1littlegreycloud
Hi all,
Hope this is the right place to ask ...
I like omnibus editions (like the Bill Slider omnibuses by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles) because the bigger the book the better imho.
What I don't like is that the individual works within the omnibus aren't treated as, well, individual works by LT. In my own library, I will enter the omnibus three times and label the books as e.g.
Killing time (in: The Second Bill Slider Omnibus)
I used to then separate them on the author page and combine them with the individual editions of Killing Time. Both so I could see how many other people have the book (which I think is fun) and, more importantly, so I can see at a glance which volumes in a series I am missing.
This no longer seems possible -- I can separate my "Killing time (in: The Second Bill Slider Omnibus)" from the other omnibuses but I cannot seem to combine it with the other editions of Killing Time any longer.
(I realize that this is a bizarre and anal issue to have that I would not even be able to explain to most people but figured this might be the place to do it.)
Hope this is the right place to ask ...
I like omnibus editions (like the Bill Slider omnibuses by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles) because the bigger the book the better imho.
What I don't like is that the individual works within the omnibus aren't treated as, well, individual works by LT. In my own library, I will enter the omnibus three times and label the books as e.g.
Killing time (in: The Second Bill Slider Omnibus)
I used to then separate them on the author page and combine them with the individual editions of Killing Time. Both so I could see how many other people have the book (which I think is fun) and, more importantly, so I can see at a glance which volumes in a series I am missing.
This no longer seems possible -- I can separate my "Killing time (in: The Second Bill Slider Omnibus)" from the other omnibuses but I cannot seem to combine it with the other editions of Killing Time any longer.
(I realize that this is a bizarre and anal issue to have that I would not even be able to explain to most people but figured this might be the place to do it.)
2norabelle414
>1 littlegreycloud: What do you mean by "I cannot seem to combine it"? What steps are you trying to follow and what part is not working?
(Your treatment of books contained in an omnibus is pretty normal, no need to worry about that!)
(Your treatment of books contained in an omnibus is pretty normal, no need to worry about that!)
3waltzmn
>1 littlegreycloud:
Ultimately this probably belongs under "Talk About LibraryThing," because you're arguing for something that directly contradicts LT's philosophy. LT is about volumes -- physical or electronic collections -- not individual pieces of work. To change this would result in a major change in philosophy -- and a lot of unhappy users whose data is getting scrambled.
Look at it this way: If you had a collection of an author's works -- say The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes -- would you want to file each individual story, "A Scandal in Bohemia," "The Red-Headed League," etc., as a separate book? Probably not, even though they were all published at separate times.
It's the same if you collect multiple novels into an omnibus; the actual thing is the omnibus, not the novels included in it. If you want to list the individual contents, that's what work relationships are for.
You may want things done differently. Certainly there are places where this produces rally strange results, as in the case of The Lord of the Rings, where the majority of copies are of only part of the book. But this isn't the way LT does things. And so, if you do what you are saying you want to do, you will damage the underlying data structure and get yourself into combination wars. The best thing to do, when you buy an omnibus, is simply to make sure you get all the relationships right, so you know which "books" go with which "volumes."
Ultimately this probably belongs under "Talk About LibraryThing," because you're arguing for something that directly contradicts LT's philosophy. LT is about volumes -- physical or electronic collections -- not individual pieces of work. To change this would result in a major change in philosophy -- and a lot of unhappy users whose data is getting scrambled.
Look at it this way: If you had a collection of an author's works -- say The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes -- would you want to file each individual story, "A Scandal in Bohemia," "The Red-Headed League," etc., as a separate book? Probably not, even though they were all published at separate times.
It's the same if you collect multiple novels into an omnibus; the actual thing is the omnibus, not the novels included in it. If you want to list the individual contents, that's what work relationships are for.
You may want things done differently. Certainly there are places where this produces rally strange results, as in the case of The Lord of the Rings, where the majority of copies are of only part of the book. But this isn't the way LT does things. And so, if you do what you are saying you want to do, you will damage the underlying data structure and get yourself into combination wars. The best thing to do, when you buy an omnibus, is simply to make sure you get all the relationships right, so you know which "books" go with which "volumes."
4norabelle414
>3 waltzmn: you're arguing for something that directly contradicts LT's philosophy
That's not true at all. Plenty of people catalog the individual parts of an omnibus in addition to the omnibus itself (assuming that the parts were also published separately). Including myself. There's nothing wrong with doing that, nor antithetical to LibraryThing.
