the page if they'd like to. The default way now doesn't seem that bad to me.

Please keep them under the 'Your book information' box.

Please don't.

Most of the times, the description field is filled with data garbage/hype (review plugs, blurbs, etc.). Example The big truck that went by, provided by Amazon:

"A top-notch account of Haiti's recent history, including the January 2010 earthquake, from the only American reporter stationed in the country at the time ... An eye-opening, trailblazing exposé." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Katz is a great storyteller who enmeshes the reader in a lively web of history, incident, and examples of humanity pushing through disaster, hard luck, iniquity, and triumph to muck it up all over again." -- Announcement of the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award

On January 12, 2010, the deadliest earthquake in the history of the Western Hemisphere struck the nation least prepared to handle one. Jonathan M. Katz, the only full-time American news correspondent in Haiti, was inside his house when it buckled along with hundreds of thousands of others. In this visceral first-hand account, Katz takes readers inside the terror of that day, the devastation visited on ordinary Haitians, and through the monumental--yet misbegotten--rescue effort that followed.
....

I like them lower on the page. I prefer to use tags to see what a book is about. It's a lot faster and often more telling. Only if I feel like the cover + tags aren't enough do I scroll down to reviews, and then to book descriptions, because the descriptions tend to be the least useful. Publisher speak is nothing compared to covers (even if they're inaccurate, they're good for judging genre/general target reader) or tags and reviews for figuring out a book's contents.

So I guess if they're going to move up the page, I'd prefer to see them thin and only a line or two displayed at a time, and I'd want to be certain that I can drag them back down the page.

It's one thing I like about LT that tags are so prominent and high up as the default, because they're so dang useful.

When you say "High" how how do you want it?
Above the personal info? Above tags? Above Recommendations? Above Reviews?

If it is a one-liner with a "more" link, it won't be that obtrusive but... I find recommendations better explanation of the book than the publisher's explanation of what the book is....

I have them at the very bottom and would prefer to keep them there. I don't quite understand why they should move higher when we can already move them up as high as we like?

#7 But tags can often be very confusing. Often books are tagged three or more genres and just looking at them, you'll never be able to figure out what the heck the book is.

I'm one of the folks who like that a blurb pops up on GR with a description. That doesn't mean I'll read it all, or take any of it at face value, but it helps me figure out quicker if I need to explore this book more or whether it is not my cup of tea.

8> Ooh, I forgot about recommendations! Yes, they are also a very good indicator for book content. Especially for very popular books.

6> Ugh, that's one reason why I find publisher descriptions so useless. It's just junk that says hardly anything about the book itself, because it's so sales-y. That's actually one of the more informative blurb-type "descriptions" I've seen! Often, they could be used for just about any book, because they're one-liners like "Astounding!" or "This author never fails to make me cry - this book is a masterpiece."

P.S. Actually, it doesn't matter where they appear by default, as long as we can drag them elsewhere (the very bottom).

Prefer library ones, yes.

I'm okay with it defaulting to higher on the page, as long as you let me push it back down! Please don't make me navigate it visually for every work.

Lola and I are clearly in lockstep here.

I also agree with jcbrunner and keristars about the tone of publisher descriptions. By placing these more prominently, I think it could change the flavor of LT a little to make it feel more like it's "pitching" the books, which I believe we want to avoid, right?

10> But tags can often be very confusing. Often books are tagged three or more genres and just looking at them, you'll never be able to figure out what the heck the book is.

See, instead of being confusing, I think that just says that the book has a fuzzy genre, or can be read different ways. If the tags are truly strange, I tend to look at the editions page or scroll to reviews to see why.

I don't often care about specific plots, but I like certain plot elements. So for the princess MG/YA books, tags and cover image do a lot in telling me if it's going to a book to take a closer look at. Official publisher descriptions rarely give more/better information in such a quick glance.

But, on the other hand, since people do have their own preferences, we can change the order of modules on the work pages. yay!

I just hope that tags, which are such a fantastic element of LT, remain a prominent feature.

I'm glad you're looking at suggestions from that thread, though this isn't the one I'd have started with.

I keep the book description at the bottom because it's empty/useless more often than not, and just takes up space.

