Entry Date

I entered this book (The Paper Moon by Andrea Camilleri) in my catalogue yesterday (13 June).

http://www.librarything.com/work/131154/details/31947223

I read it today so I edited my catalogue entry (on the edit book information page) to add the date started and date finished. I was surprised to see that the entry date had changed to 14 June.

I don't think that this has happened in the past. Is it supposed to happen now or is this a bug?

Did LT show 13 Jun as entry date at time you entered it? I suspect that the problem is simply that you are in adifferent time zone to LT, so part of what you consider 13 Jun is already 14 Jun to LT.

I had the same problem just a minute ago. I added a link to my review of a book that has been in my library since March. After adding the link the entry date became today's. This also hasn't happened to me before. Can't say I like it, either, intentional or not.

>2 jimroberts:

I am sure that it did show 13 June when I entered it. As a check I edited two other books (by adding the date acquired). Before the edit they both had an entry date of 13 June and afterwards it had changed to 14 June.

I was just going to post about this too.

I just entered a "date read" for a book (here), and the entry date turned into Jun 14, 2008 too. I don't recall the previous entry date, but it was sometime in April, I think. Months earlier, at any rate.

Another data point: tested two books with entry dates of Jun 13. First book, changed the title by editing in place, entry date stayed the same. Second book, using the edit page, entry date changed to Jun 14.

Mine did that too--e.g., Trainspotting (which was one of the first books I entered when I started LT more than a year ago) has an entry date of today because I entered the past reading dates today. There are a couple more of mine that have the same problem if you need more examples.

Edited to say: I've edited 11 books today where the entry day is now incorrect.

I just want to reinforce that this is really bothersome:

It is data being changed in my library that I didn't change,

it is data that is potentially lost (because I don't remember when I entered the books), and

it is incorrect data in my library that I cannot correct (even if I knew the correct dates to enter b/c I cannot edit the entry date).

Thanks for looking into this!

I keep my library sorted in 'date entered' order so I can keep track of my latest purchases. Also it makes looking at interesting libraries easier because I can see their latest purchases. If editing changes the date, the field loses its meaning and value.

Same problem here.
I corrected a mispelling for this book: http://www.librarything.fr/work/42428/book/23529079 , entered a long time ago when the multiple authors didn't exist, and I changed a tag for this book: http://www.librarything.fr/work/3574/book/31808156 , entered 2008-06-09 and the entry date for those two books became today.

Well now, this just is not good. After initially adding all my books to LT, I now rely on the Date Entered to keep track of what is essentially the Date Acquired. That allowed me to skip entering one date. Now it seems I'll have to be sure to enter Date Acquired to everything. Like surly in #9, I keep my library sorted by Date Entered, so the thought that it will arbitrarily disappear, well, sucks.

Plus, this problem combined with the already reported Date Read problem now makes me really question the integrity of LT data. It looks like I won't be doing a thing with my LT catalog until I know that this is resolved. Tim, Chris, someone - can you please reassure us that our data is still safe?????

Tim, Chris, someone - can you please reassure us that our data is still safe?????

And if the data ISN'T safe, shouldn't the edit page be disabled until there is a way for it to work without losing data?

Maybe this thread should have been called something like DATA LOSS? so that they'd take notice of it.

This is a huge issue for me as my main sort is by entry date. Which I now can't trust unless I never edit any work after the day it was entered :-(

After reading this thread I checked my libary. Yesterday I changed a cover on a previously entered book. Now it has an entry date of 14th June. It was previously entered in April.....

I think it's okay if you edit from the catalogue rather than the edit screen. I just tried editing date acquired from the catalogue, and it didn't affect the entry date.

Has anyone here emailed Tim or whoever about this? Maybe they haven't seen the thread? (doubts that, but sometimes emailing works faster)

>15 _Zoe_: Are you sure? Since I'm guessing you didn't open the edit page so as not to screw up your data, what you're seeing is what is saved for the catalog page, not the book data. Ever since these have been different, I've personally been very wary about LT data entered through the catalog.

>16 Heather19: I just e-mailed Tim.

I agree, this is really annoying. I will definitely not change any of my data until I know what’s going on.

>17 Talbin: AT the very least, I think the problems with the catalogue only involve date started/read. I feel entirely comfortable using the catalogue for everything else, and I do use it for the dates too, though I'd like to have some reassurance from Tim that my data is safe.

For what it's worth: Even if the entry data is lost, it can probably be semi-reconstructed as long as a majority of people don't use the edit page and lose their data. Even though the entry date in the catalog shows up as today, on the list of members who own the book, my name in the recently added hasn't changed places. So I know who entered it right before me and right after me. Of course, this only works for books that aren't so popular that my name has been pushed off the "recently added" list.

Tim said today in 46/49 that he is working on this problem.
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=32812#632455