The only suggestion I would make would be, instead of cataloging the omnibus multiple times, it would probably be more efficient to catalog each work individually and then change the title to indicate it is within an omnibus. That would eliminate the separate-then-recombine steps. But there's nothing wrong with doing it either way.
That's not true at all. Plenty of people catalog the individual parts of an omnibus in addition to the omnibus itself (assuming that the parts were also published separately). Including myself. There's nothing wrong with doing that, nor antithetical to LibraryThing.
The only suggestion I would make would be, instead of cataloging the omnibus multiple times, it would probably be more efficient to catalog each work individually and then change the title to indicate it is within an omnibus. That would eliminate the separate-then-recombine steps. But there's nothing wrong with doing it either way.
5waltzmn
>4 norabelle414: I think we are having different understandings of what the original poster is doing. You may be right and I may be wrong; I don't know. It certainly will make it harder to get a count of how many volumes a person actually owns. :-p
6MarthaJeanne
>1 littlegreycloud: Don't know why you had problems. I have separated and combined. You will find it at https://www.librarything.com/work/2941522/t/Killing-Time
7littlegreycloud
>2 norabelle414:
Ok, I'm now realizing the problem might be my sheer ignorance (and a change in the system since I last did this). Before, after I separated the individual volumes, they would appear as individual entries in a long list of all works by the author, and I could simply tick my "Killing Time (in: The Second Bill Slider Omnibus) and tick the other entries for Killing Time and combine them.
Now there is a workbench and I only have the new separated "Killing Time (in: The Second Bill Slider Omnibus)" on there and am not sure how to get to all the other Killing Times, so to speak. ;)
Ok, I'm now realizing the problem might be my sheer ignorance (and a change in the system since I last did this). Before, after I separated the individual volumes, they would appear as individual entries in a long list of all works by the author, and I could simply tick my "Killing Time (in: The Second Bill Slider Omnibus) and tick the other entries for Killing Time and combine them.
Now there is a workbench and I only have the new separated "Killing Time (in: The Second Bill Slider Omnibus)" on there and am not sure how to get to all the other Killing Times, so to speak. ;)
8MarthaJeanne
>7 littlegreycloud: You get other works onto the workbench from their work pages.
In the case of Killing Time, once I had your book separated from the anthology, the other work showed up in the proposals on the editions page.
In the case of Killing Time, once I had your book separated from the anthology, the other work showed up in the proposals on the editions page.
9littlegreycloud
>3 waltzmn:
"Look at it this way: If you had a collection of an author's works -- say The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes -- would you want to file each individual story, "A Scandal in Bohemia," "The Red-Headed League," etc., as a separate book? Probably not, even though they were all published at separate times."
Probably not, but only because if it is way too much work for short stories. If there was an easy way of doing it, absolutely.
Take another example, the Slough House books. There are two novellas that were issued in one volume, The Drop and The List. They are numbers 5.5 and 2.5 in the order of the series and were likely published together because each of them is too short to be published.
It is absolutely immaterial to me that they are existing in just one physical volume. What matters to me is that I have them and that I read them in the order of the series.
"Look at it this way: If you had a collection of an author's works -- say The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes -- would you want to file each individual story, "A Scandal in Bohemia," "The Red-Headed League," etc., as a separate book? Probably not, even though they were all published at separate times."
Probably not, but only because if it is way too much work for short stories. If there was an easy way of doing it, absolutely.
Take another example, the Slough House books. There are two novellas that were issued in one volume, The Drop and The List. They are numbers 5.5 and 2.5 in the order of the series and were likely published together because each of them is too short to be published.
It is absolutely immaterial to me that they are existing in just one physical volume. What matters to me is that I have them and that I read them in the order of the series.
10littlegreycloud
>4 norabelle414:
"The only suggestion I would make would be, instead of cataloging the omnibus multiple times, it would probably be more efficient to catalog each work individually and then change the title to indicate it is within an omnibus. That would eliminate the separate-then-recombine steps. But there's nothing wrong with doing it either way."
Oh, thank you ... not sure why in almost twenty years here, this never occurred to me. (In my defense, I do not own many omnibus editions.)
"The only suggestion I would make would be, instead of cataloging the omnibus multiple times, it would probably be more efficient to catalog each work individually and then change the title to indicate it is within an omnibus. That would eliminate the separate-then-recombine steps. But there's nothing wrong with doing it either way."
