joy of cooking

I'm new to this group, but have a question because of a recent problem. I noticed that my two different editions of Joy of Cooking show up as 2 copies of the same book, even though they are very different, with significantly different recipes and different co-authors. (ISBN's 0672518317 (1975) & 0684818701 (1997 - the all new all purpose j of c)). I noticed that all editions were combined into one work, so I split the 1975 one to a separate work, based on ISBN. I think there are several other distinct editions, but didn't try to split them all without having copies, and the main work seems to be based on the 1997 edition. I know my mother's copy from 1950something is somewhat different than my 1975 copy and very different from the 1997 copy. I also have a paperback copy somewhere (not yet catalogued), and think it too is different. I noticed today that both my copies were combined again, so I split it again. Will someone else keep combining them? I would like to keep them separate, as the content, titles, authors, etc. are definitely different.

Welcome to Combiners! NorthernStar.

Yes, someone probably will keep combining the different editions unless you advise them not to. You can do this by using the Disambiguation Notice field towards the bottom of the CK (Common Knowledge) section on the main page of the work. Simply leave a short note explaining that there is a significant difference. Spell out what the difference is if you need to. It's usually a good idea to leave the same/similar notice on all the works that are likely to be combined as most combinations can be approached from several paths.

Also, most combiners will prefer if you provide links to the works such as http://www.librarything.com/work/3760 as they are more reliable than Touchstones, just cut and paste the link from your browser bar to the thread.

Thanks – I did add the notices and did a bit more checking with my copies. The 1975 edition appears to be the first revision for some time, has Marion Rombauer Becker as co-author, and currently shows up under the following work: http://www.librarything.com/work/6969143

The 1997 edition (according to the book jacket) is the first revision in over 20 years, and adds Ethan Becker as another co-author, so must be the first “new” work since the 1975 edition. It currently comes up under the following work: http://www.librarything.com/work/3760

There probably should be at least one earlier edition, since the original was published in 1931, and had no co-authors. I don’t have any earlier copies to verify whether all the earlier copies are one work, or have significant differences and should be split.

Looks like someone is busy working on it now, I hope they can sort it out!

I added a link that describes all of the editions of Joy of Cooking to the Irma S. Rombauer page (http://www.librarything.com/author/rombauerirmas). BTW, the touchstone for Irma S. Rombauer didn't work, probably because of the morass of author names associated with Joy of Cooking

Is there a more appropriate place to include this info? Here's the link to the info:
http://www.cookbkjj.com/college/joy.htm

If they are going to be separated, there should be Canonical titles with edition numbers and/or dates so that one can easily tell which work any particular book belongs it. (That there will be books we don't know about is another problem.)

I see that someone has done a LOT of "Joy of Cooking" separating and there are a ton of little clusters of Joy of Cooking everywhere. I am not seeing any disambiguation notice on the work my copy is associated with:
http://www.librarything.com/work/6969634

I am hoping that this is a work in progress...

>4 carport:
Thank you for adding the link to the Irma S. Rombauer page. I think it would be appropriate to add a disambiguation notice to her author page with a short summary of the editions that are felt different enough to be considered separate works.

A disambiguation notice should ALSO be added to EACH of the "works" in question explaining how that edition is significantly different from the others so that a potential combiner is presented with that information at the time of combining.

In reviewing the information from the link provided by carpot - I have some additional comments. The compiler of information on the web page lists 14 editions comprising of 9 revisions. Certainly MANY of these do not qualify as separate WORKS by LT's definition.

My summary of the differences noted by the web page compiler:

(I have placed the ones that I think would belong to the same "work" between the *****)

*****
1931: Original Edition
-- Included casual culinary chat with recipes (narrated paragraphs including ingredients and instructions intermingling).
-- Facsimile reprint of this edition, with new forward published in 1998

1936: First Trade Edition/First Revision
-- New recipe "action format" - First, a chronological listing of ingredients and then instruction for preparation
(NOTE: I am not convinced that a recipe "reformatting" is sufficient to qualify as a new "work" by LT standards)
*****
1943: Second Revision
-- Irma added a number of "quick cooking" recipes (mostly from her 1939 book STREAMLINED COOKING)
(NOTE: the addition of NEW material may qualify this to be a different work - depending on how many recipes we are talking about, anyone know? 2 pages? 50 pages?)

