Questions from a Goodreads Refugee

Hello! I am finally getting around to migrating my Goodreads library to LT. I have some questions.

1) So I can "search LibraryThing" and find a book there, and then add it. Or I can go to the "Add books" tab, and search there, then add from that screen. They don't seem to do the same thing, but I am unable to figure out what makes them different.

2) There is a "Search where?" on the Add books screen. I've selected Overcat, and it seems to oddly make a lot of words in titles be lowercase. What source is used when I just use the search box in the upper right?

3) If I correct a title in my copy of a book, does that help anyone else? How does this impact the "main" database?

4) For some books with many editions, I am a little bit confused on how this all works. The "Search site" box in the upper right seems to be edition-agnostic somehow.

5) Can others' tags impact my search in any way?

Thanks!

1) You have much better control on the Add Books page. Much better choice of sources. Easier to get your exact edition. You can also enter books not yet in LT, either from a source or manually. From the work page is a quick wayof getting something if you are already there.

2) A lot of libraries use sentence case. It makes a big difference when typing lots of titles. Less so now, but saved a lot of wear and tear in the days of manual typewriters. You can always edit it if you don't like it. If you use Amazon on older books you will end up doing a lot more editing if you want good data.

3) Your data is your data. It does not change anyone else's data, nor is it a source for anyone entering a book. A lot of work data is compiled from book data, so better book data filters up into better work data.

4) Yup. It's based on title. If you want to search on ISBN use the Add Book page.

5) Tags do not have any effect on add book searches. Searching in LT can be done with the help of the tags others have given the book. You can do a 'tag mash' to get suggestions of books with two or more tags. For example if you search for 'birds, India' the chose tags in the left hand menu, you will be asked if you want a tag mash. The results can be a mixed bag, but can be very ineresting. The Secret Garden comes up with that one.

Bottom line, When entering books it is best to use the Add Books page. It is best to avoid Amazon for older books. Their own data has gotten a lot better, but their partners make a real mess of things.

BTW, Amazon covers are not stable. If Amazon changes the cover they use or stop having one for that ISBN, your account will also show that change. If you care about it use member covers.

Thank you! This is helpful. I think I am (starting?) to understand. Let me check that understanding:

On Goodreads, the community collectively edits the one record for (an edition of) a book. When I shelve it in my own "own" or whatever shelves, I am saying, "I own a copy of this book" with a pointer to the community-maintained data, which may change over time.

Both Goodreads and LibraryThing have been described to me as wikis for books.

I am starting to think that on LT, when I "shelve" a book, I am really saving a *personal copy of data from somewhere else*. If that source changes (except for Amazon covers, I guess), that doesn't change my copy, and vice-versa. So the "Add Book" page lets me select what source I use. (Side question: is there any reason not to prefer Overcat there?)

OK, so if I understand that correctly, then I understand how "Add books" works.

But now I don't understand the "Search LibraryThing" box. If I use that, to search for the exact same book by title as I might add using "Add books", click on it, and add that, where does that information come from? I never selected a source. Does it just pick one? Does it use some community-maintained amalgamation? (And if it does do the latter, wouldn't that be BETTER than the single-source Add Books view?)

So then comes the question: how, really, can the community maintain the data? Most of the sources don't include Dewey or LCC data, yet most LT records do. You mentioned a sort of "book data filtering into better work data" - is that some sort of automated process, or something I should do there to contribute?

Thanks again!

I almost never use the Add book button on a work page. I think it normally uses Amazon unless you have selected something different. I use the Add books page. I see no reason to make a detour past the work page. After my book is entered I can deal with that if I need to. And using the work page button does NOT guarantee that your copy will end up in that work. You are well advised to check what work your copy us in.

OverCat seems to me to be the best source to start with, although I use several other sources as well, particularly for books in German. Most books in English will have at least one of Dewey and LCC if entered from library sources. If someone else has that data, it will be applied to the work, and you will get it as green data. Green data needs to be confirmed if you want to search or sort on it. If people have entered different numbers, the computer will chose (probably based on frequency) unless a canonical number has been entere in CK. You can see the various alternatives on the work details page.