Oh, thank you ... not sure why in almost twenty years here, this never occurred to me. (In my defense, I do not own many omnibus editions.)
11littlegreycloud
>5 waltzmn:
"It certainly will make it harder to get a count of how many volumes a person actually owns."
But does this really matter? Particularly if many of them are audiobooks in the shape of electronic files?
I think I have about five thousand physical books, only a fraction of which are listed here, mainly because I'm lazy and end up reading them (or just happily wandering among my shelves) rather than cataloguing them. But it doesn't really matter to me if it's actually 5025 or just 4975 because a few of them are omnibuses. :)
"It certainly will make it harder to get a count of how many volumes a person actually owns."
But does this really matter? Particularly if many of them are audiobooks in the shape of electronic files?
I think I have about five thousand physical books, only a fraction of which are listed here, mainly because I'm lazy and end up reading them (or just happily wandering among my shelves) rather than cataloguing them. But it doesn't really matter to me if it's actually 5025 or just 4975 because a few of them are omnibuses. :)
12littlegreycloud
>6 MarthaJeanne: Oh, brilliant, thank you so much! As I said, I'd very likely my own ignorance that is at the root of my difficulty. :)
13norabelle414
>7 littlegreycloud: You can search for the other book using site search or find it on the author page, then from the work page add it to the workbench the same way you added your book.
14waltzmn
>11 littlegreycloud: "It certainly will make it harder to get a count of how many volumes a person actually owns."
But does this really matter? Particularly if many of them are audiobooks in the shape of electronic files?
I guess it depends on what you want to do. One of the main reasons I keep a catalog of books is for my heirs. They need to be able to track these things. The physical volumes are entirely what matters for that purpose.
For that matter, it perhaps makes a difference that my library is primarily (not entirely, but primarily) for research purposes. No one is ever going to re-release Richard Scrope: Archbishop, Rebel, Martyr or Ballads and Sea Songs of Newfoundland as part of an omnibus; they barely got published in the first place. :-)
I do have sympathy for the desire to know exactly what "works" I have, and in fact once made a suggestion for a mechanism to do that -- but it was based on relationships, not on turning one physical volume into multiple "logical" volumes. I wish LT would do that, since it would meet both your needs and mine -- but depending on the exact details of the core database, that falls somewhere between "a big project" and "bleeping impossible." :-)
But does this really matter? Particularly if many of them are audiobooks in the shape of electronic files?
I guess it depends on what you want to do. One of the main reasons I keep a catalog of books is for my heirs. They need to be able to track these things. The physical volumes are entirely what matters for that purpose.
For that matter, it perhaps makes a difference that my library is primarily (not entirely, but primarily) for research purposes. No one is ever going to re-release Richard Scrope: Archbishop, Rebel, Martyr or Ballads and Sea Songs of Newfoundland as part of an omnibus; they barely got published in the first place. :-)
I do have sympathy for the desire to know exactly what "works" I have, and in fact once made a suggestion for a mechanism to do that -- but it was based on relationships, not on turning one physical volume into multiple "logical" volumes. I wish LT would do that, since it would meet both your needs and mine -- but depending on the exact details of the core database, that falls somewhere between "a big project" and "bleeping impossible." :-)
15norabelle414
Each person here either cares very deeply about having the correct number of works in their account, or cares not at all :-)
Personally I put the actual omnibus in "Your Library" collection and the component parts in other collections. So the number of volumes in "Your Library" is always accurate to the exact number of books I have while the rest of my catalog is a hodgepodge of components, ebooks, library books, discarded books, etc.
Personally I put the actual omnibus in "Your Library" collection and the component parts in other collections. So the number of volumes in "Your Library" is always accurate to the exact number of books I have while the rest of my catalog is a hodgepodge of components, ebooks, library books, discarded books, etc.
16EGBERTINA
Im probably mis-reading the situation. but, i would think "title A"- included in an omnibus- could be catalogued with all editions of "title A" and u would just put omnibus in parentheses for your personal catalogue. if "title A" isn't combining with others - could it be an isbn issue in which you enter omnibus edition using isbn; but, enter a second time by "title A" etc, using no isbn?
17gilroy
>3 waltzmn: I always thought Tim's Philosophy was catalog whatever you want, however you want, provided it fits within the provided fields. Nothing says people can or can not catalog components. (He didn't want people adding short stories just to create work to work relationships, but adding it because you read it was fine.)