1946
--REPRINT of 1943 edition - with WWII rationing information deleted and replaced with more info from STREAMLINED COOKING in a 40 page stretch at the end of the book
*****
1951: Third Revision
-- NEW appears on the dust jacket but not on the Title page.
-- material reflecting Marion's interest in gardening and various health food/whole-grain food philosophies added
(NOTE: this, to me, represents a substantial change and I think would qualify as a different "work")

1952
-- reprint of 1951 edition with corrections

1953
-- reprint of 1951 edition with new index
*****
1962: Fourth Revision
-- "This edition marks the transition of JOY towards an all-encompassing manual of cooking"
-- edited/published without input from Marion (Irma had died)

1963
-- not a new edition, but many corrections

1964
-- corrections, cropping/reworking due to publisher imposed page limit
-- published by NAL as a paperback in various one and two volume formats
(NOTE: the Vol. 1 and Vol.2 would be considered separate "works" from complete editions)
*****
1975: Fifth Revision
-- "achieved Marion's aims more fully than any of the previous editions"
-- remained in print until it was replaced by the 1997 edition
*****
1997: Sixth Revision
-- Title Change: All New All Purpose Joy of Cooking
-- Co-authored by Ethan Becker, emphasis on "freshness, convenience, and health" - includes more thorough descriptions (and wider variety) of ingredients
*****
1998: Facsimile of the First Edition
-- new foreward
(NOTE: I, personally, would consider this to be the same "work" as the first edition because it contains the SAME material)
*****
2006: Ninth Revision - 75th Anniversary
What happened to revisions 7 and 8?
-- Know your ingredients resurrected, teaching text restored, expanded, and revised.

SOOO - my two cents -
I am seeing that one could argue to divide this up into NOT MORE than 7 works (plus 2 more for volume 1/2 of the paperback 1960s editions)

I would also make the argument that "ambiguous" copies likely belong with the 1975 edition as it had the longest run (and people who do not bother to designate WHICH edition they have when the enter the work are likely to #1 - not care where it goes, #2 have the most common copy)

Portia, that's an excellent job you've done in setting out what's what with the editions. I'm in agreement that, if anything, seven separate works is overkill - my instinct would be to go for far fewer.

(ETA: keyboard went into weird mode, so now adding...)

But then again I'm in favour of putting things together for the connections more than some people are. I have what I suspect is the 1975 edition, and I know I did some combining on this work when I added it, but stopped when I realised that some people cared a lot about keeping their editions separate. At that time, I had no idea what the differences were.

I'm not convinced your second revision boundary constitutes a new work, nor the 1962-1964 ones compared with their predecessor. But I don't have them, so it's just instinct on my part.

I'd agree with kevinashley on having fewer separate works overall, and go for either 2 or 3 works. I'd say that 1997 is socially significant because of all the to-do that was made about it, and the first and its facsimiles are maybe separate because historically interesting.

I'd put all of the others in one, even though there have been some changes at each step -- importantly, after the controversial 6th revision, it's been marketed as the same Joy you always knew (an LT-style work before there was such a thing!) Other than the 1997 edition, it's always been the cookbook you got in whatever edition was available, because it's Joy, not because of the latest and greatest in conversion tables (or home butchery instructions, for that matter.)

I've cross posted this in the cookbookers group.

I have 3 separate editions. The facsimile of the 1931 edition, ISBN 0-684-83358-1, the 1951 Edition, and the 1975 edition ISBN 0-672-51831-7.

They are all so very different I wouldn't consider them the same book at all.

I too am in favor of fewer, rather than more, works - I did want to set an absolute UPPER limit. It wouldn't bother me in the slightest if all of these were lumped into one ginormous work - BUT- I am not a cookbook collector and only have one copy of the Joy of Cooking.

>10 MarthaJeanne:
MarthaJeanne - could you let us know what the other cookbookers think? If they have an opinion.

