Book Titles Being Altered

I have a question about covers and capitalization on books that I add as well as things being altered. I spent so much time fixing errors and then adding volume numbers to some of my books so when I look at a list, I’m not seeing the same exact title 47 times (one series has 47 volumes plus various side series adding up to maybe another 15?) and it’s easier to search. However, after spending so much time and effort doing that, and correcting errors with the capitalizations, it’s reverted itself to a hodge podge of things. One will have a volume number in a different format, then treat are just the same title with nothing all lower case. I am not sure if this is being re-edited by a person or if it’s being pulled from amazon that way, but it didn’t get added that way when I scanned the bar code. Then, today I noticed someone edited a title to show volume 1 when the book cover is Volume 4. It is causing problems with my collections. And quite frankly, it's frustrating with improper capitalization and the removal of the volume numbers. It’s difficult to when the titles are EXACTLY the same except for the volume numbers.

In addition, a large portion of my book titles have just become completely lower case even though the book title itself is not. 

They were not like that before.

I hope someone can please shed some light on what is happening. It is quite frustrating. Who is changing all of this and how do I get my collections back to the way they were? And how do I prevent this in the future? Is it just being pulled and changed from amazon when I scanned the bar codes and changed on their end?

>1 midnightcat: Have you set canonical titles for your works? That could help. Also check the editions page to see if incorrect books are included in your works, which can also affect titles.

>1 midnightcat: Since you have a private catalog, we would need you to give a few examples to help us see what you mean.

Also, data is sacred here. Once it's loaded into your catalog, that's your data. No syncing (unless Tim has changed that) other than covers.
If your edits happened on the Common Knowledge section of the work, you didn't edit your data, you edited site data, so anyone can change it.
But if you edited just your book, then your data should be secure unless someone got into your account

>4 gilroy: If your edits happened on the Common Knowledge section of the work, you didn't edit your data, you edited site data, so anyone can change it.

Also, it's worth noting that Canonical Title is site data, so, contrary to >3 lemontwist:, setting canonical title should be the very last resort, unless there is a strong need for it and one is certain that one has the correct Canonical Title. One of the most common sources of items being brought to the Combiners! group is Canonical Title problems.

It is unclear where you are seeing this happen? Contrary to >2 TaylorLi:, LT does not sync with anything. Once you import, add or edit book data, that's it, unless YOU change it. That is, for your personal data for your specific copy, site-wide data like CK can be edited by anyone (and should conform to general rules, not personal preference)

If you're looking at your own data, either on a work page or in catalogue, one thing that comes to mind is caching. Try reloading the page and see if edits are actually there. When I'm away from a tab for a while, it often loads the cached version in the background. Reloading reverts to the normal, last edited one. Either way, only someone with access to your account/password can ever edit your own records.

Do you understand the difference between your book data and work data? In your catalogur and on the work pages when you look at them signed into your account, you will see your title. Other places: lists, series, author pages... you will see the work title. This is generally the most often used title for that work. If you change it in Canonical Title you have changed the work title for everybody. Others are free to change it to the way they want to see it.

Sentance case - mostly lower case in titles is common in libraries, and many members prefer it.

Multi-volume works often confuse the auto-combiner because it stops checking after 20 characters or a colon (:). Therefore they need to be manually separated and recombined now and then. This is fairly easy to do, just tedious. If the wrong cover is in the wrong work, it is probably because of combination problems.

Members have identified a number of they key points, but I'll reiterate:

1. Once you book data is entered, it does not change unless you edit it.
2. Importing allows you to update/replace data, but you are asked, and you'd know if you had done an import.
3. There's a crucial distinction between book and work data.
4. You can look at the edit history for your book. Just go to the book, select Edit Book, and the "Edit history." This will tell you every change the book has had.

If you have concerns, find specific examples and send them to info@librarything.com. Reference this Talk post to, so we know they're connected.

>2 TaylorLi: I did this yes. I pulled almost everything from amazon

>7 MarthaJeanne: Honestly no. Theoretically, I do understand what the Common Knowledge is, I think. But, for example when I clicked on one of the works that had zero volumes listed, it suggested the same book to me with a volume number in the title. It is currently less than 20 volumes at the moment. So, I am just very confused. I don't want to edit the title for everyone else and disrupt their collections.