Otherwise, there would be no need for this wonderful list:
https://www.librarything.com/list/99/all/Things-we-wish-were-not-catalog-u-ed-on...
Otherwise, there would be no need for this wonderful list:
https://www.librarything.com/list/99/all/Things-we-wish-were-not-catalog-u-ed-on...
18waltzmn
>17 gilroy: I always thought Tim's Philosophy was catalog whatever you want, however you want, provided it fits within the provided fields.
Yes, and I have used that flexibility to catalog my collection of 78 rpm recordings. (Though even those have a certain similarity to books: They are mass-reproduced objects with physical characteristics. To be sure, they are whole objects, not virtual parts of objects, but they certainly aren't books!)
It is evident that I missed the original poster's intent. It is still not a usage I particularly like, because it's not how I conceive a "library," and it strikes me as sloppy from the standpoint of popularity totals. But I agree that it is within LT's understanding of how things should be catalogued.
Yes, and I have used that flexibility to catalog my collection of 78 rpm recordings. (Though even those have a certain similarity to books: They are mass-reproduced objects with physical characteristics. To be sure, they are whole objects, not virtual parts of objects, but they certainly aren't books!)
It is evident that I missed the original poster's intent. It is still not a usage I particularly like, because it's not how I conceive a "library," and it strikes me as sloppy from the standpoint of popularity totals. But I agree that it is within LT's understanding of how things should be catalogued.
19jjwilson61
I think I read above that the OP was adding the books within an omnibus as separate works, which is fine, but adding the ISBN to each of them, which I think is likely to cause problems with bad suggested combinations. The ISBN belongs to the book as a whole and if the parts are cataloged separately the ISBN field should be left blank.
20MarthaJeanne
>19 jjwilson61: Agreed. The ISBN only belongs to the omnibus, and not to the individual parts. Removing it later doesn't help because of 0 copy editions left.
21waltzmn
>19 jjwilson61: >20 MarthaJeanne: Exactly. This is where my problem arose.
22littlegreycloud
>14 waltzmn: "I guess it depends on what you want to do. One of the main reasons I keep a catalog of books is for my heirs. They need to be able to track these things."
I guess that's where we differ. I'm here mainly to have fun. And having actually lived in Newfoundland at one point, I may have sung quite a few of these ballads and sea songs, at least whenever I was drunk enough to inflict my singing on defenseless others.
>The physical volumes are entirely what matters for that purpose.
To *you* and *your* purpose, yes. But not to LibraryThing, otherwise there would be no option to list electronic audiobooks and the like here.
I guess that's where we differ. I'm here mainly to have fun. And having actually lived in Newfoundland at one point, I may have sung quite a few of these ballads and sea songs, at least whenever I was drunk enough to inflict my singing on defenseless others.
>The physical volumes are entirely what matters for that purpose.
To *you* and *your* purpose, yes. But not to LibraryThing, otherwise there would be no option to list electronic audiobooks and the like here.
23littlegreycloud
>17 gilroy: " I always thought Tim's Philosophy was catalog whatever you want, however you want, provided it fits within the provided fields."
That is certainly how I understood it when I got a lifetime membership back in the day -- otherwise, I would have just stuck with my homemade MS Access catalogue instead of stressing people with being "sloppy from the standpoint of popularity totals" (popularity totals not being something I've ever cared about).
That is certainly how I understood it when I got a lifetime membership back in the day -- otherwise, I would have just stuck with my homemade MS Access catalogue instead of stressing people with being "sloppy from the standpoint of popularity totals" (popularity totals not being something I've ever cared about).
24littlegreycloud
>20 MarthaJeanne:
I can see the issue with the ISBN. I probably would not have manually added it to the individual parts either -- it's just there because I add books by scanning the ISBN.
I can see the issue with the ISBN. I probably would not have manually added it to the individual parts either -- it's just there because I add books by scanning the ISBN.
25waltzmn
>22 littlegreycloud: o *you* and *your* purpose, yes.
Note that I was not objecting to your purpose. As others have noted, LT is available for many purposes.
What is not acceptable is entering data in such a way as to create false combinations, such as by causing an ISBN to be applied to a work to which it does not apply. Because that interferes with the data that we all use.