I always click through to Amazon when I actually want a description of the book.

Your point about making it "thin" applies to pretty much all CK. Bring back the short form.

>15 keristars: I think that just says that the book has a fuzzy genre,

Not always. A lot of pure SF get tagged Fantasy and vice-versa because there are a lot of people that consider the two the same genre. And if you read only one of the genres, that get confusing.

But between tags and recommendations, it gets... clearer for the most part. Some descriptions are so off that they either give away plot element from page 100+ or misrepresent the book...

To add to this, at the time I made my initial comments, I was unaware I could rearrange the modules (I'm that new), and that solution does work for me. I would still enjoy the change suggested, because I like the idea of a sentence showing (I noticed when I rearranged modules that I can show all or none of a description currently), and I absolutely prefer library descriptions over Amazon.

What we probably need is a better way to show people that we can rearrange the modules (like a small "Rearrange/Customize page" link at the top that explains how to do it?)

I'm not one of them, but I know some people avoid book descriptions because they consider them spoilers. I think this group is probably a small minority of users, but they probably feel just as strongly about avoiding descriptions as others feel about having them quickly discoverable.

FWIW, I too, click through to Amazon to see a book description, not infrequently.

>16 by _Zoe_, I'm guessing he picked it because it'd be pretty simple, not so time-consuming. ;)

>21 ablachly:

Me too. I'm not sure that's optimal, but it's what I do.

>22 .Monkey.: Yeah. I approve on those grounds. It was just a somewhat roundabout way of saying that this is something that I'm not actually convinced should be done at all.

My 2 cents.

I like that the Description section can be moved anywhere on the page - did not know that till today as it's not intuitive.

I do like to have a brief official description when I land on a book's main page. Don't consider that a spoiler. It helps to know whether I want to wishlist the book or not. Tags just don't give enough of an understanding and that's not their purpose, surely?

I like what others have suggested here - 1-2 lines, with a more link if needed. For example, I just went to the main page of A Possible Life by Sebastian Faulks. No description. I added one, but, of course, that is a "member description", not the official book description.

I'm for this. Yes, please.

Why are the descriptions usually useless or empty? Why are they empty at all? Do users not have the ability to populate this when it's missing? (I ask b/c I'm a GR librarian, so I'm used to doing this)

Why not just populate the description with the book's flap copy from the publisher, and give users the option to globally hide or show?

>26 Flur: I may be wrong about this, but I believe it is a question of the source of the data. Data isn't always from the publisher. Many people who catalog books use the Library of Congress or other library sources (there are 100s) in order to find the specific edition they hold in their hand. I don't know how much publisher supplied data is used in these sources, but at the "work" level it isn't always appropriate to use publisher data. There is a work "Pride and Prejudice" that is comprised of all the different editions of Pride and Prejudice that people have catalogued, but is not associated with any specific edition or publisher.

It is actually the main thing that sold me about LT when I joined years ago-- 2008? -- that it had found a way to connect all the people reading Pride and Prejudice no matter what edition they were reading.

> 18/19 Totally agreed that it should probably be more obvious that modules can be re-arranged. I don't know how long it's been a feature (always?), but I'm not a new member and never knew about it until tonight-- a very pleasant discovery, I have to say!

>28 kelsiface:

It had been around for at least 4 years :)
And yes - LT has a LOT of those semi-hidden features....

>26 Flur:

The main reason is that the books in LT come from various sources. Not all of them carry the information. Do you know if a reliable place that can give LT the "flap copy from the publisher"?

The question is, HOW can it be made more obvious?

I think the site could use a bit more closeable tip sections. You know, like a little note at the top of all work pages that says "Did you know you can move the sections below around on the page?" And they'd have an X button that would make the tip never show up again. (Or maybe they could move down to a collapsed Tips section that shows up on each page just showing short tips like that about often overlooked features on each page.)

This is what google does when it adds new features. Sure, it can be overdone and get obnoxious if there are constantly NEW tips being added so you're barraged with them every time you visit. But I think it could also be done well.

Apart from that, I'm just not sure you can make so many features like LT has more discoverable. Maybe in this case, all sections could have a tiny drag icon on the far right side. In fact, I might actually prefer that because sometimes I accidentally drag them.

