Book covers in publisher series pages

I posted this in another group last year, and rather than 'bump' it there I thought it would be more usefully re-posted here:

I presume the book covers that appear on the publisher series pages are chosen by algorithm. I would like to see a way for interested members to be able to confirm, or more likely reset, the particular covers used.

For example, The Children's Golden Library, http://www.librarything.com/publisherseries/The+Children%27s+Golden+Library. One, maybe two, of the thirty-seven covers used on the page are those used by the series.

The Mariners Library, http://www.librarything.com/publisherseries/The+Mariners+Library, does better with thirty-one Mariners Library covers out of forty-nine titles, but, for example, Gallions Reach jumps out with a Penguin Books cover, and Down Channel with a print-on-demand cover.

The Penguin Classics, Everyman's Library and Folio Society pages are another three that can to mind, and which could look so much better.

Many thanks.

I, too, would like this feature.

And so would I.

Real covers are much better than print on demand or ebook covers. The regular series page has similar problems.

The cover selected is the "most popular" based on which one is used in the greatest number of LT member catalogs. If there is a tie the older one seems to win.

For regular series and publisher series I'd much rather see my cover shown. However, I recognize that this might cause a problem with caching this sort of page since it would have to be generated each time with a different user's images.

If it would help, I would not mind it if it defaulted to the popular and then give me a link to click to see my covers.

Even still, for some illustrated classics series, a given title appears in multiple series (e.g. Treasure Island; Alice's Adventures in Wonderland).

Part of the problem for the publisher series is that the cover image is selected based on the work and these are the result of combinations. To show just the relevant copies would require that the system "know" about the publisher and edition that makes it part of a given set. This is something that is supposed to be available as part of the long-ago mentioned "editions" layer, a fundamental change in the data structure. It has not had any progress released in quite some time, years I think.

James

Agree that having a crowd-sourced method for correcting the algorithm would be useful, giving us both a more accurate depiction of the publisher series, but a prettier-looking page, as well.

#5 by @elenchus>

Yes. Something where the cover image for a volume in a series could be the result of voting could be a help. Then the system would have to store the preferred image number with the series entry. It could be done, I think, and still achieve the caching goal.

Different series, especially publisher ones, would need different images for a title.

James

I don't think this needs to be voting, does it? That seems unnecessarily complex. Just let it be a click-option on the publisher series page -- either on the title image or with a little "change cover for this series" link by each title. Anybody could edit it the way anybody can edit series info now.

In the light of a new thread at http://www.librarything.com/topic/194629 asking for the same improvement ... bump.

Even within a publisher series couldn't the series be reissued with different covers? What would be the correct covers in that case? The original covers? The most popular? How do you measure popularity of different sets of a series?

>9 jjwilson61: Even within a publisher series couldn't the series be reissued with different covers?

Yes. In my experience (mostly Scandinavian publishers) a publisher series often, in some cases most often, contains works from their backlist. There will be several previous covers available from the publisher's earlier hardcover and pocketbook editions of works that eventually ends up in a publisher series. Adding to that, it's not unusual for a publisher series to be reprinted with new covers. Getting the "right" publisher series cover surely is a can of worms, but it's not LT's fault.

Bump for this here as the oldest RSI I could find on the subject, prompted by a recent mention at: https://www.librarything.com/topic/362082#8580127 of publisher series looking ratty due to this.

I'm imagining that now we have a series edit page, within the Basic Settings it could have an option like:

Covers
◎ Automatic by popularity
◉ Custom covers

Then for the series that are appropriate for it, within the Add to/Organize Series screen each item (each work) would have a cover selector to access that work's cover gallery, defaulting to the most popular until/unless set otherwise. Or if that would be too much clutter/complication for the add/organize page, some kind of new purpose-designed page off the series menu to set the custom choices.