It's also not a smart thing for someone to do, because if another user spots the false combination, then that user may split the books, and whoever made the false combination may find their book no longer attributed properly. Extending the use of the system @norabelle14 outlined, putting books in two collections, is great. (I wish I'd thought of that when I joined LT!) But there can be surprise problems when one goes too far against the system.
Note that I was not objecting to your purpose. As others have noted, LT is available for many purposes.
What is not acceptable is entering data in such a way as to create false combinations, such as by causing an ISBN to be applied to a work to which it does not apply. Because that interferes with the data that we all use.
It's also not a smart thing for someone to do, because if another user spots the false combination, then that user may split the books, and whoever made the false combination may find their book no longer attributed properly. Extending the use of the system @norabelle14 outlined, putting books in two collections, is great. (I wish I'd thought of that when I joined LT!) But there can be surprise problems when one goes too far against the system.
26norabelle414
>25 waltzmn: What is not acceptable is entering data in such a way as to create false combinations, such as by causing an ISBN to be applied to a work to which it does not apply.
While extremely annoying, that is still an acceptable use of the site. Anyone can enter book data any way they want to. As you said, it could result in the book being combined with works that the user doesn't want to be associated with, or have a canonical title that the user doesn't like, but it's still acceptable for them to enter whatever data they want.
While extremely annoying, that is still an acceptable use of the site. Anyone can enter book data any way they want to. As you said, it could result in the book being combined with works that the user doesn't want to be associated with, or have a canonical title that the user doesn't like, but it's still acceptable for them to enter whatever data they want.
27waltzmn
>26 norabelle414: While extremely annoying, that is still an acceptable use of the site.
Obviously it is possible to do it. I would say it is, at least, morally indefensible, because the public data is collective data, not personal data. There are things that are permissible with private "property" which are not permissible on community property.
But ignore that. If noticed, it will also cause other users to split the two books, because they aren't one work. Particularly when it confuses the ISBN. So there is a very practical reason not to create false combinations: They won't hold up; they just result in combination wars.
Obviously it is possible to do it. I would say it is, at least, morally indefensible, because the public data is collective data, not personal data. There are things that are permissible with private "property" which are not permissible on community property.
But ignore that. If noticed, it will also cause other users to split the two books, because they aren't one work. Particularly when it confuses the ISBN. So there is a very practical reason not to create false combinations: They won't hold up; they just result in combination wars.
28reading_fox
I add 4 works - each title separately as standalone works, and then the omnibus trilogy (it's usually trilogies for me). I then am very careful with my tags and collections so that the non-separate titles are only in the "Unowned phantom books I only have as Omnibii" collection which is deselected from 'my library' ownership counts etc but often included in recommendations because far fewer people own the omnibus.
29AranelST
Just to spell this out in case it is not clear, as far as I can tell, there is some algorithm that is used to determine which books that people enter should be combined automatically. It involves looking at what else has already been combined.
I have not figured out precisely how this works, but I have noticed that errors in the combination tend to attract more errors.
So, if you enter the omnibus title with the omnibus ISBN, but you combine it with a single book, that may contribute to errors with other people's entries. You are allowed to enter your data however you like, but you are making a mess that can affect other people.
Also, there is a non-zero chance that someone will assume you made a mistake and helpfully "correct" it.
I suggest that you enter the not-actually-a-separate-book books as if they have the original title and ISBN of the individual book. Tags and/or collections would be a great way to identify them so you can keep track. I don't care about popularity totals, either. :)
>28 reading_fox: the non-separate titles are only in the "Unowned phantom books I only have as Omnibii" collection
This is really clever!
I have not figured out precisely how this works, but I have noticed that errors in the combination tend to attract more errors.
So, if you enter the omnibus title with the omnibus ISBN, but you combine it with a single book, that may contribute to errors with other people's entries. You are allowed to enter your data however you like, but you are making a mess that can affect other people.
Also, there is a non-zero chance that someone will assume you made a mistake and helpfully "correct" it.
I suggest that you enter the not-actually-a-separate-book books as if they have the original title and ISBN of the individual book. Tags and/or collections would be a great way to identify them so you can keep track. I don't care about popularity totals, either. :)
>28 reading_fox: the non-separate titles are only in the "Unowned phantom books I only have as Omnibii" collection
This is really clever!
30waltzmn
>29 AranelST: Just to spell this out in case it is not clear, as far as I can tell, there is some algorithm that is used to determine which books that people enter should be combined automatically. It involves looking at what else has already been combined.
