Combining/Separating Fix It Thread: #1

This thread is for LT'ers or thingamabrarians, or members, or their designees, to post combining or separating problems with their books.
**If a book has been combined with a book that is extremely different from the original.
**If a book won't combine with the other books just like it.
**There is a problem with the entry & it is just too overwhelming to deal with.
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It has been suggested many times that there be a single thread for LT'ers to post combining & separating problems so that;
** they can learn how to do it
** they can get help when needed
** just want someone else to do it (usually, they can't understand how to do it... which is normal... or don't have the time)
**and finally, those LT'ers who "enjoy" combining can have a place to look to first to see what fun can be had helping LT be the best place to catalog books.
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WHEN YOU POST:
Please give us hyperlinks, not touchstones. Hyperlinks to the pages where the problems exist is much more accurate than a touchstone when there is a problem.
Give us the title & author, plus any other information you think we might need.

Then you can just wait, "and someone will be with you shortly."

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Tim's Guidelines for Proper Etiquette for contacting members about their book records:

For this topic, I still feel strongly that I'd like to consider it bad form. Many others agree with me. But a few thing I'm dictating and are angry about that. So, fine. Let's just write some guidelines up. I propose that the guidelines be something along the lines of:

*Remember that LibraryThing is used for many different reasons. The way you use and enjoy the site is not necessarily the way others do.
*Be sensitive to how the member is using LibraryThing. Approach members who show no interest in the social side more cautiously.
*Try to provide helpful information and ask questions rather than dictating.
*If the user indicates displeasure at the request, let it drop.
*When in doubt, raise the issue in the Combiners! group before sending a message.
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My note: I would like to add that we should ALWAYS use private comment when we absolutely must contact a LT'er, even when their response isn't private.

and yes, this thread is similar to putting all of our problems together for people to see & say, "oh, no!! LT isn't perfect!!" or "Look at all of the problems that LT has." That isn't the case here. This is a place to gather "challenges" together to make it easier & faster to "fix" them. Let's just remember that "bad" data comes from people... people who make mistakes.. WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES! (ok, there are a couple of perfect people around here) Instead of complaining about the problem, let's fix it.
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When this thread reaches approximately 200 posts, DO NOT POST HERE, but go to POST #2. This thread will be easier to handle if we keep it under 200. Please copy any notes or instructions to the new thread.
Thank you.

Feel free to add comments &/or suggestions... not just "challenges"

(ETA - This has now been fixed thanks to help below.)

These three all have the same author, but I can't combine them because my copy does not show on the author page. Debris doesn't help (although I think there are ISBN matches)

1: Planes by Barton Byron.
I added this on Saturday.
my copy:
http://www.librarything.com/work/book/27687625
same work
http://www.librarything.com/work/86703

2. Margret and H.A. Rey's Curious George and the Puppies by Margret Rey (and H. A Rey - actually, it's only based on their work, but no other author is provided)
I added this yesterday. Note that here, I combined the authors (Side Note: There are tons of variations of Margret Rey and H. A. Rey. Most were already combined. So, I decided to combine the rest I found. Let me know if this was a mistake.)
my copy:
http://www.librarything.com/work/book/27700213
same work
http://www.librarything.com/work/370119

3. Compagnie Générale de Géophysique (CGG) 1931-2006 75 Years of Passion by Compagnie Générale de Géophysique
I added this in January, and started a discussion in bug reports on January 10. The authors had to be combined:
my copy
http://www.librarything.com/work/4645795/book/25167223
same work
http://www.librarything.com/work/3590662
Earlier Discussion:
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=27441

dchaikin, on your case #1, I notice that you have the author as "Barton Byron" where the main work (and the book itself) list "Byron Barton". Have you tried editing the author in your catalog?

Problems #1 & #2: combined. (slight variations in format, but essentially the same books)

#3: authors have now been combined (probably sabreuse) but the cache must catch up before we can combine the two books.

'twasn't me - I got called away from the computer like I always do. But I'm glad it's getting sorted out.

Thanks for the help!

#3 sabreuse - Thanks, regarding "Planes" - I didn't catch the error (source was Library of Congress). It has been fixed, problem solved.

#4 skittles - The Curious George book is not combined. Actually every variation of author Margret Rey has now been un-combined from H. A. Rey (even ones that include H. A. Rey, but begin with Margret). I won't recombine them. But, without combining the authors and without help from Debris via ISBN, I don't believe there is any other way to combine the works. I suspect there are ISBN matches, but I haven't checked.

On the CGG work - the authors were combined ~jan 12, 2008 - 51 days ago. My work still doesn't list under the author and, because of that, I still can't combine.

extra bit on Curious George and the Puppies - the work links to author Margret Rey, but no version of this work is listed on that author page.

It may be that your copy of CG has MR as the author, but the work author is H.A.Rey. That's why it wouldn't be listed.

The author listings of H. A. Rey and Margaret Rey and the multitude of combinations have been "nevered". Which means that the author listings cannot be combined. The books can usually be combined, but it can be tedious & laborious.

I'll start on it, but others can feel free to work on the Curious George books.

If you are "new" to combining & wish to try, start with a search on "Curious George" (& eventually all of the misspellings). Not all will be easily combinable, but the more we can get correctly combined, the easier it will be.

Thanks.

from Bug Collectors:

http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=30373

from Heather19:

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.

Heather:

The 14 copy work of Calvin & Hobbes:

http://www.librarything.com/work/4036345

has numerous ISBN's that belong to other titles & that is linking to other editions of Calvin & Hobbes. I've written a disambiguation notice not to combine & hopefully, no one will. There are a lot of books that don't have complete titles & that is compounding the problem.

*8 skittles - "It may be that your copy of CG has MR as the author, but the work author is H.A.Rey. That's why it wouldn't be listed."

I think I've missed something. According to the LT work page (for the work that includes my copy), the work author is Margret Rey (See http://www.librarything.com/work/3547976/ ). So, doesn't that mean that MR is work author?

My copy is here: http://www.librarything.com/work/3547976/book/27700213

the combining system (probably caching) is going slowly... and combining isn't showing up as quickly as we'd like...

No, it doesn't... I checked your library & M Rey is listed as author for your copy, but 3 copies have no author, so M Rey isn't the "majority" author... no author is!!

Can you go into your library & remove the "M & HA Rey's" from the title (at least for now) That might combine it with the others...

I think combining/separating is down right now, so I'll check again later

______________

but apparently, there's a copy of CG gets a medal that is combined with The Fountain & The Mountain : The University of Washington Campus in Seattle !! amongst other oddities.

#11 skittles: thanks for your help. I'll try separating from the no author books and see what happens.

Certainly, I wouldn't change the title for the sake of combining. I would only change the title to correct it.

I can't separate the CG works. I tried to do it from the debris page and got "Error: Work not found."

that has been happening for a bit, that's why I couldn't separate your book out & I suggested the temporary title change... only temporary.

I'm going to give it some more time & check it later.

And, yes, I like "proper & correct" titles, too.

#13 dchaikin:

your book Margret & H.A. Rey's Curious George & the Puppies is now combined with the others & has an author. There are 51 copies of that work.

Heather19:

YOU choose which cover appears with a certain book in your catalog, not LT. Sometimes, as with the Babysitter books, someone downloads an incorrect cover for the book. That does not affect your copy at all. Yes, it can be irritating, but I've checked through the titles & Claudia isn't there. I checked the ISBN's, too & they are all for The Truth about Stacey except for two ISBN's... and one is Kristy's Big Idea and The Red Hen by Judith Bauer Stamper (not a babysitter series book)

And yes, Calvin is a mess, but I'm tired & I'm going to pass that off to another combiner to work on. Any takers?

2 & 4 & 6>

I think I was the one who combined the authors, but that wasn't enough to let both of the works show up on the author page. There's something weird going on with LT if the author of a work isn't identical to the author of the only book in the work.