---
Also collecting some other topic links talking about or requesting this feature:
/114831 Covers for publisher series? – 2011
The above mentions some interest from Tim when publisher series first came in.
/193887 Way to force correct cover for a publisher series? – 2015
/194629 Force the right cover in series / publisher's series – 2015 RSI, linked in >8 Cynfelyn:
/219950 Publisher series covers – 2016
/245569 Matching covers for Publishers Series – 2017
/313704 Publisher Series Covers – 2019 RSI
/324137 Publisher Series: Assign Individual Books and Covers – 2020 RSI

>11 Nevov:

I agree that the "new" series system calls for a reevaluation of this RSI, and probably makes it a lot more feasible. It would be great to see this improvement.

>12 paradoxosalpha: Yes, in the early days of the new series development, I remember Tim saying that better covers for Publisher Series were intended to be part of the scope.

At the moment, for any work in more than one publisher series, at least half of it's publisher series covers are incorrect.

>11 Nevov: Ooh! Yeah, that’d be great!

Late to the party...new to this.
I made and am adding books to the publisher series, Burt's Library of the World's Best Books (The Home Library, Burt's Home Library) which is a set of boring maroon covers. One is titled "Chevalier de Maison-Rouge: A tale of the reign of terror." In the series page it shows as The Knight of Maison-Rouge: A Novel of Marie Antoinette.
That's someone's version, but not the one in this specific series.

It seems too bad for me until individual books get more attention here. Correct?

>15 sbluerock: You are right inasmuch as it is not currently possible to change the default work cover at all. This RSI specifically asks for a way to assign a different one on publisher series page. Unless it is implemented at some point, the default most used cover is shown.

Also, +1 from me for this RSI.

It’s also the case that a book n a Publisher series can spoil the look of the original series page.
See the uniformity of design spoiled on this page:
https://www.librarything.com/nseries/46691/Aunt-Janes-Nieces

Aunt Jane’s Nieces

>17 2wonderY: Agreed about the "look." But at least in those cases, the book is actually part of the series as authored. In items for many publisher series, only a certain edition was published for the series, so the non-series cover image is factually incorrect.

And the same goes for title; the most common one is going to win out

Yes, publishers change their covers quite often too. (But it would still be somewhat better to have at least some cover from a "Penguin Classics" edition of some title that they published, than whatever - just an example.)

The problem is deeper than covers, though. If I look at the publishers' series page, it tells me what works that series includes. It tells me which of those works I own, but not which of those works I have in the particular series. If I want to collect a particular publishers' series of the classics, there is no easy way to see which of the books in the store would improve my collection.

There needs to be some way of marking whether or not my copy is part of the series in question. Eventually, covers for the series could be based only on the covers of those who chose to mark their copies as part of the series.

>21 MarthaJeanne: That would extremely nice to have, yes.

>17 2wonderY: Yes. My covers are very boring and some soiled but they are the series. I see how it could be difficult to implement/maintain, but would be a nice feature.

This is all related to the fact that there is only work level information, not edition level information.

>24 al.vick: Yes, but unlike editions layer which would be an enormous and possibly impossible project at this point, this RSI is straightforward and relatively easy to implement.

>25 SandraArdnas:

I don't think adding an edition layer is an impossible task, but I'm afraid that any ad hoc, partial solution to one of the many related issues (such as this one) would make it harder and harder to implement. So I really hope that it can happen.

>26 Felagund: You don't think the basic database scaffolding that exists makes it harder to implement? Not a programer, but from purely design aspect it seems to me something easier to do by building the entire structure from scratch then trying to incorporate it into the current one. Even then, pulling it off while retaining individual book layer characteristic of LT is a tall call. Compared to that, adding or removing this feature is a breeze.

All book databases I know have 2 layers, mostly it's edition and work layer. LT opted to give us near-complete control over our own records with individual book one. Introducing the third in the middle is redesigning the entire structure, so I'm not holding my breath.

>27 SandraArdnas:
I didn't say it was easy, I'm saying it is not impossible. A lot of work for sure, possibly too much work compared with the available resources, but in principle it is absolutely possible.

And my opinion is that it would be the right way to go, and I can still hope that it will happen at some point because it would address many existing issues with the system. But I won't hold my breath either :-)