Rather, it depends on titles -- specifically, the titles before any colons. Also, it's only the first few dozen letters. So, e.g., "The Canterbury Tales: Selections" would combine with "The Canterbury Tales: In Translation" because the only difference is after the colon. And "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare as edited by J. Dover Wilson" would combine with "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare as edited by G. Blakemore Evans" because they agree to the first thirty-odd characters. The second combination is correct (despite different detailed names, they are both fundamentally The Complete Works of William Shakespeare); the first combination is incorrect (one is a complete, if translated, Canterbury Tales, the other is an abridgement).
A very large fraction of miscombinations arise because of the colon, I think: There are a lot of books that have the same title before a colon but something very different after that.
The autocombiner will tend to combine with more popular editions, I believe. So "Beowulf: A Verse Translation" will get combined with "Beowulf," not "Beowulf: and the Fight at Finnsburg."
It's a pretty good system, most of the time -- the convenience for users almost certainly outweighs the occasional mistakes. But pity the poor person who buys every volume of Reuben Swanson's "New Testament Greek Manuscripts" series ("New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Matthew," "New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Mark," "New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Luke," etc.) I know, because I'm that poor person. :-) They were a bear to straighten out, and I strongly suspect they've gone bad again since I worked on them. Ditto the Variorum Chaucer volumes, which were even worse in a way because the titles aren't as standardized.
Rather, it depends on titles -- specifically, the titles before any colons. Also, it's only the first few dozen letters. So, e.g., "The Canterbury Tales: Selections" would combine with "The Canterbury Tales: In Translation" because the only difference is after the colon. And "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare as edited by J. Dover Wilson" would combine with "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare as edited by G. Blakemore Evans" because they agree to the first thirty-odd characters. The second combination is correct (despite different detailed names, they are both fundamentally The Complete Works of William Shakespeare); the first combination is incorrect (one is a complete, if translated, Canterbury Tales, the other is an abridgement).
A very large fraction of miscombinations arise because of the colon, I think: There are a lot of books that have the same title before a colon but something very different after that.
The autocombiner will tend to combine with more popular editions, I believe. So "Beowulf: A Verse Translation" will get combined with "Beowulf," not "Beowulf: and the Fight at Finnsburg."
It's a pretty good system, most of the time -- the convenience for users almost certainly outweighs the occasional mistakes. But pity the poor person who buys every volume of Reuben Swanson's "New Testament Greek Manuscripts" series ("New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Matthew," "New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Mark," "New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Luke," etc.) I know, because I'm that poor person. :-) They were a bear to straighten out, and I strongly suspect they've gone bad again since I worked on them. Ditto the Variorum Chaucer volumes, which were even worse in a way because the titles aren't as standardized.
31MarthaJeanne
>29 AranelST: No! Do not use an ISBN which does not belong to your book. There is no need to include an ISBN if there isn't one. Why create ratty data?
>30 waltzmn: It is generally better not to use the series as the beginning of the title. The autocombiner compares titles for 20 characters or to a colon, whichever comes first.
>30 waltzmn: It is generally better not to use the series as the beginning of the title. The autocombiner compares titles for 20 characters or to a colon, whichever comes first.
32waltzmn
>31 MarthaJeanne: It is generally better not to use the series as the beginning of the title.
The name I cited is not the series title. The names of the books are "New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Matthew," etc. It's the name on the spine, the cover, and the title page. See the list of titles under Reuben Swanson.
And even were one to take off the portion of the book name that says "New Testament Greek Manuscripts," well, a title "Matthew" or "Mark" or "Luke" will get autocombined, too. It's a singularly difficult series of books. Most of which were published before LT had an autocombiner. :-)
I suppose one could leave off the colon (one or two of them were entered with a dash instead), but the names are so long that they'll still autocombine.
The name I cited is not the series title. The names of the books are "New Testament Greek Manuscripts: Matthew," etc. It's the name on the spine, the cover, and the title page. See the list of titles under Reuben Swanson.
And even were one to take off the portion of the book name that says "New Testament Greek Manuscripts," well, a title "Matthew" or "Mark" or "Luke" will get autocombined, too. It's a singularly difficult series of books. Most of which were published before LT had an autocombiner. :-)
I suppose one could leave off the colon (one or two of them were entered with a dash instead), but the names are so long that they'll still autocombine.