What you can do if the work *has* an author in this case: Separate *all* the books in the work from the work and then combine them again. After this they should show up on the author page(s). I did this for the CGG work and they're now properly combined. If the work itself doesn't have an author you have a problem, due to the "Error: work does not exist"-thing also mentioned in 13 above.

skittles & koffieyahoo - Wonderful, All three of my problems are solved (and my works are all much happier now). Thanks so much!

I just discovered that a copy of Lawrence Miles's Down and Dead Romance have been combined with his Christmas on a Rational Planet. See? No matter how many times I hit "separate" they stay combined.

#18 - I think that's a lag on the debris page - from the author combine page they seem ok, and I've combined them back into their respective 3 works.

Any have any hints on this one:

Night Watch (no author)
http://www.librarything.com/work/4072968
Has three ISBN associated with it
1594482306, 1844082415, 0099489929

The first two of these are for
Night Watch (Sarah Waters)
http://www.librarything.com/work/135945

and the last one is for
Night Watch (Sergei Lukyanenko)
http://www.librarything.com/work/732079

There doesn't seem to be a way to uncombine the top one by ISBN to recombine with the proper work...

The Night Watch book with 16 members/copies does not have an author listed, but may have ISBNs connected to both authors. I have separated it from the Sarah Waters title & placed a Disambiguation Notice of DO NOT COMBINE to the work. Hopefully this will help prevent it from staying separate.

Until there exists a way to separate by ISBN, or individual books "stuck together" this will have to stay.

I refuse to contact individual members to tell them how to catalog their books If they see the notice & wish to change, they can, but it is their choice.

#19 - They were still combined on the author page too when I looked at it. I guess I should just be patient-- but how can one tell the difference between not working and working belatedly?

I just separated Kurt Koch and Kurt E. Koch. These seem to be at least three different authors. I added disambigu... notices to the page of each that seems to be in most use, but there seem to be two author pages for each. ???

Just found a nice one.
http://www.librarything.com/work/31712/edit/28071336
Somehow I find it difficult to believe that 'Lions of Fashion: Male Fashion of the 16th, 17th, 18th Centuries' is really the Danish version of Bradbury's 'The Martian Chronicles'.

I can't get into the right page at this time of night to separate it out.

Someone must've gotten it out; it's not listed on the combine-works page, just the debris page, so it's a cache issue.

no, I found it & separated it out... and put a disambiguation notice on the works page... it shows 3 Martian Chronicles & they want to combine with Lions... my guess is that one of them is a copy of Lions... or Lions has a copy of the Martian Chronicles buried with it.

doesn't matter now... it is separated & hopefully, it will stay lonely.

26>

I noticed something different: When you separate out all the books with a particular ISBN from a work, the actualt work combination page (not the debris page) afterwards always seems to suggest the separated books as a potential combination, even if the ISBN doesn't occur anymore in the work.

#27: it occurs, we just cannot see it..

situation can be ISBN of work is also in suggestion..

or ISBN of combination is together with the work

. or the connection is somewhere else in the data.

26 Thank you. I was going to try again this morning. Those really big combination pages won't load for me in the evening. That's mid-afternoon in the US. I don't know if the site is too busy, or my ISP here. My connection seems to cycle in and out that time of night, which is not helpful.

I separated a single volume out of Women and Religion in America http://www.librarything.com/combine.php?author=ruetherrosemaryradfo
but couldn't find it afterwards to connect it up where it belongs. I'll try again later.

I found it...

Women & Religion in America is a 3 volume work.
Volume 1: 19th century
Volume 2: colonial & revolutionary
Volume 3: 1900 and later.

there is also one work listed without volumes.... so I will assume it is the complete "set" & not combine it with any of the volumes.

I don't see any other "stray" volumes, but if anyone else finds any... combine them, or post them here.

You found the right place, but I separated out a copy of vol 1 from the full set, and don't know what happened to it.

Woody Allen is a complete mess.

http://www.librarything.com/combine.php?author=allenwoody

Screenplays, DVDs, Videos and things that don't say all mixed up together. This is way beyond my abilities to try to clean up.

#32, I found the singleton... it was a volume 2 & I combined it with the other volume 2's.

Glad to know that one is sorted. It is very unsatisfying to leave a problem, (yes, it was vol 2. Now why did I think Colonial and revolutionary would come before 19th century?)

http://www.librarything.com/work/3493707/details/25267419
is the same book as my:
http://www.librarything.com/work/3493712/details/18469233
but have failed to combine despite having the same ISBN.
Any way to combine those?

Also wondering it they're not combining because I changed the title (Amazon.jp started adding the publisher and the publisher's code for the book to the title field, and I deleted it from a few before giving up and leaving it.)

I can't touch these, as I do not read Japanese, but it looks as if they show up on the same author page. They can be combined there by someone who can read the titles.

36>

The work

http://www.librarything.com/work/3493707

has neither title nor auhtor, although the single book in the work has both. Can't check at the moment if they are combinable by ISBN, as I have difficulty reaching the database for some operations due to the scheduled maintainance that is going on.

#36: Any way to combine those?

Yup. :)

I have two questions

at the authors page of Lynn Hall http://www.librarything.nl/author/halllynn&all=books
there is a note about one of her books, can somebody fix that, so I can add my Dutch copy?

I use the Canonical Title at the Common Knowledge page for the Original title of a translated book, is there an other way to do this?

Not at the moment, outside of the Comments field; and actually, that's the wrong use of the canonical title field. It says—somewhere, I thought right on the CK entry page, but I could be wrong—that CK data is supposed to be the most commonly accepted form for that language (the language being the current version of the LT site you're on). So Joanne Murray's canonical name isn't that, but rather J. K. Rowling.

http://www.librarything.com/work/3217780/debris/28148340 is the same work as http://www.librarything.com/work/909363

Some are under the General Editor, (Gruden) others under one of the 4 contributors (Oss). Is there any way to combine them?

In fact several in the work listed under Oss seem to have Gruden as the author.

# 41, thank you, I will move it to the comments field and will not use the Canonical Title for that anymore.

Any help available for untangeling Lynn Hall ?

http://www.librarything.com/work/18485/debris/28150759

Heinlein's 'Job' as a possible combination with Clarke's '1984:Spring'??

#42: Combined.

#43: Those sound to me like hash collisions, which can't be solved short of owners with those books editing the title slightly.

#44: Someone probably supplied the wrong ISBN (0345313577 instead of 0345313585).

Lovely. Now that 42 is combined I can get the right bookcover.

#45 Those sound to me like hash collisions, which can't be solved short of owners with those books editing the title slightly.

So there is nothing I can do, I saw in an other thread we were not supposed to ask members to change their entries.

As far as I know, that's correct.

http://www.librarything.com/work/edit/28154694

This author, "Pascoe, Elise" and her book "Australia : en kulinarisk reise : autentiske oppskrifter fra et spennende kontinent (Australia - the Beautiful Cookbook)" will not let me combine this book. It do not show up om the authorsite. I have tried what I can do. Anyone who can help ?

Oh, wonder , I fixed it myself

I need to combine my copy:

http://www.librarything.com/work/4384985

with

http://www.librarything.com/work/302573

but nothing shows on the Debris page to allow me to combine. Can you tell me how to do this?

The easiest way to combine them is for you to fix the author on your copy, and then combine them from the author's combine page.

http://www.librarything.com/work/5089617/book/28165931
is the French translation of http://www.librarything.com/work/1159/edit/28165611

There is no author. Should I enter WCC as author on both my copies to combine them? Would that lose the connection to other copies of the English?

For some reason "Journey Around Chicago" is combined with "Rise of a Merchant Prince" and it is beyond me to separate them again. http://www.librarything.com/combine.php?author=zschockmarthaday#
Also, if you search "Journey Around Chicago" 4 different things all show up that should be combined (once the "Merchant Prince" is out of the one of them), but I can't even get them to all show up.

