seperating problem? Covers for work don't match...

is combine/seperate broken? I've seen many topics lately about problems with it, and with making corrections stick.

My problem: I've seen MANY books in my inventory that have a book listed in the "Potential work combinations" list on the debris page, but the cover for the potential combination shows as a cover for THAT work, despite only being listed as a POTENTIAL combination. And since I don't see a way to "seperate" these, since they aren't actually combined, how can we get the cover off?

For just one example, http://www.librarything.com/work/742598/debris/26884769

Mmm, okay, let's try this: a potential combination shows up when there is a corresponding ISBN in both works, a certain cover shows up if amazon has a cover that matches the ISBN. Maybe both ISBNs are identical? In your example the ISBN is 0590947842.

Hypothesis, but correct me if I'm wrong: maybe the potential works were combined and separated at some point and the ISBN stuck around?

Maybe... I don't know how to figure out if they were combined at some point, or even if it's possible to find that out. But I did glance at the ISBNs, and it doesn't look like they are the same, so that's not it.

But I've seen it on more then one book... I'll post another example as soon as I can remember which books it was.

Well, the ISBN I mention above occurs in both works...

Another example: The debris page for "The Truth About Stacy" shows potential combination of "The Red Hen" (why??), but the covers actually show The Red Hen cover, even tho they aren't actually combined. (It also shows another BSC book in the covers, Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls)
http://www.librarything.com/work/61171/debris/15169732

Again a shared ISBN: 0590762699.

Found the problem with the first book you mention: Look at user Kailana copy of Claudia's friend. It actually has the shared ISBN as ISBN. So, wrong user data.

Thank you so much. I messaged the user to ask her to change the data. At least one instance of this might get fixed.

The other one is a mistery to me, I went through all the public users, but couldn't find any red hen cover. Might still be the same problem as with the other book, but the user swith the wrong data is private in that case.

I just added The Illustrated History of World War II to my library, where it's become inseparably merged with something called Born in East L.A., and doesn't appear under the author's works at all...

10>

That's a hash collision. Try making a small change in the title or author name.

I (temporarily) entered a copy of this book to see what would happen and that got rid of the wrong cover on the work page at least. Perhaps the book itself will make to to the author page overnight. There is a book by the same title by another author and that may have tripped LT up selecting a code number. {hash collision?, perhaps someone else can explain this better than I can}

Born in East L.A. is a DVD with no author.

ETA: PaulFoley, though your book is not yet listed on the Barrie Pitt author page, your name as the owner of a book by this author does appear at the bottom of the page, so things appear to be moving in the right direction.

*bump* This is still a problem, on more then a few books in my inventory. I just found a Calvin and Hobbes book that shows the Amazon covers of completely different C&H books, even though they are not combined. http://www.librarything.com/work/4036343/covers/18600555

Now I'm not a whiz at this, but I did check Amazon's listing for the book and it doesn't show those other covers, so I don't know where they came from.

The problem of Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls cover showing up in The Truth About Stacey, in my earlier message (5), is still a problem too.

Is there ANY way at all to fix this? This really really bugs me, and maybe it doesn't affect works in any serious way because you can always choose a different cover, but it still isn't right.

moved to the combiners forum fix it thread.

http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=31192