"Add to Your Books" can add from LT entries

I recently added a book with no ISBN to my library. Entering the standard LT search in "Add Books" gave no results. Searching the LT site showed 41 others had the book. I found the same edition in another's library and clicked "Add to Your Books" on the upper right of the page, and that took me to the Add Books page and searched amazon and the Library of Congress and did not find the book. Can we make the Add to Your Books button on LT entries add that specific entry to one's own library, please?

If you have found a book in someone else's library you can see what they used as source.

There is a method to achieve this but it may not be right for you. It involves installing a browser plugin (TamperMonkey for Chrome) and a script written by an LT member.

When done, the book detail page on LT has a green Add button. It copies most fields to a blank Manual Entry form. This can be added to your catalog and edited.

Most of the time, though, you need to select another data source. I suggest Library of Congress is better than Amazon for older books. LT also provides OverCat as a collection of records from the 5,000 data sources LT uses that have been imported by members. With so many data sources, some will be better.

James

>1 parsec-sff: Okay, you have over 5000 sources to choose from, including Overcat which has a listing of all the library searches for that same title. So technically, you have that available if you choose a source other than Amazon or Library of Congress.

Also, all of the Add Books systems are being reviewed as the Admin build the Add Books page for Librarything 2.0.

Assuming this is your book:

https://www.librarything.com/work/4761805/book/216311236

Overcat pulls it right up. Neither LoC nor Amazon are great for old paperback originals like this - LoC mostly has hardcovers, and Amazon won't have anything that old. If your problem is "too many results" rather than "too few" for the green plus, try adding the author (or, in this case, editor).

You can also search for a keyword in a publisher. Separate the fields with commas. An example is:

Montgomery, "Anne of Avonlea", Grosset

This usually works better than a straight title search which is part of the default "Add Book" button on LT.

James

>4 gilroy: It was not finding it in OverCat. I expect to suffer this problem with several of my books.

>7 nexist:

We can't even make a stab at it without specifics.

Data source is a key to success in finding an entry to import to your catalog.

OverCat is a data source that includes works imported (usually from libraries) into member accounts. You can import the same basic data to your own.

James

>1 parsec-sff: Sadly and frustratingly, this is a feature that is not currently possible. It is surprisingly obtuse and difficult to add books that the main search options (Amazon, OverCat, LoC, etc.) do not have and *no* you cannot duplicate another LT user's entry. This has been covered in many threads, but specifically this one: https://www.librarything.com/topic/343435#n8001106

>9 onpaperwings: My normal practice on obscure titles is to search Worldcat to see what libraries might have the book and then add that library to my list of searchable libraries, if possible. Unfortunately not all libraries can be added. As a last resort I will cut and paste from a Worldcat library listing. Or if that fails I will manually add a book. All of this takes time though. So it might take twenty minutes to half an hour to list a book. I have fairly large number of obscure titles in my collection. It is simple to list common titles or modern titles, but when you list a mid 1800's titles that is fairly scarce, it can be a problem. And even some more recent titles produced in small numbers can be bad. It took me sometime to list my collection of Ash-Tree Press books. Some titles came up fairly easily, but the rest took awhile, a few I had to enter manually.

FWIW, we're going to be releasing something soon that heads in this direction. It isnt' the solution, but it's heading us that way.