My inclination - after reading over all this again - would be 3 works - but where do you draw the lines?

If I were doing this project on my own I would probably combine/separate in to the 7+2 that I outlined originally and then see where that put me in terms of member numbers. (If hardly anyone owns the 1960s copies then you put them where you think they fit, as long as you put them SOMEWHERE).

I think my personal (non-cookbooker) preference would be:

1931 (including facsimile) through 1946 together : these reflect mainly Irma's original vision.

1951 through 1975 + 2006 together : these reflect Marion's contributions

1997 separate : reflecting Becker's interpretation of the work

I'd be interested to learn how others would divide it out.

So far there has been little response. I have the 63 edition, which is also what my mother has. To me that IS 'Joy'. There is a bunch of them, which I found and combined mine with.

BTW there are other cookbooks for which this discussion will also have repercusions. Fanny Farmer comes to mind. (I have three editions of that one, so I can speak to it better.) On that one I was happy to have the first edition and its reprints in one work and all other editions in a second work, even though my newer one sits totally unused on the shelf. These cookbooks do have a 'personality' that goes over many editions.

These cookbooks do have a 'personality' that goes over many editions.

Yes, very much this. Thinking about this a bit more, my strong feelings about the 1997 Joy being separate from both earlier and later editions comes from having been a bookseller lucky enough to work with a solid cookbook collection at the time it came out. I doubt that more than five people I talked to about it (me, the other cookbook geek in the store, and a couple of local chefs) even cared that there were changes other than updating covers between the 1951, '62, and '75 editions -- it was all Joy. But when the 1997 edition hit, we had hundreds of people who returned it, or didn't return it but told us they hated it, or told us they weren't ever going to buy it, or wanted to know when and if the "Real" Joy was coming back... As I said in my earlier post, it was the LT Works concept before there was an LT -- and one of the strongest examples I can remember of the cocktail party test in action.

(Luckily for those of us who actually liked the New Joy of Cooking, How to Cook Everything came along shortly after and did virtually the same things without stepping on as many toes.)

Practically speaking, Portia's proposed division makes a lot of sense to me.

I started this thread because my 1975 and 1997 editions were combined, and I knew they were different enough that I wouldn't consider them the same book. (I actually rarely use the 97 edition, but if I was ever limited to one cookbook, I would choose the 75 edition of Joy) I feel that some of the other editions are also pretty different, although the differences may not be as extreme. I know my mother's edition (probably late 1950's or early 60's) is also different than the 1975 one, but don't have it here to compare. My preference would be to split it based on what portialong has laid out - based on the revisions, not corrections. That should also be fairly straightforward to work with. Someone with access to actual copies of these revisions might be able to do it better - decide which are minor and which are major revisions.

After writing this, I decided that I should find and catalogue my old paperback copy, which, it turns out is based on the 1964 edition, although published in 1973. There are significant differences between this and the 1975 edition, and I do not think they should be combined.

The original entry of my Joy of Cooking has become somewhat 'detached' from the database since all the work was done. I can still see it, and see that I am one of more than 2,000 members who catalog it, but when I clicked on the author's name (Irma S. Rombauer) it doesn't show me that I "have 1 work by ..." and it's didn't display the little green arrow pointing to my work.

I entered a duplicate, and although I see both of works, the author's page tells me I just have the new one.

I wonder if other copies of the work may be similarly affected ...

http://www.librarything.com/work/3760/details/26262286

>15 NorthernStar:

I have the 1973 paperback version of the 1964 Joy of Cooking edition, as well as the 1975 hardcover edition. They combine separately, and to me this seems silly. The differences are insufficient to me to combine them separately.

But there are lumpers and there are splitters....

Just one tip based on similar work I tried to do for a different work, is to also use the series field in addition to the canonical title to keep track of what editions exist.

Having of course decided on how you want it lumped or split you then have two tricky problems.

- For a given work Joy of Cooking with little other information entered, where do you place it?
- 'helpful' infernal idiots who regularly combine it all together.