> 27
"It is actually the main thing that sold me about LT when I joined years ago-- 2008? -- that it had found a way to connect all the people reading Pride and Prejudice no matter what edition they were reading."

We had this on Goodreads too, it just worked differently. Each edition published had its own page, but all the editions were associated with each other. Still, each edition had the (user entered) description, which for newer books was from the flap copy most of the time.

I get why you'd use LoC data, especially for classics, but those descriptions are usually one-liners and are sometimes way off from the actual plot and themes of the book.

My solution to this would be to have two descriptions - one for the LoC information, and one for the publisher copy. And again, the option for users to globally hide or display, as the folks who don't want to see this info shouldn't have to.

Does that make sense? Or am I missing something in how LT works?

26 > Yes, you can populate the book description field. Just click on Descriptions in the left-hand column. There's even a separate field for a haiku summary :-)

> 29

A selection of trusted users is a good source. I say this as a GR librarian. Part of what I did as a volunteer librarian was to update those descriptions.

>31 Flur: Each edition published had it's own page, but all the editions were associated with each other

That's the main difference - there is NO edition layer (yet). So my hardcover is the same for LT as the Dover Trift edition and as any other. The description should fit all... The description belongs to the work - which is the sum of all possible editions.

I hope that makes sense.

>33 Flur:

Noone stops you from doing it here as well. :)

> 34

Is there an edition layer coming?

How does LT handle multiple ISBNs for the same title? Is it able to understand that these are the same book, but at the same time differentiate them within a user's library?

>31 Flur: My solution to this would be to have two descriptions - one for the LoC information, and one for the publisher copy.

LT's solution seems to be a version of this? One "member entered" description and one "automatic" description.

But the sourcing issue for the publisher-supplied description is still present. LT doesn't pull directly from publisher databases. On GR you hand entered this? Is there something substantially different between what you did there and hand entering jacket copy into the "member entered" description field?

>36 Flur: How does LT handle multiple ISBNs for the same title? Is it able to understand that these are the same book, but at the same time differentiate them within a user's library?

Yes. LT does not rely on ISBNs as the definitive id number for a book. When you enter books, it will even allow you to enter multiple copies of the same book, and even the same edition of the book. You'll get a notice like "duplicate ISBN in your catalog" or "duplicate work in your catalog" because if you are like me then you may actually own multiple copies of the same book. And this is firstly a cataloging site, so it allows for multiples.

>36 Flur:

Yes - the editions layer is in the works... but can take a while.

There is a book layer - each separate book is a separate entry. But when they are the same real life book, they are combined in a work.

Let's take an example from my library:
http://www.librarything.com/work/51283/book/80653806 - this is my copy. See how the cover and the pinkish rectangle show you my data

http://www.librarything.com/work/51283/ - this is the work page. See how the cover is the most common one.

When I look at that page, I see my copy regardless if I use the book designation or not. When you look at it, you see the work unless if you look for my copy (the first link). For LT the work contains all the copies of the external world book that had been added.

If for some reason two books with different ISBNs which are the same book do not combine automatically, users can combine them manually.

So for example - a paperback and a hardcover of Othello will be the same work but Othello and Hamlet will not be.

The book description is on the work level.

> 37

Yes. The difference is that when I did it on GR, it was universal. It effectively was the "automatic" description.

>40 Flur: So really it is more a question of transparency. The LT site makes it clear which data is user-entered, and which is imported from other sources. But since both are always visible at the "work" level, they are both universal in the practical sense.

My question is...is there a way to re-order the descriptions that are there?

The book I'm looking at has 9 descriptions - 8 from Amazon and 1 independent(?)
Why can't I have the independent one a the top?

>42 cyderry:

Not that I know of...

> 41

And that would be great except for things like in post 42, or in the links that AnnieMod posted, where the book has 3 Amazon descriptions, and not all of them are actual descriptions. Sometimes human intervention can clean up a mess.