#54: I combined the two. Adding WCC as the author on the French copy would've allowed you to combine them from the author page; you wouldn't have needed to edit the English copy at all.

#55: That's a hash collision issue, I'm afraid. As for the search, the indexing has been turned off because of the load for a couple of days, so it's no surprised that the results are slightly wonky. I'm afraid you'll have to wait for the new hardware to arrive.

54 56

I should have looked further. I don't have an author listed for either, I just thought up the only possible author I could think of.

54 56
Université de Montréal has an author for the French translation ( in French ) in case you are interested in having this information in the LT database ( and your library).

I am having no luck combining the only two works by Robert Bréchon. One is my own, 'Etrange étranger', and the other is the Portuguese translation, 'Estranho estrangeiro'. For some reason only the latter is listed under the author's name.

Try adding the author's first name to your copy. Then it will show up on the correct author page.

http://www.librarything.com/work/357219/debris/28190790

My cookbook "Ganske enkelt - Fransk kokebok : 50 oppskrifter med steg-for-steg fotografier (The Essential French Cookbook)" has been glued to, as the same book with:

"The First Nine Months of Life by Geraldine Lux Flanagan, The First Nine Months of Life. by Geraldine Lux. Flanagan (2 copies separate)
De eerste negen maanden van ons leven: van conceptie tot geboorte by Geraldine Lux Flanagan (1 copy separate)
Die ersten neun Monate des Lebens. by Geraldine Lux Flanagan (1 copy separate)
Vårt liv før fødselen by Geraldine Lux Flanagan (1 copy separate) "

In the debris site I tried to seperate them, but the only thing that happened was that all the "Vårt liv før fødselen" was separated from each other. Can anybody fix this ?

It's probably a hash collision. Try deleting the space before the colon in the title of your cookbook.

58 I assume (without looking) that the author they have is the translator, which I have entered under other authors. The only 'author' for the document is World Council of Churches. And having lived for a few years in Geneva where one's life was complicated by having to have a mental database connecting English and French acronyms for all the international organizations, (World Health Organization=WHO=OMS) I don't want to start that in my library. And I'm too much of a perfectionist to use the English on a French document. Neither the English nor the French books actually lists an author, which is why I have entered them without an author.

Besides, I think using a corporate entity as author bothers me more than not having one. They are connected now, and show up in my library as two different copies of the same work. That I do care about. (Now one just has to ask why I bother with keeping and cataloging a translation from my main language into a language that I can barely read.)

#63
I tried that, it didn't work.

I ment #62

#60 ... Thanks, but on my list it shows the author's full name, exactly as it appears on the author page. I only noticed after I got it from amazon.fr that only the surname was there and changed it manually. Does that make a mess of things?

Sorry for coming back, but I am honestly at a loss. It must be my own stupidity, something that I have done inadvertently, or a mysterious lapse somewhere. Whatever the reason I still can't find my work on the author page. Here is the link to my book:

http://www.librarything.com/work/4849486/book/28222845

The author appears as Robert Bréchon. However, if you follow the link to the author page you get this:

http://www.librarything.com/author/brchonrobert

My copy is nowhere in sight. Could someone please advise?

68 - I think I've done it. Sometimes you end up with a different author in the work than in the book. You had Robert Bréchon one place and Brechon (without the Robert) in the other. I have combined the two. The combination hasn't shown up yet, but it should be there soon.

Very kind of you. Thanks.

http://www.librarything.com/work/1474925

Seems to be a mess. I have separated out the copies of 'Caribbean & African Cookery' that were in there. There still seem to be two different books combined here. However I want the changes I already made to settle down before I play more, and I don't want to spend the evening looking up these others cookbooks on-line to check that they really are different. It wilol be easier in the morning.

69> Generally its frowned upon to combine an author's last name with their full name as there may be other authors with the same last name. I believe exceptions are allowed if the name is either exceptionally famous or exceptionally rare.

#72: At least in this case, it seems to be rare; there are no other authors on LT with that name, first or last.

72>
73>
I would not have done it if there had been a long list with the name.

What I don't understand is why that was the author in the work. Sometimes my book has connected up with something really wierd in the work, and I have been able to separate it out and get it where it belongs. But in this case it was the only copy of the only work under that author. How come the work was wrong when there wasn't another copy setting a wrong example? And what do I do when one of my books does that?

There may have previously been another copy setting it wrong, or the work could be remembering what your book used to say.

Often, if you have the only copy, going to the debris page and doing a Separate on your copy will force LT to create a new work with your book in it; it should then use the current, correct data.

71> Rosamund Grant has written several different books on Caribbean and/or African Cooking. The one I have is now separated out properly.

However the work listed above still contains a nice selection of those just on Caribbean cooking. It shows the cover of a different edition of my book (Caribbean & African) and has more individual titles included on the debris page than members owning it. Several of these are not in English, and it is anyone's guess which of the English titles they really belong with.

I very much doubt that I could clean this up, and I'm leaving it alone.

I originally posted this on the bug hunters group but it might be more appropriate here even though it is about decombining rather than combining.

I entered http://www.librarything.com/work/5109425/details/28293014 and http://www.librarything.com/work/5109425/details/28293025 but the database has put them together as the same. Tried editing the titles to no avail. As there isn't an author, I don't know how to seperate them

Thoughts, anyone?

77> Theoretically you go into debris and look to where they are both listed (they are) and click on separate on one of them. Then it should separate out.

But it doesn't. You get an error message. 'Error: Work not found.' I think it needs to go back to bug hunters.

I'll do that. Thanks anyway

This could get to be messy -

I have some very old Illustrated Classics. You might remember these - pocket-sized books that were an illustration every other page and significantly shorter than the original.

I entered David Copperfield and was rather shocked to see over 4000 members with the book! Yeah, you can guess...combined with the original. I don't know if people think that "deluxe illustrated" examples provided as good combinations and these are the same...but where to start?

http://www.librarything.com/work/7489/debris/28343489 (David Copperfield)
http://www.librarything.com/work/3093889/debris/28343685 (Huckleberry Finn)
http://www.librarything.com/work/2215/debris/28343748 (Oliver Twist)
http://www.librarything.com/work/62525/debris/28343865 (Robin Hood)

Honestly, I don't even know where to start...

Going just by the name, I can certainly see why someone would not recognize that your edition (and I use the term loosely) of the book was abridged. The example was intended more for editions like this edition of The Hobbit (Amazon link for clarity's sake), I believe.

Probably the best way of going about things is to separate out those which you have in hand, and know are abridged. Separate them from the main work. Then add disambiguation notices to both the main David Copperfield work and the abridged one, saying that the Illustrated Classics Edition is significantly abridged and should not be combined with the original.

Lectionary for Worship: Revised Common Lectionary : Cycle A by Gordon W. Lathrop

http://www.librarything.com/work/5118253

I separated this out of a group of 4 books which included cycles A, B, and C. (The work title showed C.) Now this shows as a single copy and the rest have disappeared.

-this looks like it's along the lines of 77/78.
I entered the movable mother gooseRobert Sabuda using ISBN with LC source.
Book entered, combined with 64 others, cover avavailable, but none of the books appear on the Sabuda page - only entry is a single work, spelled Moveable
http://www.librarything.com/work/4723510/details

26 or so of the entries have no author listed, but the work does.

When I go to debris and click on separate, I get the error not found message. Except it's not exactly an error, because they aren't found on any sabuda author page.

I tried a manual entry with author and without an ISBN to see if I could get it to go to the Sabuda page - didn't show up.

If this is not a bug, I'd really like to learn how to deal with this. Thanks for your help.

I have no idea if this is the right place to post it, I'm not really a combiner but this is annoying me and I don't know if it's a combine problem or not.