I have the March 1974 printing of the (Canadian) Thomas Allen & Son 1964 edition . It does not have an ISBN. I entered my copy from a library source, the MARC record information was available from the edition page, plenty of information is included with my book, just not an ISBN because ISBNs were not issued before about 1967.
. Last night it was lumped in with the pre 1975 works, which I could live with. Today it is in with the lump of 2000+ copies with the 1997 edition. This is just plain not right!

If books without ISBNs have to be put somewhere I propose they should go with the earlier pre 1975 editions rather than the later.

#15

Just a remark--I think in general, when we consider which editions to separate and which to lump, it's important to think also of why people may have them--i.e. are they likely to be collectors (of different editions) or just happen to have some edition by chance. Portia mentioned this too.

For instance, I have one Joy, bought new without concern for editions, and I see it's a nineties reprint of the 1975 one. My mom has a copy from the sixties. In the LT context, which establishes social links based on work sharing, there's as much reason to lump our copies as there would be for a collector to split them.

The reason I post, I think Joy is probably very widely held, and if that's so, probably more people happen to have this or that edition by chance, then because they collect them (and care very much about differences between editions).

So my vote here and in similar instances would be for fewer, not more separations.

To add further to the information on editions: I've just looked at my copy, a British paperback edition. And this makes clear that British edition numbers, and the dates of those editions, are not the same as the US ones.

Mine is dated 1980, and is described as the fifth edition (revised and enlarged.) So it's probably the same as the US 1975 5th edition. The first british edition was 1946; the fourth (described merely as 'revised') was 1964.

I doubt that the content of the british edition is in any way different (there are no concessions to UK measurements or likely ingredients.)

My British 4th edition (reprinted 1969) refers to the 'enlarged American edition' 1963. It is obviously a straight reprint of the US one.

>6 PortiaLong: >7 PortiaLong: and others.

I've been looking closely at some of the edition groupings today and have come to the conclusion that combining even those editions with complete information, including ISBNs into the suggested sub works will be ***impossible***. Why? Because what you see is not always what you get when you look closely at the small groups LT has lumped together.

This individual book copy is but one example,

http://www.librarything.com/work/details/26152061

SB part of the 1975 work, but it is melded in with a group containing mostly books published in the 1960's, at least those checked in indivudual libraries so far. I separated this clump out from the large main group that includes the newer 1997 edition because from the edition page of that work it appeared to be a clump with no ISBNs.

I think Joy of Cooking should be put back together again.

>23 kathrynnd:

Many people just worry about the Title or Title/author and don't pay attention to the other information that gets dragged along. People who CARE which works that their copy gets associated with will likely have entered enough information for sub-sorting.

Many copies/clumps will have ambiguous data which is why I suggested (in #7) that the clump with the 1975 edition be the main dumping ground for such ambiguous clumps.

To reiterate - the clumps I suggested in #12

A.1931 (including facsimile) through 1946 together : these reflect mainly Irma's original vision.

B.1951 through 1975 + 2006 together : these reflect Marion's contributions

C.1997 separate : reflecting Becker's interpretation of the work

So "A" would include ONLY the unambiguously early ones and "C" would contain ONLY the unambiguously Becker/1997 version and "B" would be the "Main" entry containing everything else (likely will have some early and Becker versions with ambiguous data).

Having said that - I would rather see them all dumped together than a bajillion little clusters (which is what it looked like when I posted #6). I am purposely not looking at it right now until this discussion has fizzled to SOME sort of consensus and I can get to some serious combining.

PS. Once the combining has been done we can tie the 3 (or however many we end up with) works together on a "Joy of Cooking" series page - in the "Series Information" we can put: the divisions we have used, the link carport provided to the page about editions, and an invitation for people to post their disagreement in this thread.

Disambig notices can be posted on the A. and C. work pages defining why these have been separated from the Main (B) Work.