>36 Flur:
On LT there are basically books and works*. Books are records entered by members and associated with their libraries. Members are encouraged to import book data from outside sources (library catalogs and amazon), but most book data can be entered manually or edited after import. Works are the combination of all copies of the same book regardless of edition (well some editions may be considered separate works, the community norms on that get a bit involved). You can enter multiple copies of the same work and each will get an independent book record in your catalog that can be edited separately. Here are the book details pages for my two copies of The Divine Comedy: Harvard Classics, Everyman's Library. Both are linked to the site wide work for all (complete) editions of The Divine Comedy and all of the members who have any edition of that work. There is no way to see only members who have, say, the Henry F. Cary translation or the Everyman's Library edition.

*There are something called "editions" on LT but they are really just an organizational convenience. All copies that share identical title, author and ISBN are lumped into an LT edition. It is these LT editions that are combined into works rather than directly combining individual book copies.

The links above will have all the descriptions - for LT they go to the same work - so same description.

That's where the user's descriptions come into place (and the haiku ones) :)

>44 Flur: where the book has 3 Amazon descriptions

In that case, it is the "work" that has aggregated the descriptions of all the books that come under that work. But each description is tied to a different edition of the book. I can see hiding the data so you don't have to look at it, or being allowed to select the one you want to see, but you wouldn't want to delete the data, just source it.

Shouldn't a member description be just that - a member's description of the book - and not a copy of jacket material?

>48 MarthaJeanne: Yes, I think that was the point of that field. For a proper human description rather than a publisher blurb that is skewed or whatnot, and that those are what's supposed to go in the other "official" area. What we need is for those publisher ones to actually be pulled from somewhere for all works, and preferably not more than one or two for any given work.

One longstanding problem with "LibraryThing members' description" still need solving: Unlike all other CK, member descriptions are not mirrored across the language sites. This would be a good time to fix it.

I don't personally use the book descriptions, but I think the idea of making it clearer that you can reorder the sections on your book pages is an excellent one. It took me a long time to discover that you could do that, and I've been here since 2006!

I admit to being guilty of using the LT member description box for jacket copy. It just makes me sense to me. I use LT as my primary book discovery tool - ratings, reviews, descriptions, series info - all of it. So when I find a description blank I'll seek out the publisher site and just copy and paste so that others won't have to do it.

And a word on where things are located on the page and such. A lot of confusion will be sorted out by screen time. Meaning give yourselves a period to adjust to a site that is new to you. Once you acclimate, things will be easier. But coming in and demanding that things change to be just like GR is unreasonable. Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot and hundreds if not thousands of displaced LT members stormed over to GR and demanded that GR change things to be just like LT. You'd be pretty fed-up too.

>52 Bookmarque: I admit to being guilty of using the LT member description box for jacket copy. It just makes me sense to me.

It makes sense to me too. I love that LT tries to preserve the sources of the data in its records, and that it knows, for example, if a book in my catalog is using LoC data, British Library data, Amazon data, manually entered data, or something else altogether.

I am sometimes confused about when data is meant to apply to a book and when it applies to a work --especially in CK -- but descriptions seem book-oriented to me, not work-oriented and I don't mind member-entered information being funneled to specific member-labelled fields.

See, now that's interesting. I consider a description to be applicable to the work as well as the book. After all, the plot description of The Shining doesn't change edition to edition. Same with CK data - the characters don't change with editions either. CK data, as far as I understand it, applies to the work.

>54 Bookmarque:

Depends a little on what you mean by book description - some are more book-related as they include info on the physical book. E.g. any deluxe edition or unusual edition will normally include what makes it "deluxe".

Even a simple plot description may differ from edition to edition - I remember picking up 2 books, reading the back cover copy of each, and deciding one sounded much more interesting than the other. It was only when I put them back that I saw that both were actually the same book, just US vs. UK editions. It was at that point that I realised how even a simple plot description is part of marketing.

>50 geitebukkeskjegg:

That's not really a problem though - how does an English description help on the German site?

That is true, Scorbet, however I think that for LT data purposes, deluxe edition or whatever would fall under the publishing information associated with the edition. The data box for description is to describe the contents/plot, which admitedly, could change. It's a minefield sometimes, but usually we find consensus.

>57 Bookmarque: I think Scorbet was saying more how publishers have different blurbs on different editions of the books, therefore even though technically it should be applicable to the work as a whole, their blurbs often are not. I can't tell you how many GR descriptions are "This updated version of the timeless classic features new introductions and..." junk. Obviously things of that sort are not a work-wide description.