>8 timspalding: I don't really understand the difference between book and work data.

LT is overwhelming and can be confusing. I'd appreciate the help, and patience too while trying to figure this out. Because even when I search to add a book on my laptop by ISBN there are sometimes multiple versions of the same book.

Please ggive us details of a few specific books that you are having problems with. Without that we can't help you.

>9 midnightcat: the difference between book and work data

Book data belongs to you. It pertains to the specific instance/object you have in your own catalog.

Work data belongs to the community. It is the general information that connects books together across different catalogs.

>10 MarthaJeanne: https://www.librarything.com/work/24714818/t/My-Hero-Academia-School-Briefs-Vol-...

For example this one. Mine shows up with just the very second part of that title. So, should I assume it was added that way from whatever source I used when I scanned the barcode? I probably never noticed it when I was adding so many books at one time.

And then things like this series which I mentioned, with so many versions of the same title. This is one of a few series I have that the volume numbers are not there. But I'm wondering if they were not added to begin with from amazon.
https://www.librarything.com/work/16126295/editions
https://www.librarything.com/work/23063843/editions/298716056

>11 paradoxosalpha: Stupid question, but how do you know if you are editing your own book data or the works?

>13 midnightcat: Not a stupid question! I'll leave it for someone better able to articulate than I to answer, but I want to assure you - it's not a small thing to get your head around. :)

>12 midnightcat: First important note: The editions page is a gathering of all the same books across the site into a single work. The list of titles you see there -- you have no control of that.

Second:
If you are on the work page - as you linked here, and begin editing anything in the section below, you are editing work level data.
When it is your book, there will be a box at the top of the page with your details, and you can click a pencil icon. This edits just your book data.

>13 midnightcat:

Generally, work data is derived from book data. On a work page like https://www.librarything.com/work/23636/book/308644123 (note "work" in the web address) you will see only work data unless you have a copy of that work in your catalog. In that case, there will be a "Your Book Information" section that gives details from your book data. Also, if you have cataloged a copy of the work, the work page will show the cover of your book.

When you add tags to your book, or when you put a review in your book record, those are included in the aggregated work-level data of all tags and all user reviews. If you upload a cover image, it also becomes available to other users through the work-level cover gallery. Nobody else can change those, but they are viewable at the work level.

There are a bunch of fields that you can edit directly at the work level: These include all of those in the "Common Knowledge" section (labeled as such in its heading), like original publication date, people/characters, blurbers, etc. Note that most of these allow for multiple entries: just hit the + button to add another blank if you want to add another character or blurber etc.

Other work-level edit sections are "Series" and "Work relationships." These let you enter information about how one work is connected to other works. So they are shared by everyone, and if you change them, then they will be changed for everyone. But you can add relationships and series without changing or deleting the ones that are already there.

From the Work page, if you click "Edit book" in the left-hand menu (desktop) or top drop menu (mobile) it will bring up the page for editing your book data.

>15 gilroy: To make this more specific, if you go to the "Edit Book" tab under "Your Book," you'll see the fields that pertain to your personal copy of the book, as opposed to the collective information about it. Some of the things that you can edit on this page include:

Title -- that's the title you use, which might be different from the collective title. For example, the correct title for Lewis Carroll's most famous book is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but you might have a copy that calls it Alice in Wonderland. That might be your title for the book.

Author -- again, the author(s) you have for the book. These can differ. E.g. if you have a copy of the Odyssey, it will be listed as by Homer, but the translator might be different -- Richard Lattimore, W. H. D. Rouse, whoever.

Tags -- information you can use to find and identify the book.

Collections -- a classification scheme. You might use it for things like subject catalogs or just the room you put the book in.

Rating, Review -- just what they sound like. You can rate and/or review the book for yourself, although others will see it if you have public catalog

Media information (format, publication date, etc.) -- information about your edition

Reading dates, Date Acquired, From Where -- self-explanatory, I think

Comments, Private Comments, Condition, etc. -- information to yourself, and about your personal copy.