PortiaLong's A, B, and C groupings seem a little too simplistic to me. Not having any earlier copies to refer to, it seems to me that the A grouping - 1931 to 1946 makes sense, although someone with copies of these may not agree. The B group, though, should probably be at least 2 clumps - perhaps 1951 to 1964 as one, 1975 as another, and 2006 either separate or lumped with 1975, depending on the content (which I haven't seen, so can't comment on). Comparing the 1964 and 1975 editions, there are significant differences, including many more recipes, and rewrittten and rearranged content in the 1975 edition. Since all the 1975 version copies should have ISBN numbers, they should be fairly easy to distinguish. The 1997 edition should definitely be separate, and the reprint of the 1931 edition could be lumped with the original 1931 to 1946 group. Copies not clearly identified as pre-1951 and without ISBN numbers could go in the 1951 to 1964 group. This would give a not unreasonable 4 or 5 groups, with fairly clear criteria to divide them.

>25 NorthernStar:
Having owned and used both the 1964 and 1975 editions for many years, I can tell you that I have never noticed much difference. There may indeed be many differences, but as a user and not a student of JOY, they have always been effectively one and the same. To me, I would rather have my books associated with each other and with those of other owners for LT purposes.

I favor simplifying along the lines suggested by Portia.

Very clearly put PortiaLong. I've put 1951 thru 1974 groupings together, should be easy to add 1975 with these if we can reach a consensus.

I'm not certain if you understood my concerns in my previous message (#23). There are still some clumps put together by LT that may appear to to be ambiguous from the listing on the Editions pages, no ISBN etc, but when copies are checked in individual member libraries,voila, some have ISBN, some have slightly different wording of the title, or form of the author name. You cannot tell from the information on the edition page exactly what editions of a book are included in the lump below each listing.

Example two, This work, http://www.librarything.com/work/7526735 contains a copy of the 1941 edition. I happened to notice it in seattlejo's library when checking on another edition and when looking for it. The 1941 edition was in with the large group with 1997 etc. I separated it out, I think I made a disambiguation notice that I was checking the editions, but when I came back just now someone, perhaps the owner of one of the copies, had combined the group with the 1960's.

{ETA: and three copies of the 1936 edition, so far so good, both in one of your proposed group at any case. Well there two 1953s though. Still looking, can't see in the private library though
}

OK what are we to do about these copies. I repeat, these are not books entered by members without care. Many are rated and tagged, most are entered from library sources, it is LT that has randomly lumped these together at one time or another as the work system evolved.

Actually came to this forum to research another question, and stumbled on this thread . . . I have the '43 and '46 editions, and out of curiosity unpacked them for comparison. They have exactly the same # of pages, but '46 has chapters on Streamlined Cooking and Quick Method Cakes, while '43 has 2 short chapters for wartime rationing -- 'Sugarless and Sugar saving recipes for Cakes, Cookies and Desserts' and 'Meat Stretching Meat Substitutes and Supplementary Dishes' , the latter containing Wartime Soups and Suggestions for the use of Soybeans. Although I'm convinced that each edition of 'Joy' says something about the times in which it was produced, '43 stands apart as an interesting historical footnote to WWII. Irma's comments are as enlightening as the recipes, and I doubt if there are many other cookbooks that feature a soybean souffle prefaced with "Until recently, we have been rather scornful of the virtues of. . . the soybean as a denizen of the other side of the tracks. . . It is even rumored that it will make the social grade, so be prepared to meet it shortly, with the proper patriotic enthusiasm, in the best of houses."

Does this mean it should be separated? I don't really have any strong opinions, as I could make these observations on my own copy. Just thought it was interesting.

Thanks JoonieM. It is interesting, especially as social history.

I'm sure lumpers and splitters will still differ, but nice to know!

This is exactly a sore subject for me.

The different revisions (note that I don't say "editions") are so radically different both in appearance and content that it frustrated me a lot. So much so I became pretty disenchanted with LibraryThing and all but stopped using it.

It didn't occur to me until just now, of course, that I could have created new entries for each revision (I have them all) with "19** revision" in the title. That's what I'll do. Eventually. I will probably even do that for the different editions, too.

I don't care about the social networking part of this. I use LibraryThing when browsing rare/used bookstores to verify whether or not something is in my cookbook collection already. This is PARTICULARLY important when considering something like Joy of Cooking because my old, shriveled brains simply won't hold all those edition dates in my head.