One of my Nancy Drew books, High Risk, has a "wrong" cover/data, and I put wrong in quotes because it's complicated. There are TWO ND books called "High Risk", one from the Casefiles series and one from the more recent Girl Detective series. The data for the two are clashed together, and I tried looking in the debris to figure out how to uncombine them, but I can't figure it out.

I looked on Amazon and I think it might be a problem with their data... if so, how do we/I go about contacting them about it?

Touchstones aren't working, so this is the link: http://www.librarything.com/work/1034742/book/17897016

I separated the non-Casefiles books from the work, and separated them into a "Girl Detective" work, and an "unspecified" work.

There are two different copies of the second "Flight" anthology - Flight, Volume 2 Becky Cloonan (http://www.librarything.com/work/7005), Flight, Volume Two No Author (http://www.librarything.com/work/2857952); they're split by authors so I can't see a way to combine them. They're also split by ISBNs - the Cloonan version uses the ISBN of the original Image Comics (2005) version, the No Author the ISBN of the Villard (2007) version - so there's nothing on the Debris pages. (Debris pages are ISBN-based, right?)

Interestingly, it's showing me with Kazu Kibuishi as the author for the second when I do a search, but that may just be server-side cached data - that's the author me and roughly half the others with it have associated with it; he's the editor. It doesn't show up on his author page, however. Cloonan is I think just alphabetically the first name and got picked up as the author on Amazon input. All of the Flight series authors are messed up in work details right now.

Anything I can do about this? Is it possible that one of them, once connected with an ISBN from the other, will show the other in Debris after a cache refresh? (After correcting my author data, my copy got connected with the second, No Author work, but I have the Image Comics version and ISBN).

Also, a user (shearrob) entered independent copies of the book under every contributor, for this and volumes 1 and 4; this was pretty obviously on purpose, so once I realized that I've left them alone for now.

#86: they are now combined

I did something awful!
I accidently combined (some of) the graphic novels Guilty Pleasures: http://www.librarything.com/work/5127556 with the book Guilty Pleasures: http://www.librarything.com/work/4873693
And I keep separating, just to get them untangled, but the work page dosn't update properly, so I have no way of knowing how much is missing, and the Author Combining page ( http://www.librarything.com/combine.php?author=hamiltonlaurellk ) dosn't update either, so I can't see with editions have been separated out.
I've been fighting with it for a while without getting it right, and it bothers me to leave it in its current mess, but I don't have the time to continue right now. So if anyone is in the mood for correcting a stupid mistake...

This issue is driving me crazy. Here it goes:

Captives of Blue Mountain is an all-text NOVEL by Wendy and Richard Pini.

The same authors have a GRAPHIC NOVEL of the same title, Captives of Blue Mountain.

Both volumes are number three in their respective series. Unfortunately, I can not separate these two different books into separate series! When I write in "ElfQuest Novel (3)" in the series box for the first book, the second appears in the novel series listing. Likewise, when I write in "ElfQuest Graphic Novel (3)" for the latter, the first mimics it and shows up in the graphic novel series listing.

I've seperated these two books as much as possible, but they seem irreparably bound together. Any ideas?

Yesterday I tried to deal with
http://www.librarything.com/work/542276/debris/28689141

For some reason the debris page STILL shows the work I separated out of. Actually it is the same work, but listed under a wrong author. I separated out to get an author page with the author right, with the intention of combining the authors, and getting the books back together. As I recall the author name was a string of letters from the author's name (dalyloisk or something like that). But now I can't find it to combine the authors.

1) How can this be fixed?
2) Would there have been a better way of dealing with this? (Besides the obvious one of writting down the wierd author before I lost it?)

Similarly:

http://www.librarything.com/author/mainprizev

should include Virginia Gosling Mainprize, but my copy of the book just jumps to the above page in spite of everything I can do.

I have added the full name to CK, and combined everything back together, but I still don't understand why my copy (after being deleted and entered back in even a day or two later) just jumped back into the shortened name. And the database has a problem somewhere because although the author page tells me I have one work by V. Mainprize, if I click on 'see yours' I get an empty result.

I hope I fixed this one
http://www.librarything.com/work/409228/debris/
but the things I separated out still show up.

89> I believe that if two works have the same title and the same author that the system thinks they are the same and there isn't anything you can do about it. Well, you could change your copy of the graphic novel to have (graphic novel) in the title, but that will create a new work that you can put into the series correctly, but won't be attached to anyone else's work.

While we're on the subject of graphic novels (and I tried posting this before, but the site went down while I was typing):

I can't combine Heroes Vol. 1 and Heroes (and I just saw Heroes: Volume 1 and Heroes by Tim Sale and I'm sure there are others floating around out there).

These are all the same book with the same ISBN. However, no overall writer or editor is credited, which is why we ended up with "Various" and whatever the hell people choose to put in the author field (I put Coleite as the primary because his name appeared first in the ToC *and* he seems to have written a majority of the material).

When I check the Debris page for any of these works no option is given to combine. So what do I do?

I can't figure out how to combine this translation of The nine tellers -- it just doesn't show up on the author page.

Also, I'd like to know how it's possible to combine books listed under different authors (as has been done for Good omens), which needs to be done for several of the books by Anders Jacobsson and Sören Olsson.

I don't understand how these could be separate in the first place (same ISBN!), or not show up as suggested combinations for each other:

Special Agent: My Life on the Front Lines as a Woman in the FBI
Special Agent: My Life On the Front Lines As Woman in the FBI (damn Amazon info)

And honestly, the titles are not *that* different. But I hate only sharing with 3 people, instead of 36.

Now, I want to know how this would be fixed, so I could do it myself in the future. I know the changing the ISBN on your own copy trick, but that one isn't going to work here. Right?

How can I separate the three copies of "Cyklop" by Clive Cussler from the single copy of "English royal marriages: The French marriages of Edward I and Edward II, 1299 and 1307 : facsimiles with introduction" by no author? And with a 3:1 ratio, guess which title the work gets...

The ISBNs do not match, nor does the author. Is this a hashing problem?

http://www.librarything.com/work/5159351/details

Re 96: They appear to be combined now, with a total of 36 copies.

Choosing Sides still shows a completely wrong cover (under Amazon covers) even though I seperated those two books weeks ago. Is it a cacheing problem or something else? http://www.librarything.com/work/1963500/covers/20093865

Alexander Pushkin:
http://www.librarything.com/author/pushkinalexander

I wonder if anyone is able to separate "The Captain's Daughter" from "The Captain's Daughter and other works"?

Someone appears to have combined all works by G.G. Vandagriff into one work:
http://www.librarything.com/work/5031140/debris/
I am unclear about combining/separating, but I think I've managed to pull the ER book, Arthurian Omen, out but the others are still muddled.

ETA: The CK info is also now associated with the wrong work. Is there something I did wrong or is that just how it works?

102>

Seems okay from the look of G.G. Vandagriff's combine/separate page.

CK: Yes, that's how it works. You have to hand correct this.

Hesse - Hermann Hesse separate problem

I temporarily combined these authors to get some HH titles with the appropriate works, but now Hesse isn't showing up on the Hermann Hesse 'includes' list for separation, and Revolutions and Reconstructions in the Philosophy of Science by Mary B Hesse but with only Hesse as author is stuck with Hermann.

It should be the only remaining title under Hesse if I can separate it from Hermann, and I'd appreciate some suggestions.

I've tried separating the work, adding another copy with full and with partial last name, and searching for title and name(s) and the only effect has been to get the Mary B title to show up as a work on Hermann Hesse.

I separated Hesse from Herman Hesse and "Revolutions and Reconstructions in the Philosophy" is now the only work that shows up on the combine/separate page of Hesse. It doesn't show up on the author page due to caching (should show up after some time).

Where did you gfo to finde Hesse to do the separation? It wasn't showing upon the author page as a combination even after 36h for me.