33AranelST
>31 MarthaJeanne: No! Do not use an ISBN which does not belong to your book. There is no need to include an ISBN if there isn't one. Why create ratty data?
I think we are saying the same thing. The "books" I was talking about are purely imaginary, phantom books added just so you can have all the works included in the omnibus listed separately in your library. There is an ISBN for the real copies of those books that actually exist.
Functionally, it's not any different than if I just added books to my library that I don't own at all. As long as the title and other information I enter all matches an actual book that exists, it's not "ratty data", it's just a book I don't actually have.
I think we are saying the same thing. The "books" I was talking about are purely imaginary, phantom books added just so you can have all the works included in the omnibus listed separately in your library. There is an ISBN for the real copies of those books that actually exist.
Functionally, it's not any different than if I just added books to my library that I don't own at all. As long as the title and other information I enter all matches an actual book that exists, it's not "ratty data", it's just a book I don't actually have.
34cjbanning
>32 waltzmn: My Star Trek novels all have "Star Trek" on the spine, the cover, and the title page, but I wouldn't consider "Star Trek" to be part of the title of the novel, just of the series. I would think most series have the title of the series in all of those places.
35waltzmn
>34 cjbanning: I would note that, unlike all the people arguing here, I own the books and have used them. The names of the books is "New Testament Greek Manuscripts: X." It is not the name of the series (although it can be used as a series name); it is the name of the volumes. They are so cited in other scholarly works.
Moreoever, stripping off the prefix would not help, because then all you have is "Matthew," "Mark," "Luke," "John," "Acts," "Romans," etc., which will be confused with the Biblical books themselves (which these are not; they are books of collations), with commentaries, etc.
The only cure is for people to carefully manage combinations.
This is a constant problem with transcriptions from the manuscript era, because the different manuscripts just don't agree, and there are books about how to edit the books.
Moreoever, stripping off the prefix would not help, because then all you have is "Matthew," "Mark," "Luke," "John," "Acts," "Romans," etc., which will be confused with the Biblical books themselves (which these are not; they are books of collations), with commentaries, etc.
The only cure is for people to carefully manage combinations.
This is a constant problem with transcriptions from the manuscript era, because the different manuscripts just don't agree, and there are books about how to edit the books.
36AranelST
This is getting off-topic, but I don't understand how combining based purely on what goes before the : can possibly work. Books can have colons in the title. The kind of books I own often have colons in the title. Sometimes the series name is part of the title, and sometimes the title just comes in two parts.
There is also a problem with putting series names in the titles even in cases where the series name is not part of the title, but these are two separate things.
For example, sometimes the cover says "Interesting Times: A Novel of Discworld" or similar, but the actual title is just Interesting Times. But Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne is the actual title. (...yes, those were the two books closest at hand.)
There is also a problem with putting series names in the titles even in cases where the series name is not part of the title, but these are two separate things.
For example, sometimes the cover says "Interesting Times: A Novel of Discworld" or similar, but the actual title is just Interesting Times. But Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne is the actual title. (...yes, those were the two books closest at hand.)
37waltzmn
>36 AranelST: This is getting off-topic, but I don't understand how combining based purely on what goes before the : can possibly work.
That's the point: It doesn't always work. It's one of the sources of false combinations -- as in the example I cited of Reuben Swanson's "New Testament Greek Manuscripts" books. When I added my copies to LT, I found them to be a hideous mess; as I recall, almost every volume I added got filed with the wrong book.
But consider the choices the site owners faced:
1. They could never auto-combine books, so that users -- even the newest users -- would have to do all the combining themselves
2. They could do exact matching of titles. Take your example of Interesting Times. If they used exact matching, then "Interesting Times: A Novel of Discworld" would not be the same book as "Interesting Times."
3. They could do some sort of compromise to do the best job of autocombining they could. Hence the first-twenty-characters-or-until-the-colon rule. It isn't perfect. But it probably is better than option 1 or option 2. For books that don't have ISBNs (or where the user doesn't enter the ISBN), the autocombiner is just about the only way to keep them together. And there are a lot of pre-ISBN books that are quite popular -- about half the twenty most popular books on LT (more than half, if you take out the Harry Potter books) were published pre-ISBN.
That's the point: It doesn't always work. It's one of the sources of false combinations -- as in the example I cited of Reuben Swanson's "New Testament Greek Manuscripts" books. When I added my copies to LT, I found them to be a hideous mess; as I recall, almost every volume I added got filed with the wrong book.