I'm not sure what you mean by adding new entries? Do you mean adding another book to your library? If so, then it will probably get combined into the broader categories eventually.

>30 mcglothlen:

I am sorry that you had such a frustrating experience.

Everyone uses LT differently and it seems that sometimes there is a perceived conflict between the functionality as it pertains to the user vs. the community.

The most common way this arises is when someone owns a work that they feel is substantially different in some way from others and it gets combined (rightly or wrongly - which is why threads like this exist) and LT shows them they have a "duplicate" work.

From my (own personal) perspective this does not create a huge problem since I have complete control over how my books appear in MY library. Say I have two copies of RAH's Stranger in a Strange Land - both the "cut" version and the "uncut" version. Sometimes they are combined and sometimes they are separated - sometimes LT things I have a duplicate and sometimes it doesn't. However, if I were to look at MY library I still see each of the books entered AS I ENTERED THEM with their own information/covers/comments etc. The only thing that changes in my own library view is whether the number under "shared" matches - and if I don't care about the "social" aspects of LT then why does it matter if LT thinks they are the same work or not?

Another example:
Say I collect pulp science fiction with different covers - having a different cover is NOT a sufficient reason for something to be considered a different "work" on LT. But obviously for me the difference is the REASON I own the book. No problem - I enter each book on LT with its own cover - I enter the details for each work, comments on the covers etc. I see all of this information when I look in MY library - so it doesn't MATTER that LT gathers up all of these copies into one work. When I go to the bookstore and call up LT to see what I have - I look at MY entries in MY library and can clearly see what I already own.

If someone has NO interest in the social side of LT then I am puzzled as to why they would care if their copy got combined or not - what am I missing? If someone has an interest in the "social" side of things then we have these discussions to see how we can maximize the useful associations of combining (breaking down Joy of Cooking into clumps that link up people who own a historically/socially significant revision of the work) and minimize the noise.

>>msg 28 Hi joonieM, thanks for posting and opening up the discussion again. ( I should begin this time and say that I am also the member edandkathy from msg 19)

I've spent several hours working on Joy of Cooking these last few weeks, and suggest anyone else who feels JOC should be separated into separate editions try doing the same. It's not just that not all the books can be separated into different slots, but those that can just don't seem to stay put, and new additions end up any old place. So when I saw your message I was going to come on here and say I give up and suggest it all go back together again. { I've provided some details of the problem below}.

Then yesterday I noticed I got a new LT Recommendation for an older Joy Edition in my kathrynnd account. The joy of cooking; a compilation of reliable recipes with an occasional culinary chat My Joy is in my other account with my general cookbooks, kathrynnd has a few older family cookbooks, and those most likely generated the suggestion. Anyway I was rather thrilled LT brought up the recommendation. So maybe there is more than just social reasons to keep the older and new books separate.

Except, believe me, it will be impossible. LT in the past lumped books together by the form of the author name and title not by ISBN. So some of those groups of books you notice on the edition page without a listed ISBN may look like a pre ISBN era publication, but it just doesn't work out that way. Some of those groupings on the editions pages do have ISBNs ( which you can see when you look at the entry in member libraries) and partially belong with the later editions.

{I'll send this and continue in a separate message. I already lost one attempt tonight using these small boxes}

>>continuing from msg 33:

As I mentioned above I have been spending quite a bit of time working on Joy of Cooking, especially those copies without ISBNs that some tidier thought to lump in with the larger mainly 1997 edition group after the 1975 edition had been separated. (see msg 19).

I started by separating out a group of 93 copies without a listed ISBN, carefully doing only one separation at a time and writing a 'working' disambiguation note as I was doing so. I did not look up all 93 copies in member libraries, the number was too large. I took a sample by checking all the copies that had been rated, assuming these entries at least had had more than just a run around look making it into LT. I quickly noticed that about 3/4 of the copies I checked had an ISBN for the 1975 edition. As the majority had this ISBN I combined the group with the 1975's taking a rather awkwardly written disambiguation notice along with it.

http://www.librarything.com/work/7515362/editions/

I don't like it. I'm just throwing this out on the floor for discussion. Separate it out if you like, but I do not suggest making a garbage work for books that just won't fit anywhere else.