I entered an ISBN 0340636122 for Fiona Kelly's "Out of Control" which is the 16th book in the Mystery Club series, but it comes up mixed with http://www.librarything.com/work/28511 which is a biology book, how do i separate it?

Ha, no, got it now, went to the biology book writers page and separated it out there. never mind

OK, this is strange. A book by the philosopher Hegel (well, actually a chapter by him with some commentary by someone else) appears under a completely different book on the Hegel author page.

The book in question, "Spirit: Chapter Six of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel" appears under "*Laura Ashley color : using color to decorate your home by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel"!

Here is the web page I am seeing this on:

http://www.librarything.com/combine.php?author=hegelgeorgwilhelmfri

I tried to separate the Hegel book but only managed to separate 2 books out of this mess... Any help would be appreciated.

Joe

Someone combined the adult and YA novelizations of Star Trek Generations:

http://www.librarything.com/work/161496/debris/9952433

They're by entirely different authors, John Vornholt and J.M. Dillard, so presumably someone worked to make this happen. There's a few other authors mixed in there, too, but I'm not sure what works they refer to. I started separating, but I'm tired and have to sleep now...

#111: Gah. Not the first time that's happened. *sigh*

The Friesner ones are the YA novelization; not sure what the Berman ones refer to, though.

I've been having a confusing time trying to separate out the Oxford-Paravia Italian Dictionary from the Concise Oxford-Paravia Italian Dictionary (different works with different readerships). Whenever I tried to separate a book via the Debris section, I got an "Error: Work not found" message.

In desperation, I've now combined the lot of them here, but I'm afraid the error message persists. Any help with disentangling these two works would be appreciated.

This is an example where being able to separate by ISBN would really help, but until then I suggest separating the authors and then perhaps combining Maria Cristina Bareggi with Bareggi, though I do not like combining single name authors usually.

The amazon.com author entry for each ISBN is slightly different, Cristina Bareggi for ISBN 0198607695, the Concise version, and Maria Cristina Bareggi for 0198604378, the 2001 full version. Amazon.co.uk has Cristina Bareggi as author of the Concise version, and just Bareggi for the full version. All three amazons have no author for the new 2007 edition of the full version, 2800 pp.

Or you could just leave them all together and write a disambiguation message.

ETA: Another suggestion would be to enter your copy from a library source, several other users have done so. Check the MARC record link at the bottom of the debris page. That's where I went first thing to check the page numbers of the various editions to see if the Concise version really should be considered a different work.

Hello all.

I seem to have messed this up a bit, though I'm not sure how, and I also can't figure out how to put it right.

It's about three books by Chuck Rowles (http://www.librarything.com/author/rowleschuck), Going Home 1 (http://www.librarything.com/work/5302495/book/29309824), Going Home 2 (http://www.librarything.com/work/5302501/book/29309870) and Myths & Legends (http://www.librarything.com/work/5245893/book/29309979), all in the series "the Gods of Arr-Kelaan" (http://www.librarything.com/series/The%20Gods%20of%20Arr-Kelaan).

I noticed that Going Home 1 and 2 were combined into one work, but they're different books with different contents, so i tired separating them, and the troubles began. There is now also a book 1 at http://www.librarything.com/work/5245896, which i can't find a way to combine with the other one, Myths & Legends no longer showsup on Chuck Rowles's author page, and there also appears to be a blank book in the list on the series page.

Does anybody know how to fix this?

>115 ErlendSkjelten:

It looks like the LT servers just need time to catch up with your changes. I've seen blank books on series pages disappear after a short time. Some of the links above go to works with 0 members, which can happen if someone changes a title and there isn't any other copy of the book with the original title.

Myths & Legends isn't showing up on the author page, but if you go to combine/separate works from the author page it is listed there.

With some books, that no one else seems to have, when I click on the title I get the bookpage, but it says 0 (zero) members have this book. The book does not show on the authors page either, so I can not combine.

some examples:
http://www.librarything.com/work/5093637/book/28190303
http://www.librarything.com/work/5041573/book/27862837
http://www.librarything.com/work/5091371/book/28176603

I have waited some time, thinking it would take some time, but 2 weeks later it is still the same.

How can I fix this?

#117 - If you click on the zero a couple of times, it should change into the actual number of member with the book.
As long as the member number is zero, the debris page won't show potential combinations, but once it has been updated, they should be visible. I just tried with http://www.librarything.com/work/5093637/book/28190303, and there is now a combination suggestion under Debris.

I'd recommend going to the "Members" page and reloading it. This has worked every time I've tried it.

Could someone explode Ovid's The Art of Love? I combined it with the Erotic poems, and I don't think I should have, and there are too many versions to separate.

It looks like almost all works by Martin Gardner have been combined. under Aha! Aha! Insight. I'm pretty sure that Science: Good, Bad and Bogus, Aha! Aha! Insight, and The Wreck of the Titanic Foretold? (and many others) are not all the same book. Is there an easy way to uncombine all of these?

*touchstones aren't working, although they show up in the sidebar during editing of this post*

This is going to take a lot of grunt work. I've given it a start. Hint: sort by copies first so that the combined clump remains at the top.

Let's see if I can get a touchstone for Martin Gardner

I will work on it but wanted to check with more experienced folks first about easier methods before diving in!

I did some work on Martin Gardner... and will continue later today... but it is a mess.

I think Martin Gardner is mostly fixed now, although there is still some re-combining to do. I could tell others were working on it--thanks!

> 112: ATimson
I'm late to the party but Berman was one of the writers/directors/producers/something (I can't remember what exactly) and I expect Amazon especially has his name in the credits for at least one version of the book.

And to the topic at hand, Douglas Adams has had at least three of his books combined improperly. I'm only going to be able to do a little work on it as it's rapidly approaching midnight here and I want some sleep before church.

Best I can tell there is "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency", "The Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" and at least one other compilation which doesn't have all five books from the trilogy.

I could use some help combining this:
Alain Touraine, What is Democracy?
http://www.librarything.com/work/5289470/book/29969781
with this:
Alain Touraine, Que es la Democracia
http://www.librarything.com/work/4485153/details

The first is not listed on the author's page. Maybe a caching problem? If so, I can wait and combine them myself. If not, does anyone know any tricks?
(edited to add author name and titles)

127> Combined!

The problem was that the author of the english work was "touraniealain" and not "Alain Touraine", although your copy had the right author. What I did was to separate the english work from itself on its Debris page and then it showed up on Alain Touraine's author combine/separate page.

Hi guys,

I'm trying to combine these books:

http://www.librarything.com/work/details/17451423
http://www.librarything.com/work/2403165

Unfortunately, the latter (with a different ISBN) doesn't have any author, so it doesn't show up as a potential combination. I tried to create a "path" between them by adding the same book as 2403165 to my collection, with the author name:

http://www.librarything.com/work/details/29920157

I was expecting it to appear in the Debris section, but nothing has happened since last week. Furthermore, I can't even find 29920157 using a Site Search. How long does it take for the LT cache to be updated? Is there another more reliable method for such cases?

129> Combined! And, no there really isn't a more reliable method.

130>
Thanks, but how did you do it then?

I've been having some problems with my Japanese books recently. Here's an example. I have three books by Laura Driscoll, all Disney Fairy books, 1 in English and 2 in Japanese. When I click on her name and pull up the author page though, it says I only have 1 book by her. When I click on the (see yours) link it does pull up all three books though.

Now, I want to combine the two Japanese books with the English versions but they don't even show up on the combine/separate page so I don't know how to do it.

Here are the two Japanese books:
http://www.librarything.com/work/4096451/book/22223586
http://www.librarything.com/work/3319124/book/17279689

I'm also having some trouble with a few others buy I'm hoping someone can figure out what's wrong with this one and then I can go fix the others myself.

Thanks.

Here is another mess.

http://www.librarything.com/work/1069012/book/30126817

At least that is my copy. This is a reader of passages from important modern theologians with commentary.

Publishing History, as far as I can make it out.