33>

That's completely antithetical to LT philosophy, though; all users here are trusted. That's core. If someone screws up, someone else will fix it. People including myself have put in hundreds of hours to making LT better in various ways, without the notion of being somehow a more important or trusted class of users.

Edited to fix reference number

>59 lorax:

Hm? Were you really answering to my comment?

That's true mathmonkey...I guess we'd have to use the field to hit the way it would benefit the most people, and I think that's stuff that fits the work as a whole. I know I use it that way now and populate descriptions where there aren't any or where the stuff that comes from Amazon isn't really useful...like full of blurbs that don't say what the book is about.

>60 AnnieMod: I'm guessing it was meant for Flur in 33.

>62 _Zoe_:

Ah, as a response to the trusted users for the flaps. OK - now it makes sense :)
And I agree with lorax - in LT everyone is trusted. And nothing is unfixable. :)

60> No, sorry. I saw the 29 at the top. I will edit.

I want descriptions to be easier to see/use SO BADLY. I want them at the top, I want them in hover of book covers and book titles, I want them EVERYWHERE. I may be going a bit overboard, but. Book descriptions to me are one of the top three most important pieces of information.

Others have made good points about junk data and/or no data, which is another problem to fix, but I think that the answer is to work on /fixing/ that problem rather than using that problem to make decisions about where to put descriptions.

I'm happy to just move my personal modules around, but I gave up on that long ago because after like every LT update they reorganized themselves and I got really sick of doing it. Has this changed? Do they function differently now?

Whereas I view book descriptions as marketing blather that I prefer not to be bothered with. I very much appreciate that LT is dominated by factual information and reader responses with anything trying to sell the books kept distinctly at the sidelines. I hope that any move to make book descriptions more prominent is entirely optional.

>65 Aerrin99:

They stay put for much longer now. I had to reorder mine yesterday, but that was the first time in at least a year. I used to have to change them at least every two weeks. But it is still not possible to move then around at all on an iPad.

> 67 Thanks for the info! If that's the case, I don't care so much - though LT definitely needs to make this feature more well known. Better design would be helpful. There are visual cues that tend to mean 'I can move this' on the web these days.

>69 geitebukkeskjegg: how does an English description help on the German site?

Don't know how dilligent the Germans are, but on no. and other small language group sites there's still very few descriptions input from the natives. Given the small number of active users, it's going to take a long time.

If an empty Description field showed available data from other language sites, that would help. Since other CK is see-through, it's hard to see why Member Descriptions should be an exception.

My native language is Bulgarian. And I have a lot of Bulgarian friends that do not speak English. Having an English description there makes it look as if the site is English centric...

See-trough may work I suspect but...

>70 AnnieMod: Agreed, I don't see why there should be an English description on the other language pages, that just makes it awkward.

>165

Okay, this may not be popular, but book descriptions are not of much interest to me. I prefer to scroll down and look at the reviews. I may not read through them, but I like to see who rated what. And I sometimes read the review, and then click over to Amazon to read the description. I am a fan of Amazon, even though that is sort of like saying that I am a fan of WalMart. For me, Amazon has been super, as far as customer service. I can find almost anything I want there at a good price. I am not a fan of going out shopping, so I like being able to have things and delivered. books, cat food and etc. So popping over there gives me the description and more reviews. I am most often influenced by reader ( user) reviews, instead of the professional ones..

I didn't know we could move them down the page either... good info !

>71 .Monkey.: I don't see why there should be an English description on the other language pages, that just makes it awkward.

Don't need to be in English, just that the functionality should be the same as for other Common Knowledge (and reviews): Whatever language is available, with the option of switching between languages. Anything is better than nothing.

Remember, the see-through text is visible only as long as no entry is made in the other-language site. Enter your own text, and it disappears.

I don't know that I agree that "anything is better than nothing" if you're just sticking something in there that people can't even read. I would be rather nonplussed to find some Cyrillic writing floating around where I had no idea what on earth it was saying, were I to visit a random book page that is supposed to be English because that's the site I use; so why should the reverse not also be true?