I've put together three 'working' groups for editions published before the 1975 group previously set up by another member, trying to follow recommendations in msg. 24. I kept the 1931 facsimile edition separate for the time being for practical reasons. There are no originals of this edition yet in LT, unlike the other early books it has an ISBN, and it has a messy amazon title. It was simpler to keep these separate.

I ended up putting the 1936 - 1946 books together adding the actual title as the Canonical title.

http://www.librarything.com/work/6969727/editions/

And the 1951 - 1974 editions together

http://www.librarything.com/work/7520156/editions/

These cannot be broken down any finer and still capture all copies together. If anyone wants to try, or to break at a different point, feel free to go ahead.

I ran into a few problems as it with these stray separated groups. Where should these go?

http://www.librarything.com/work/7526735/editions/
Disambiguation Notice...includes books from the 1936, 1941, 1952 and 1953 editions of The joy of cooking.

http://www.librarything.com/work/7552513/editions/
Disambiguation Notice.....includes several different editions published from 1951 thru 2006.

http://www.librarything.com/work/7552599/editions/
Disambiguation Notice.....includes editions published between 1946 and 1980

http://www.librarything.com/work/7526603/editions/
Disambiguation Notice.....published from 1953 thru 2006

and then there is still those 93 copies in with the 1975 edition

http://www.librarything.com/work/7515362/editions/
Joy of Cooking / Irma S. Rombauer (93 copies separate)

My word!

kathrynnd - I am so impressed with the amount of work that you have done on this project!

I see what you are saying now with regards to the 93 copies issue that you (correctly) pointed out that I missed earlier. I was confused as to how books with ISBNs in a persons library were NOT showing ISBNs on the editions page...some experimentation in another thread on another topic seems to indicate that this happens quite easily - part of the "separating-on-editing" bug.

I don't think that it is feasible to expect that combiners go into each members library and see if there are ISBNs assigned to the book that aren't showing up on the Editions page! Although - Thank you for going to such lengths to define the problem. Given that this bug (if it is one) may or may not get fixed the question is what to do with those copies now.

I guess my feeling is that if an LTer was vitally concerned that their edition was noted as such and combined correctly they would have edited the title on their own copy to reflect the difference. So I personally think you are free to put them whereever makes the most sense given the information available on the edition page.

So right now we have -
1931
1936-46 (with disambig)
1951-74 (with disambig)
1975 (with disambig that knd thinks is awkward)
1997
2006

and some smaller clumps of mashups...

I guess I would
#1 put a disambig on 1997
#2 Decide which one should be the main entry/dumping ground for ambiguous entries (I'd vote for '75)
#3 combine the mashups with the main entry
#4 Disambigs on the "clean" entries should reflect what is included in the group and that only copies within that grouping should be combined.
#5 Disambig on the "main" entry - should say something along the lines of

Note - The majority of entries found here are the 1975 edition with Marion Rombauer Becker. If your copy of this work is found here and belongs with another grouping (1936 to 46, 1951 to 1974, etc) editing the title of your copy to reflect this information would allow it to be combined more appropriately.

All copies could have something along the lines of:

The Joy of Cooking has enjoyed a long history through the years and along the way has undergone many changes. In an attempt to organize the many volumes found on LT in a meaningful way Thingamabrarians have sorted these changes into groupings that keep together similar editions. To learn more, join the discussion here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/52454

Wow - kathyrnnd - excellent work! The whole group of books are so much better organized now! My vote would be for putting those 4 small groups of odds & ends in with the 1951-1974 group, it seems like a better "main entry/dumping ground" as it is not one single edition anyway, and the 1975 one is. I think PortiaLong's suggestions for disambiguation notices are great too.

>33 kathrynnd: and >34 kathrynnd:
kathrynnd, thank you for all of your work on this!

>28 JoonieM:
JoonieM, thank you for sharing those tidbits from your '46 edition!