The first edition was edited by David F. Ford in two volumes.

The second edition (edited by David F. Ford) had a lot added to it, and was published in one edition. (This is the one I have.)

The third edition (subtitle ... since 1918) was edited by David F. Ford and Rachel Muers, and has been totally reorganized. (Looking at the table of Contents makes me want the new one.)

All of these have been entered both with and without authors. The third edition has been entered without author and with either Ford or Muers.

The largest work these are in has no author on the work page. There are also some on each of the two editors' author pages.

I can't seem to separate out the v1 and V2 copies. It would be possible to add the Muers copies to the mix, and also some single volumes.

ok, I've done the best I could in separating & combining.

There are four "distinct" "works"

Modern Theologians ... 1918

Modern Theologians.... 20th century

Modern Theologians vol 1

Modern Theologians vol 2.

the debris page still shows 1918 with 20th century, but I think that's a caching issue & will resolve itself soon.

Thank you. By the time I had figured out the issues, my time had run out.

I can't combine

1) Else Lasker-Schuler

http://www.librarything.com/work/2787538/book/29224042

and

http://www.librarything.com/work/2800839

2) At the court of Napoleon

http://www.librarything.com/work/5281757/book/29582833

and

http://www.librarything.com/work/289915

combined the court of napoleon...

couldn't quite combine the Else Lasker-Shuler poem books... not yet at least. There is something wrong with the entries on one of the sets... for awhile one set didn't have an author or title... waiting for caching to catch up...

**reminder: gotta get my magic wand recharged**

I've tried to see where the problem is - but in here:

http://www.librarything.com/work/65338/book/20564752

There are copies of The Real Team: Rogue Warrior and Rogue Warrior II: Red Cell combined together - they're two entirely different books.

In debris, they seem fully separate, but the system thinks I own two copies of both books...sorta (it just thinks I own two copies of whichever book I select).

Ugh, these are really my husbands, but I figure it's best to see if I can get some help.

I noticed some combining and separating problems while I was working on a series in CK. I could use some help and/or advice. If someone knows how to fix these problems, could you explain how to do it, so I won't need to ask if I come across similar problems later?

Combining issues - these are all edited books where either the copies are listed with different authors, or some copies have authors while other copies have no authors listed (but yet the same ISBN, I think); they aren't showing up as combining options on the debris page:

Feminist Interpretations of Jacques Derrida (Re-Reading the Canon)
(no author)
http://www.librarything.com/work/1788307/details
to combine with:
Feminist Interpretations of Jacques Derrida (Re-Reading the Canon)
by Nancy J. Holland
http://www.librarything.com/work/4764342/details

Feminist interpretations of René Descartes
by Susan Bordo ed.
http://www.librarything.com/work/3675165/debris/
to combine with:
Feminist Interpretations of Rene Descartes (Re-Reading the Canon)
by Susan Bordo
http://www.librarything.com/work/3946671/details

Feminist interpretations of Immanuel Kant
by Robin May Schott
http://www.librarything.com/work/4264747
to combine with:
Feminist Interpretations of Immanuel Kant (Re-Reading the Canon)
(no author)
http://www.librarything.com/work/3035971/details

Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand (Re-reading the Canon S.)
by Gladstein & Sciabarra eds.
http://www.librarything.com/work/848117/details
needs combined with
Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand (Re-Reading the Canon)
by Mimi Reisel Gladstein
http://www.librarything.com/work/13375/details
(for some reason, that one is also listed with the wrong author altogether on the work page, even though only one copy has the wrong author: Nancy Tuana. The right authors (editors) are Mimi Reisel Gladstein and Chris Sciabarra.

combining and (maybe) separating problem:
Feminist interpretations of David Hume
no author
http://www.librarything.com/work/418756/details
needs combined with:
Feminist interpretations of David Hume
by Anne Jaap Jacobson
http://www.librarything.com/work/4472019/details
An additional problem with this one (maybe not fixable) is that the latter seems to have the 10-digit ISBN incorrect, so that it's showing up with a cover from another work and as a likely combination with that other work (something about time management).
(edited for typo)

I did the Susan Bordo. That was the easy one.

I combined all the Susan Bordos. (One was already combined with S. Bordo.) Then the two works were easy to combine.

#138: Rogue Warrior stuff combined/separated.

should look a little better now.

SK

I did the rest. Yeah, the wrong ISBN is not fixable except by asking the owner to fix it, something Tim disapproves of...

Here's a puzzle for you. Ithell Colquhoun's Goose of Hermogenes has separate work listings here and here, both of which correctly give Ithell Colquhoun as the author; and yet the author page linked to by both of these listings only gives the first work. I'm trying to combine the two, but not even the Debris page can help me. Can you?

The second one has neither title nor author...
Edit: oh yes, the search finds both; caching problem, I think - give it some time and see if they come into line.

>140 MarthaJeanne: (d'oh, why didn't I think of that!), and 142: thanks.

I was just checking Robin Hobb's author page and it looks to me as if the Farseer Trilogy and the greater Realm of the Elderlings books are very messed up. It could just be LTers are using different series numbering systems for the same books. Perhaps someone who is multi-lingual can check it out.

it looks as if the French(?) titles are 3 volume versions of the English versions & those were combined since "the part is part of the whole" (not true)

I've separated out obvious 'wrong fits' but I could also be wrong.

Someone more familiar with the works may be better off combining those works that truly belong together when they are the same work (complete & not part)

Please forgive any "over-enthusiastic" separating.

There's nothing to forgive; the page is now a thing of beauty. Unfortunately I think I found the same situation on Robert Jordan's author page. I wonder if this is going to be a trend.

George R.R. Martin's "A song of ice and fire" series might be like that. I have separated out the German part-translations.

I was adding the Doctor Who: Short Trips anthologies to Common Knowledge as a series when I realized that, well, they were very messed up. I did the best job I could, and I think I got it all sorted out, aside from some unfixable ones-- copies of The Solar System with nothing else in the title field and no listed author combined with similarly generic books.

The surviving big problem is this:
http://www.librarything.com/work/1534907
I've got no idea what's going on or why it shows up as a potential for everything. It seems to have eight different books combined into it, and I can't separate them out for the life of me.

http://www.librarything.com/series/Doctor%20Who:%20Short%20Trips

If anyone wants to check my work over, I'd be glad.

Those books all have the same title out to about 22 characters. Is that as far as LT looks before deciding that two books are the same?

>151 jjwilson61:, as far as I can tell, it's a combination of the main title (i.e., not the subtitle, but what's before the colon) and author. Since these listings have no author -- the books apparently do, but the user or source doesn't have them listed with one -- the fact that they've been entered with the series title taking the place of the book title messes up the separating.

I have the book listed at http://www.librarything.com/work/2425427/book/29559692, which is the same work, and really, same edition, as the work listed at http://www.librarything.com/work/2425746. They have the same ISBN and the same author, InkaLill. My edition, however does not appear on InkaLill's author page, and therefore can't be combined with the other one. On the Miranda Series page it just appears as a blank line. I don't know what to do about it.

I tried deleting my entry and adding it again from the other work page, but the result stayed the same. Does anybody know what I'm doing wrong?

The work shows up empty. (No title, no author) I have no idea why this sometimes happens. Check the book tomorrow. Look under 'details' and check the work details. If it is still empty you probably have to delete and enter again.

or try changing the title slightly & sometimes the editing process will correct the "no title/no author" problem....

hi, can someone combine these two groups of "The Penguin book of Japanese verse"? Thanks.

Here:

http://www.librarything.com/work/37078/debris/

and here:

http://www.librarything.com/work/629847/members

done.

67 copies under one work.

Good job!

By the way, I just noticed I lost 13+ book connections (per member) with many people on my shared list.

Is someone playing with Shakespeare again?