On the other hand, if there were no English description for a book I wanted to pull up on LT and all it had was, say, German, I'd be happy about that because I could plug it into an online translator and at least get some gist of it.

Even cooler if LT generated a link to the translator.

Personally I think a non-Amazon supplied description would be better. Don't any libraries have them that we could pull from instead? I know mine has descriptions on the site, but they're in Dutch, so...

>75 brightcopy: On the other hand, if there were no English description for a book I wanted to pull up on LT and all it had was, say, German, I'd be happy about that

Exactly. Now, imagine you're a German user looking up an English or French book. Most have no descriptions on German LT, but they're available on the English or French site. How happy would you be to have those descriptions on hand without swapping sites?

I'll shut up now. Just this: Below are two examples of how ck/reviews are handled. It's a fantastic resource. Why should Member Descriptions NOT be handled the same way?

> 77 Some libraries do have them, but it's typically publisher-supplied jacket copy that we buy. IE, not that different from what Amazon supplies.

77 > Same ISBN issue with library data as with Amazon data. Without the ISBN, it can't pull any information automatically. It's like if you try to look at the WorldCat info. Unless it has an ISBN, all you can do is use the WorldCat link to pull up the site and then manually enter the book data in the search box. So you couldn't pull over book descriptions.

I don't know that I agree that "anything is better than nothing" if you're just sticking something in there that people can't even read.

But that's already the way it already works for the other CK fields, why should it be different for description?

Also, I think it's highly suspect to assume people whose primary language is non-English "can't even read" English. I hear it's kind of a popular language these days.

Not as popular as the speakers of English seem to think...

I'm skipping a lot of messages but it was said above that we have a work and a book level, and no edition level.

What we have is a level that takes as its identifier the Title, Author and ISBN. Internally we call that the "edition," although it is somewhat more detailed than one. The virtue of this approach is that it uses what we actually know about a book, not what we guess. In reality, ISBNs are reused, misprinted and misentered. 99% of the time it works great, but 1% is misery. Worst of all, to a publisher the ISBN identifies only the interior matter; a book may change covers a thousand times, and even titles, and still have the same ISBN! Users feel these are separate editions. Our concept of edition allows them to be separate editions. We can also deal with ratty data better. In reality, you often don't know which books are really the same edition. So we aim for what we know.

Our library and Amazon descriptions are actually tied to ISBNs, rolling up to works as need be.

>83 AnnieMod: But nearly.

Idly checking the stats of non-UK/US users I know, I get an average of 30-50% English language books in their libraries. Scary perhaps, but there it is.

However, this is not about English vs. all other languages. As shown above, Dutch, Swedish, French.... and all other language reviews/ck are equally available.

Ok. Shutting up now.

> 82/83/85: I think it depends on the country / language area. In my experience (just giving some examples) people in Scandinavia and the Benelux countries - but also Portugal - are much more likely to have at least some foreign language skills than people in Germany, France and Spain.

I guess it depends on how much incentive there is to actually learn foreign languages. I know I wouldn't have succeeded in my education with just Dutch.

Mind you: it's also a generational thing. My parents, for example, were much more comfortable with German than with English. For me the reverse is true.

(Sorry Annie, I have way too little experience with Eastern Europe to include it in my examples).

>86 Nicole_VanK:
Pretty much the same - it is generational to some extent and then depends on what kind of schools people went to (and how much they cared for the language education)...
Anyone over 40 is more more likely to speak Russian if they speak another language at all (and most people don't - my mother had had French and Russian in school but remembers ~10 words of each....); the under 40 is... a mixed crowd. Most of my friends don't know enough English to even deal with Windows... let alone with instructions on a site or reading a description of a book in English.

Although the book descriptions are the least of the international sites problems - we still cannot have author names in different alphabets for example:)

>85 geitebukkeskjegg:
There are a lot of non UK/US users of LT that know English... having an English description won't be really a problem for them...

Thinking about the way that a "your library" search is handled when it is not found in a selected collection, there is a link offering you a chance to see search matches from all collections.

If a book description is not available in the language preference, but is available in another for the work, a link could allow it to be shown. When shown, the interface could allow for a mechanical translation from Google or another. These are far from perfect but can at least pass along some basic info.