That's not the whole list -- there are a lot of fields on the Edit Book page, and there are other fields you can edit here and there -- but I hope that will help.

>13 midnightcat: Generally, those are the things specific to your copy. When you click 'edit book', everything there is your own data, Work-level data is site-wide and pertains to all data for that work in general, so things like all CK fields, series, awards, etc. IIRC if you look at your catalogue (Your Books tab), by default it contains only your own data, though it's possible to add it's possible to add columns with CK and such.

When you're on a work page, such as https://www.librarything.com/work/24714818/t/My-Hero-Academia-School-Briefs-Vol-..., if you've catalogued the book, you'll have a 'Your Book Information' box below title and author. That is the data for your own copy, which you've either imported from some source or added yourself. The rest around on the work page is community data about the work in general.

The only thing that can really be confusing in the beginning is not seeing the title, author and cover you've set on series pages and such.

>15 gilroy: For clarification, I didn't edit that page from the pages I linked. I'm having an issue mainly with consistency across the same series. For example, Erased has volumes 1 and 4 numbered but not 2 and 3 in my collection. Or the way it's formatted is inconsistent, some numbered some are not. I have some volumes of Komi Can't Communicate that I own but I don't own them all sequentially. So, when I have them in my collections and not titled with a volume number, it makes it more difficult to search and then I end up sometimes buying a particular volume twice.

Or in the case of the one I linked, I was using it as an example. I have that book in my catalog but doesn't even say "My Hero Academia School Briefs" at all (just "festival for all"), and that I did not alter.

What I was changing was under "Your Books", clicking on the title, and then "Edit Book" with a pencil in front of it. Is that ok to change?

I guess what I really need is the ability for things to be consistent and to have volume numbers after the books. I don't know if that is something I am doing wrong by how things are being added (sometimes typing them in the title or ISBN manually on my laptop, sometimes scanning the barcode on mobile), or if that's even something that is possible.

>17 waltzmn: Thank you so much for that clarification. That really did help :)

>18 SandraArdnas:
>16 paradoxosalpha:
Thank you! I think all this must have happened when I imported it. I have switched between Library of Congress and Amazon, and a couple other sources, before (some books were not able to be found in amazon or vice versa) so that may explain the inconsistencies. It's more likely my own fault for not paying attention.

Good to know I have not been editing something I should not have been. I have been editing from the "Your Book" section.

>19 midnightcat: How titles appear initially depends on the source, so if you've entered manually, it will be exactly as you entered it, if from Amazon or library, the way they entered it. Once you edit it, it will remain that way and nobody can change it without logging in as you. Maybe the confusion is what you see on a series page, but that is not up to just your book. Titles and covers there are the most common ones used across LT. On the individual work page, though, your own are shown.

>20 midnightcat: I recommend sorting your books by Title or Author, then double-click on the title box (not the title itself!) to edit it.

You don't have to sort the books together, I just find it's easier to have similar ones grouped together when I'm doing something like that. :)

With something like MHA with multiple title elements, you can choose the title format/pattern that makes the most sense to you, but there are some things that LibraryThing does that may influence your decision.

1. When a book is added, LT only looks at the first 20 characters to determine which work to match it to
2. That same process ignores parantheses and anything after a colon
3. Ensuring your title/author has the correct ISBN can help disambiguate if the auto process sees identical titles.

So to help it along, my manga pattern is "Title, vol. #" If there is a subseries like your MHA book, I might choose "Subseries, vol. # (My Hero Academia)"

Sometimes individual volumes have their own title. Those I would do "Title (MHA #1)" if I wanted the series/volume number in the title field.

But in Your Books, you can sort by the series column once you've added it, or search by series, so really it's up to you, how you think of the titles and what makes sense. Volunteers can help make sure different volumes aren't lumped into the same work, if necessary.

>9 midnightcat: It seems like you have a good grasp on the "book vs. work" concept, now, but here's some extra information if you're interested: https://www.librarything.com/concepts#works

>22 keristars:
>23 kristilabrie:

Thank you very much, that was quite helpful.