> 152

I figured it was something along those lines. I supposed keeping the weird set uncombined from the rest is the best bet. (Does LT really not count anything post-colon as part of the title? That seems... problematic.)

http://www.librarything.com/work/719544

This is supposed to be "Bill the Galactic Hero" -

It looks like someone has thrown in Bill, the Galactic Hero: The Planet of Ten Thousand Bars and Bill, The Galactic Hero: The Planet of Zombie Vampires into the mix.

I was trying to separate from the debris page, but it doesn't seem to like me much...

ETA - the main reason I noticed this was because I have a few books in the series and was surprised to sudden see that Planet of Ten Thousand Bars was suddenly number one in the series...

Looks like another case where LT only looks at the part of the title before a colon to determine whether books are the same.

I don't think so - they were fine a few weeks ago when I was updating CK on the Galactic Hero books and they'd been in my library for a while as separate books. This appears to have happened over the last few days...

Just found this thread and group. WOW!

I'm starting from a post i just used on another thread in answer to combining is easy.

Combining is not always easy. Authors and works are sometimes lost in the netherworld of LT and it takes major detective work to combine.

There have been several I have given up on. I spent a couple of weeks going back and forth trying to clean up a series listing for Florida Past.

http://www.librarything.com/work/5354135/book/29081909
http://www.librarything.com/work/5354131
http://www.librarything.com/work/5354135
http://www.librarything.com/series/Florida%27s+Past
http://www.librarything.com/work/363393 (the info here is definatly wrong)
only vol 1 shows up on title search
http://www.librarything.com/author/burnettgenem
http://www.librarything.com/search_works.php?q=+Gene+M.+Burnett
As you can see, searches and page info contain missing and incorrect data.

Finally managed the series listing but there are a slew of works out there I have no idea about. Could possible be 1st in series, I just don't know.

I also can't seem to get Unitarian Universalism by Dr. Alan W. Gomes to show up under the author
http://www.librarything.com/author/gomesalanw
http://www.librarything.com/search_works.php?q=Dr.+Alan+W.+Gomes+ (author search, yet when I select first title stating 4 copies, I get a 19 copy page)
http://www.librarything.com/work/251561(I'm not included)
http://www.librarything.com/work/486513/book/17733235(I am included)
and I question if the 19 listed are the same since when I query search I come up with the book (10 copies) but no author, when I click on the selection the page lists 19 copies.

This is also another series problem, I've managed to start it, but it still doesn't feel right.

As usual entering books with Japanese titles resulted in auto-combine madness but this time I get a 'work not found' error when trying to separate this book:
http://www.librarything.com/work/1157105/debris/30473884

Any idea how to proceed?

161: No, it's definitely user error. All the books in the Bill series were correctly combined (apart from foreign translations that I wasn't sure about) when I last edited the series info.

For the record, in case anyone isn't aware (which I suspect is the case as I just had to redo the combination now), The Planet of Ten Thousand Bars and the Planet of Zombie Vampires are the same book.

#163: I think I've "fixed" the Gomes book: Unitarian Universalist. Hopefully it will stay combined. The stray (supposedly non-combined) copies will show for a few days until they are cached... but it looks as if I got them all...

I added a few copies to my library to get the author to stick, that is why the count is off. I will delete them after the caching.

#163: The Florida book:

The book seems to be a three volume set & some members have either entered the series as one work, or entered individual volumes. Due to ISBN duplication, each of the volumes will recommend combining with the work that includes all three (20 copies). Since the ISBNs duplicate, there is currently no way to prevent anyone combining all works together except by wishful thinking. Hopefully members will see that one set of works does not have volume numbers attached to the title & three sets of work do have volume designations... and they won't combine them.... again wishful thinking on my part.

Hope this works to your satisfaction, since there is no better solution.

(PS wait for caching to catch up. if you do a search right now, there may appear to be stray copies... if the stray copies still show in a week, post here & someone will help you.)

I have an old copy of a selection of poems by William Wordsworth, selected by W. H. Venable, entitled "Selections from the Poems of William Wordsworth". The book was published in 1898. For some reason, it has been combined with a zillion other completely different selections of Wordsworth poems, and LT won't let me separate them. The page for my book is here:

http://www.librarything.com/work/1920713/book/30639644

The "work" it currently associated with is:

http://www.librarything.com/work/1920713/

The debris page:
http://www.librarything.com/work/1920713/debris/30639644
clearly shows that the bulk of the copies of this "work" are *not* the selection made by Mr. Venable. Can anyone help me separate out my copy from the work with which it is currently combined? I tried to do it (I click on "separate" next to the copy I have), but nothing happens - they're still combined, a good amount of time later.

I do not know whether any of the other selections are actually the same "work", so I cannot go through and separate all of them and then recombine (no idea if I could get it right), but I do at least know that the book I have is not the same as the majority of volumes falling under the work linked above.

Any help would be much appreciated.

dilettanti,

I have separated your book from the author page (not the debris page). It's now a work of its own:

http://www.librarything.com/work/5426569/details

Felagund - thanks! It has been awhile since I did any real combining/separating, and I had simply forgotten that there are multiple entry-points for combining and separating (with evidently different functionality). Much appreciated.

Florida's Past

Thanks for your help. I waited a bit to see if the series page got straightened out, but it’s still out of wack. Is there a way for covers 2 and 3 to show up on the series page?

Series Page : Two Volume 1 covers, no covers for Volume 2 or 3, Two listings for Volume 2 – the checked Volume 2 is #2, the unchecked could be anything and should not be listed as Volume 2, more than likely most are Volume 1

Volume 1 - http://www.librarything.com/work/3207892
ISBN entered from book 1561641154 Published 1986

Volume 2 - http://www.librarything.com/work/5354131
ISBN entered from book 1561641391 Published 1988

Volume 3 - http://www.librarything.com/work/5421446
ISBN entered from book 1561641170 Published 1991

It would be nice if an ISBN# did not show up on a works edit page unless actually entered.

I have all of Florida's Past combined. Finally!

The only problem remaining is the Amazon cover is incorrect. I looked at the Amazon site and they only offered Volume one. Therefore, Volume 1 cover is the cover of choice for volume 3. The Volume one cover is replaced by the volume rhree cover on the series page. I don't know if this can be corrected.

It was amazingly easy to combine once I researched the ISBN's and made sure they were matched up.

Thanks for your work. I'll start checking my other entries as I go along.

I can't work out how to combine A. L. Barker (/author/barkeral) with A L Barker (/author/albarker). The works on both pages are by the same author. However, when I try to combine the two, I get the author no longer in system message. Both pages have books listed that are not listed on the other's page, and LT members currently catalog books that are reflected on both pages. So, as far as I can tell, both authors should be in the system.

It could be that the authors *have* been combined but the author pages are still cached.

>174 jjwilson61: That's a good idea, and I just checked. But the "combine/separate works" link doesn't show any evidence of that (i.e., the A L Barker books don't show up under the combine page for A. L. Barker and vice versa), and I don't believe that page gets cached. Does it?

173, 174, 175> Authors weren't combined, but I managed to combine them.

I have been working on http://www.librarything.com/work/96947/book/31142450 (Venice by James/Jan Morris)

I have combined in a German version that was on the James Morris page, and separated out Venice by Joseph E. Morris (Yes this is a separate book, published in London in 1915). What remains are two problems:

The cover from the Joseph E. Morris is on the James Morris book and not where it belongs. (Is this just caching? I assume the person who owns the book and uploaded the cover would like it attached to that book.)

Although the top listing in editions is the Jan version with over half the total copies, the work now says it is by James. Because we can't combine James and Jan because of other authors called James Morris, this seems very unsatisfactory.

Here's a good one to fix. Charles M. Schulz, of Peanuts fame, did a strip early in his career called Li'l Folks. A few years ago, it was collected in a book, with the following data on it:

Title: "Charles M. Schulz: Li'l Beginnings" (per title page)
Statement of responsibility: "annotations and editorial commentary by Derrick Bang"

"Li'l Folks" is also in very large type on the cover, looking like a primary title; it's not on the title page, however.

