Books that do not get associated with a work

I have been encountering a number of books that show no work number in the URL from the book catalog and display "Error: Work does not exist." when clicked.

I have tried waiting a day to see if it is some sort of DB replication problem with no luck. I have tried removing and adding the books with no luck.

One example:

ISBN 3127107102
added from union catalog: Gemeinsamer Bibliotheksverbund (GBV)

This adds the correct title ("Bundeswettbewerb Mathematik") albeit with some completely unrelated LC subject headings (mathematics book, subject shows "Estate planning")

The URL in my book catalog is missing a work number. Removing, readding, waiting 24 hours, etc. have not helped.

Another example:

LCCN 86-227852 added from Library of Congress.

(On a tangent: "LCCN" is "LC control number", though it is referred to as "LC card number" and "LC catalog number" at various places on this site.)

In any case, despite adding/removing book, it never gets a work number assigned.

There is definitely a problem. I hope someone more qualified than I am can come and have a look. I see the title in your catalog, but clicking on the title or the book info card doesn't lead anywhere, just the message that the book doesn't exist. But it does -- I searched on the title and found two entries with that title with work numbers. Let's see if I can get a touchstone.

Bundeswettbewerb Mathematik : Aufgaben u. Lösungen 1978-1982

Yes, but I daren't check to see if the (others) leads to the other. Here are the urls to the two work pages.

http://www.librarything.com/work-info/2957737

http://www.librarything.com/work-info/2957725

The social page information Members who have the book has this error message

"You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '' at line 1 - fatal error (5)"

{update} the correct title touchstone did load but didn't show up in the message as posted. When editing just now, a completely different book, The Stand by Stephen King turned up for the touchstone choice. Weird.

Well, not only does the problem persist, but now these books seem to be undeletable from my catalog. If I select them and click on "Delete Selected Books", I just go to a blank content frame (the header with the tabs is still there) and the books stay in my catalog.

Although TIM and John do view this group, it may be best to email them directly. Addresses on the blog page.

Yeah, I've been running to this problem as well in other people's books, and I know one solution - your Bundeswettbewerb Mathematik : Aufgaben u. Lösungen 1978-1982 should now be OK. So try the following with the rest of your problem books!

The solution: I added your non-existing work to my library straight from your catalog, and at least in this one case the problem was (I think) that there was no primary language selected. I filled all the language fields with German (if that's incorrect, please fix it), submitted the data and lo and behold, the error message disappeared and everything worked as it should.

It is my usual practise to combine Finnish books with English counterparts, but lately I've been running to lots of these "work does not exist" -problems. The only way I know to fix it is to add them to my catalog and edit the book data, then delete the book from the library, but I don't want to that over and over again since it would totally mess my personal entry date -data. So... some other solution would be much appreciated!

I'm not sure how I would do this with my own catalog, since I can't add from my own catalog. For some works, I may find the same item in another person's library, but it might be difficult to track down the correct translation, etc.

I guess I could create a second utility account to accomplish the workaround. Is this advisable? Is it permitted?

You should be able to do it in your own catalog just fine. The reason why I had to move them to my catalog was that I can't edit the book information of a book I don't have in my catalog (I guess this is to prevent people from messing up other people's libraries - if had changed, for example, the title it would have split into a different work).

So here's a more detailed description on how to do it:

* In the catalog (Your Library), there is a pen symbol (Edit book information) for each book on the right. Click that.

* Now scroll down to the language fields and select the correct language(s) (I think that selecting the primary language is sufficient).

* Scroll back up (or down) and click "Submit".

Hopefully, the error wil go away. If the language is already OK, then you can try checking the other fields.

If you can't make it work, I can do it for you, but better try it first because this could happen again in the future and getting someone to sort it out every time could get tedious :)

EDIT: the pen symbol won't show up in power edit -mode, so turn that off first if you're using it!

So... I guess the missing lanuguages can't be blamed for all cases after all.

I just ran into a bunch of books with "Error - work does not exist" -messages, and tried to fix them the same way I had before, i.e. by choosing the primary language... except, these already had the languages selected, and all other fields were also OK!?

All the same, I clicked "Submit" and as a consequence the error message went away again, even though I didn't change anything in the book information. So it would seem to me that some books just aren't registering in the system, and I think this happens a lot. I have no idea why, though.

Thanks for your help. I figured out that I didn't see the edit button in my catalog because I had power edit turned on. I turned it off and now I can fix these entries that have lost their pointer to the work.