But consider the choices the site owners faced:
1. They could never auto-combine books, so that users -- even the newest users -- would have to do all the combining themselves
2. They could do exact matching of titles. Take your example of Interesting Times. If they used exact matching, then "Interesting Times: A Novel of Discworld" would not be the same book as "Interesting Times."
3. They could do some sort of compromise to do the best job of autocombining they could. Hence the first-twenty-characters-or-until-the-colon rule. It isn't perfect. But it probably is better than option 1 or option 2. For books that don't have ISBNs (or where the user doesn't enter the ISBN), the autocombiner is just about the only way to keep them together. And there are a lot of pre-ISBN books that are quite popular -- about half the twenty most popular books on LT (more than half, if you take out the Harry Potter books) were published pre-ISBN.
38Nevov
>36 AranelST:
A way to understand why they chose that route, could be to consider how it would end up if they didn't.
Every example of non-subtitle, such like:
Title: a thrilling mystery;
Title: the Made-Up Award nominated novel
Title: by the award winning author of Other Book
Title: the sequel to Other Book
Title: Book 3 in the Whatever series
Title: Whatever series 3
Title: Whatever #3
Having these types of title all remain separate (until one of us did the combining), the staff determined overall would be worse for the site. I'd think the effort of the combining for one (you'd imagine they looked at the metrics), and also probably because so much of the site social connections run off you not being the only one to have a copy of the book, it's better for a few percent false positives to go through, for all the times it gets it right. Also author and ISBN (or blank) get examined in the autocombine process too, which helps it along (edit: well, from a certain point of view – since a false combine often remains on the right author, arguably better to have it nearer the target than completely elsewhere... broadly speaking.)
A way to understand why they chose that route, could be to consider how it would end up if they didn't.
Every example of non-subtitle, such like:
Title: a thrilling mystery;
Title: the Made-Up Award nominated novel
Title: by the award winning author of Other Book
Title: the sequel to Other Book
Title: Book 3 in the Whatever series
Title: Whatever series 3
Title: Whatever #3
Having these types of title all remain separate (until one of us did the combining), the staff determined overall would be worse for the site. I'd think the effort of the combining for one (you'd imagine they looked at the metrics), and also probably because so much of the site social connections run off you not being the only one to have a copy of the book, it's better for a few percent false positives to go through, for all the times it gets it right. Also author and ISBN (or blank) get examined in the autocombine process too, which helps it along (edit: well, from a certain point of view – since a false combine often remains on the right author, arguably better to have it nearer the target than completely elsewhere... broadly speaking.)
39MarthaJeanne
My impression is that the autocombiner has about equal numbers of false positives and false negatives. The vast majority of books actually do end up in the right works. I end up doing a lot of combining because I am often the first or second person to enter a German translation. Well, it can't do those until there has been a manual combination or two. When you consider how often search gets the first few results really badly wrong, it works fairly well.
40LeslieWx
>5 waltzmn: It certainly will make it harder to get a count of how many volumes a person actually owns.
But IS it possible get a count of how many physical books a person has in LT?
I have 24 of the Time-Life: Foods of the World hardcover+spiral pairs of physical books, but because I've entered them as "Features & Recipes" pairs (i.e. Volumes=2), as far as I can tell they count as only 24 objects, not 48 objects.
And if I only had one entry with 2 copies for Edward Tufte: Seeing Around, instead of having made two entries because they are shelved in different locations, would they still be counted as 2 physical books or only as 1?
But IS it possible get a count of how many physical books a person has in LT?
I have 24 of the Time-Life: Foods of the World hardcover+spiral pairs of physical books, but because I've entered them as "Features & Recipes" pairs (i.e. Volumes=2), as far as I can tell they count as only 24 objects, not 48 objects.
And if I only had one entry with 2 copies for Edward Tufte: Seeing Around, instead of having made two entries because they are shelved in different locations, would they still be counted as 2 physical books or only as 1?
41MarthaJeanne
>40 LeslieWx: I think that it is possible, but only if the member has made an effort to keep (just, all) owned physical books in one collection AND entered each volume as a single, separate entry. Not my priority, so I have many books entered either 2 or more in one entry (including that series) and omnibus editions entered (also) as separate entries. And some books not entered for various reasons. "Your library" has a bit over 4000 entries in it. Close enough.