As a member of the Jules Verne Forum listserv, I see messages posted in many languages. If I am unsure about the contents and it seems interesting, I'll do a google translation to at least see what is being discussed.

James

> 87: Yes, but I also meant to say: you're (probably) much more likely to find a Bulgarian who speaks Russian than a Russian who speaks Bulgarian.

It's simply also about the sheer number of people speaking the languages. No offense, Dutch is a minority language too.

>89 Nicole_VanK:

Agree.

It's going to be disappointing if that's all you got out of this discussion, Tim. The big thing that's being talked about here is if Member Description should work like just about every other CK field and let data from other sites show when local data is missing.

No, this is still marked way up high, for me to finish it.

Okay, thanks for clarifying.

>82 brightcopy:

I can read English, but when I look up at a book I've in Italian in my library, I like to read the description in Italian. When I look up at a book I've in English, I like to read the description in English. The same when I'm looking a book up. If I'm looking at an Italian edition (or a book I'd like to read in Italian), I'd like to read the description in Ita, otherwise in English.

#94 by Alindrelle> I'm afraid that's going to be pretty tough, given the way LT is built. Across the board, it's built so that if there's data that's been set in the language of the site it builds you, that's what it shows you. Which, I think, makes sense for most users.

>94 Alindrelle:

That won't happen though - LT does not know the language of some editions. If you mean looking on the Italian site, then this can be doable (and is how it works).

On the English side everything is supposed to be in English except for the original title.

The exception is reviews, where you can choose to see any one language or all (assuming that they are correctly labelled. I would think that descriptions could be similarly handled.

You are right actually - I was forgetting about them.
Yeah - that can work. As long as we are able to adjust the language...

#97 by MarthaJeanne> Yeah, true. CK and reviews work almost identically, but there is the added option for "All languages" on reviews.

I want descriptions to be easier to see/use SO BADLY. I want them at the top, I want them in hover of book covers and book titles, I want them EVERYWHERE. I may be going a bit overboard, but. Book descriptions to me are one of the top three most important pieces of information.

I'm not sure I want them EVERYWHERE, but I think you're basically right. Descriptions are a core piece of book data, often containing useful information, and should be readily accessible when you look at a book. With the caveat that the section can be moveable, it should be high. I also think it should be "thin" so if you want to read more than a sentence or so, you have to click something.

Why not just populate the description with the book's flap copy from the publisher, and give users the option to globally hide or show?

What we have are publisher descriptions, whether from Amazon or a library. They can differ, and Amazon will sometimes change what the publisher wrote, but in the world of books that's what's available--publisher descriptions. These are often the same as the flap copy, although frankly I'm not sure how often. Usually?

It had been around for at least 4 years :) And yes - LT has a LOT of those semi-hidden features....

I've spoken my mind on these before. The feature was put in largely without my input. I understand why users like it, but it's a bitch to maintain. (Every time I add a new module I need to learn some bad, old code.) At this point I just have to live with it, I know.

A selection of trusted users is a good source. I say this as a GR librarian. Part of what I did as a volunteer librarian was to update those descriptions.

Not going to happen at LibraryThing. It's a cultural difference is all I can say.

So my hardcover is the same for LT as the Dover Trift edition and as any other. The description should fit all... The description belongs to the work - which is the sum of all possible editions.

Urgh. We do have an edition layer of sorts--it's edition plus data source, basically. Anyway, our description data is keyed to ISBN before it's keyed to work. So we can show the appropriate description, if there is one, and we can mark that a description comes from another edition.

Unlike all other CK, member descriptions are not mirrored across the language sites. This would be a good time to fix it.

Agreed, I don't see why there should be an English description on the other language pages, that just makes it awkward.

It should work like the other sections--the site's language, if available, cascading to others, and with the option to see them in other languages.

Same ISBN issue with library data as with Amazon data. Without the ISBN, it can't pull any information automatically.

Well, no. We do have the occasional summary data from a book without an ISBN. But generally speaking, summary data is a recent thing in library records, and so are ISBNs. Older books without ISBNs won't have summaries either.

See New tip-toe into a feature:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/152890