>3 jgoerzen: LT has 2 layers of data:
- Work level - all editions, all languages for that text
- Book level - your own book.

Unlike Goodreads, we do not have an editions layer - so if you and me share the same book exactly, LT won't really know that. Neither you can find my copy and add the same - you always need to go via sources.

That is where the maintenance and aggregated data comes from: as long as at least someone pulls/adds from a library source or adds the data in their catalog (For the fields that are editable), the library data comes into the work level. On the work level, a lot of fields aggregate from all books and some cab be overwritten in the work level.

In all cases, your OWN data is sacrosanct - your book may move somewhere and if you use an Amazon cover, that can change but besides that, your own data is your own data. It can bubble up and mess up community data if wrong (in which case we have the editing of CK to assist) but in most cases, errors do not propagate. And as noone can easily copy your data, it does not spread.

Please note that if you cannot edit something on the Edit screen, it is most likely community data so thread carefully there. :) CK (Community Knowledge), Series, Publication series and work relationships belong to the whole work so do not change them because they are different in your book (Penguin may show up as a pub series on your Oxford text - that is expected). Other authors is double tiered - you can add whatever you want in your catalog; confirmation is separate up on the work level. Tags and reviews simply aggregate on the work page from all copies.

When you open a book page, you see an amalgam if book and work data. If you open a work page of a book you do not own, you see just work data. Works you own are a bit tricky because even without the book ID at the end, the work page knows you have it so is slightly different.

And if you use a work number with a book number that doesn't match, you get some very weird antics. After separating and combining, the old URL no longer works properly, no matter what it looks like.

>3 jgoerzen: To chime in some more, if you already know what book you want to add, there is not much point searching LT first, using the Add Book from the row of tabs on top is the way to go. But often you'll land on the workpage of a book you don't have or know, for instance opening it from recommendations, or a list, or a series page. So if you're already on the workpage and you want to add it, Add Book button on the workpage comes into play.
It has an option 'advanced', which opens a list of options for a quick search, but also has a link 'go to add books page'. Clicking that will search the sources you have listed, with author and title populated in the search field. So, if you want to search specific sources you have in your list of sources and you're already on the work page, that's the quickest route - Add Book button -> advanced -> go to add books page.

As for comparison with Goodreads, Goodreads has edition layer and work layer gathering all editions of the same book. It has no real book layer, with data specific to your copy. You basically pick an edition and can add tags/shelves to it. It's designed with reading list primarily in mind.
LT OTOH is designed with detailed catalogue primarily in mind, so it ended up with personal copy/book level and work layer, but no real intermediate edition layer. If you click on editions on the work page, those with the exact same title, author and ISBN will be grouped together as a single entry, but it isn't really recognized as a particular edition in the sense that it can be used to determine whether your copy belongs to this or that publisher series.

Finally, OverCat is great. Most of us have it as the first source in the list and search elsewhere only if that does not bring up the desired result. Since you mentioned having a lot of ebooks, I'd also note that major public libraries (Brooklyn, San Francisco, etc) are great for fiction in English, CARLI for non-fiction in English. These are less likely to already be in Overcat already, so you might want to add a few sources good for ebooks to your list of sources.

Thanks for all this info, everyone!

I'm still trying to digest it all.

I have some books that were imported with no ISBN, but for which an ISBN exists. I can go into the book and edit it to add the ISBN, but that won't refresh all the metadata from Overcat. I could "add book" and add it, then delete the old one, but then I lose my tags. Is there a way to tell it to refresh my local metadata from OverCat or something similar, so I don't have to manually copy over each field?

There's something of a similar question about duplicates. I figured out how to find them... now the question of merging them is more difficult.

Thanks again!

Sorry there's no mechanism to merge records. The best is to bring up the books in side-by-side browser windows and copy and paste between them