This book is represented three different ways on LibraryThing:

http://www.librarything.com/work/442088 ("Li'l Folks", author Charles M. Schulz; 2 copies)
http://www.librarything.com/work/523423 ("Charles M. Schulz: Li'l Beginnings", author Derrick Bang; 14 copies)
http://www.librarything.com/work/1724480 ("Charles M. Schulz: Li'l Beginnings", no author; 3 copies)

As a library student, my cataloging instincts tell me that the title should be "Charles M. Schulz: Li'l Beginnings" and the author should be Derrick Bang. But as a Peanuts fan, my common sense tells me that Schulz is the "real" author and Bang is responsible only for the annotations and commentary.

Anyway, you get to decide. Have fun.

I would only combine the Li'l Beginnings books, not Li'l Folks. There could have been a book put out with just the Li'l Folks cartoon strips.

Give me a little bit to do this.

ETA: the two Li'l Beginnings books are now combined, but not the Li'l Folks book.

http://www.librarything.com/work/4303077

http://www.librarything.com/work/5528813/book/31358056

I'll change my title to match the other one, which may make it easier.

180> Combined (changing the title wouldn't have helped).

I have a nasty little tangle for someone who's feeling up to it. Faeries
by Brian Froud has managed to collect works from a roleplaying game module of the same name (the game is 'Ars Magica', produced using the D20 system aka Dungeons and Dragons). http://www.librarything.com/work/6855
This link is to one of the buried roleplaying books: http://www.librarything.com/work/6855/book/22232715

It also tries to combine with Isaac Asimov's Faeries. For the full horror, see below:
http://www.librarything.com/combine.php?work=6855#

And now I'm off for a cuppa tea and a good lie down. :)

Skittles@179: I can confirm that all three are the same book; it's the only collection of the strip that has ever been published. (I volunteer for the Charles M. Schulz Museum, which publishes it.)

In case you don't want to take my word for it, Bang himself claims so at the following site, which he operates and which is one of the acknowledged sources on Schulz and Peanuts:
http://www.peanutscollectorclub.com/lilbegin.html

And I should also add that in the foreword, Schulz's widow, Jean Schulz, says explicitly that "such a collection . . . hasn't been published before." And if anybody would know, she would.

#183 & 184: They are now combined.

>182 kaffles:
It's even more dangerous than you think: there are two role-playing game supplements involved, one is for Ars Magica (by Sarah Link if I recall correctly) and the other is for D&D/D20

(Roleplaying games are usually terrible for author-assignment, with multiple authors being the norm)

It seems to be alright for now (thanks to whoever) but with such easy and inviting potential combinations just a click away I fear it may not last long

An argument for work-combination nevering

#182 & 186: Could either of you put up a disambiguation notice(s) with some details in it.... helping those of us who might unintentionally combine them?? or when we've messed it up, easily uncombine them? Even if the disambiguations are not always seen immediately, when researching for work combinations, if the notices are there, they really do help a lot!!

>187 skittles:
I've added disambiguation notices for Faeries for Ars Magica by Sarah Link, Faeries: D20 by Bryon Wischstadt for D20 and another one, Faeries (Ars Magica) for Ars Magica (a significantly revised edition from the first one) by John Snead

The most problematic thing is trying to get the touchstones working properly!
*whew*

Sorry...I started a new thread for this, I'd forgotten that we were trying to keep everything in one thread. Feel free to respond here or there (http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=37931).

I've been working on separating out (by ISBN) the Charles Dixon graphic novel adaptation of The Hobbit (http://www.librarything.com/work/3228403/) from the rest. I did that yesterday, resulting in this particular grouping of The Hobbit (http://www.librarything.com/work/5536525). I'd like to combine these two works, but they're not showing up in the potential work combinations even though they have the same ISBN. It's been nearly 24 hours...do I just need to wait for LT to catch up? Or are there any other tricks that someone would like to share?

I think I've done as much with http://www.librarything.com/author/hauserarnold as I can right now, but this is going to continue to be a problem. There are still several separate works that probably belong combined if I could read the languages involved well enough.

Hauser wrote a two volume book 'The Social History of Art' which was subsequantly broken down into four volumes, at least in English. It has translations into several languages (to make things even more complicated, it was written in German, but first published in English), and it is not always clear whether the two volume, or the four volume breakdown is being used. (One seems to be a different breakdown with another book added in.)

Most of the copies entered do not have ISBNs. (1951 publication, my copies purchased in the early 70s. It is a standard work, and has been used as a textbook. A lot of old copies out there.) Entering any volume sends the book into the work that ought to be complete sets. I'm sure that some of what is in there is single volumes or partial sets, but it isn't easy to tell from many of the titles. Any I could tell about have been sorted out into the proper single volume works. But because of the 2/4 volume situation, some of that may be inaccurate.

OK, these two keep getting combined, and I've already separated them twice (sob). And I can't actually tell if they're separate at the moment, since they have the exact same number of members owning - but evidently I own one and not the other (correct):

The Long Way Home
The Long Way Home, Vol 1

The first one is a graphic novel which contains 5 comic books. The second is the first of those comic books. They have the same title, apart from the volume/issue/# notation. And someone keeps combining them!

To make things worse, since comic books are not really contained (presumably) in any of the library sources, people are using the ISBN of the graphic novel to add, then adding the volume notation, so they are inextricably linked at this point. When I try to change the CK series data for one, it changes for the other, even though they appear to be separate works.

Does anyone know how to permanently separate these two?

191>

Does anyone know how to permanently separate these two?

Unfortunately separation can never be permanent -- someone can always come along and recombine them later. The best you can do is add a disambiguation notice, and hope people will read it before combining.

In my frustration, I misspoke (mistyped. Whatever). I did not mean permanently. I meant *completely*.

And a disambiguation notice would only go on the author page, correct? I doubt that would work. Whoever is doing this doesn't even seem to notice different series info, and that's on the work page.

191, 193>

That looks like a real mess -- apparently some people are also combining "Volume 2" with "Issue 2" when it looks like there's a similar situation?

If people are messing with the data -- using the ISBN for the omnibus of issues 1-5 for issue 1, and keeping the title the same (BTVS Season 8 #1, or variations) I don't think there's much that can be done.

http://www.librarything.com/work/4079634
http://www.librarything.com/work/1973410
http://www.librarything.com/work/2821752

Are all the same book. Gothic Painting was written by three authors. The publishers brilliantly put one author (Carli) first on the cover, and another (Souchal) on the title page. The book was published in 1965 so there is no ISBN. It's beyond me.

Re: 195

I have successfully combined the 3 books using a rather dirty hack.

> 194

I think that issue 2 and volume 2 are probably the same thing. The second graphic novel for Season 8 has a different name, not The Long Way Home (different story arc). The main problem seems to be with just the GN (first omnibus in Season 8 series) versus issue 1 (first in series AND first in first story arc).

Re: 196

Thank you. I haven't learned the dirty hacks, and suspect I'd rather not. It looks lovely now. I really do wish publishers would make the title page and the cover match. It seems such a little thing to ask. How is one to have a 'canonical title' when even the publisher can't decide on a title, or a first author...

The following are both the same book (GURPS Traveller Interstellar Wars):

+ http://www.librarything.com/work/915867
+ http://www.librarything.com/work/3340868

Unfortunately the first one has a spurious author (the series title "GURPS") rather than the real author ("Paul Drye"). I'm guessing there are also system problems at the moment, because I am unable to add the first book to my library to try modifying the author.

Any hints?

It looks like they've been combined.

THREAD CLOSED!

Please go to the "Combining/Separating (Please Fix This Book!) Request Thread: #2"

located:
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?newpost=1&topic=38431#lastmsg

if you really want to read this thread, you are welcome to do that.... really.