Add to your library

I'm a little puzzled about a change that happened some time ago with "Add to your library". As I remember, before the change, if we found a book that we owned in another member's library, we could click "Add to your library" and the book would be copied over, no questions asked.

Now, however, all that "Add to your library" seems to mean is "Search for something similar to this" (which I could do easily enough without the button). If I choose the wrong source, I may not find the book at all. If I happen to choose a different source from the user whose book I "added" from, I may get a similar book with a different ISBN.

Wouldn't it make more sense to go back to the old behavior? If you're worried that this would lead to bad data going uncorrected, do what CiteULike does when you post something via the CiteULike bookmarklet: It asks "Are some of the metadata incorrect?" and offers a "Post & Review" button, where you can correct anything that looks wrong.

There is post upon post upon post about this, and the last word I heard is that there may be a change to how this currently works, but it will be a compromise and probably won't please everyone.

Adding a "review this data" step may help slightly, but I suspect most people wouldn't bother - those that do care about quality would go in and edit the details after adding it anyway.

Thanks for letting me know, Andrew. I'll wait and see what transpires. I really hope something similar to what we had before can be reinstated: my students are not very good at searching and used to find it so much easier to add a book that already existed in my collection or in a friend's collection.

There may also be post-upon-post re: this suggestion, nevertheless:

Why not search on a subset of available databases rather than one? I'm sure searching on all 690+ would be ridiculous in terms of processing time, but perhaps my top 3.

I prefer to add from libraries rather than amazon.com, but it's annoying to have to try 4 or 5 in a row before capitulating and going to amazon. If one database returns more than one result, why not gather the collective returns from several databases?

We're working on something.

That would be a wonderful thing for the legacy libraries...

The OP is right, though. Although the green plus-sign on the work page has been complained about a lot, the green plus-sign in the catalog did change the way it worked recently, when the catalog was redesigned. If you clicked it from within someone's catalog, it used to launch a search based on maybe ISBN (?) or title, and the source that member had used. If it was a manually added book that didn't help, but if it was added from a library or bookstore, at least it ran a search that was more precise than the one you get from the plus-sign on the work page. Now they both work the same.

Great! I had started an acct with LT awhile ago, and only recently came back (I had actually forgotten I had an acct). I am a bit annoyed that it isn't easier to add books to the library, to choose the edition of the book, and to distinguish from hardcover, paperback, ebook/kindle editions). I can't tell when I'm adding books which edition it is until it's too late.

I am so annoyed with having to click "add to library" twice, that I'm not really bothering with making sure I have the right edition. I think the procedure would be more streamlined if, let's say I'm adding books from my "recommendations" list

1) click on book title
2) click on the "add to library" button
3) a list of the book editions should come up and then I pick the one I want.

There shouldn't be that whole list generated for the same titled books (sometimes by different authors) b/c I already chose the book and author.

last thing- I notice that my pub dates are wrong. I'd rather the info reflect the first pub date, so that the series books are listed in order when you sort them by pub date.

Thanks!
(ps. I don't mean to sound so negative here. it's obviously an amazing site, and I can't wait to get my entire library on here... I just wish it was a bit more intuitive to do so).

The accuracy of the publication dates really depends on what edition or printing of the book you select when you add it, and what source you're using. Amazon data often uses the printing date, while library data tends to use the edition date. You can always go into your record and edit it. Your best bet for getting accurate data is almost always to search for the title or ISBN using a library source (on the Add Books page), then click on the show more option to make sure it's the edition you want (1st edition or whatever).
Also, you can add more details in the search box on Add Books if it's giving you too many results. Add different search terms (words from author, title, publisher) after commas.

I notice that my pub dates are wrong. I'd rather the info reflect the first pub date, so that the series books are listed in order when you sort them by pub date.


The pub dates are those of the edition you chose to add. If you're adding your exact edition, it's probable that you don't have the same edition of all books in your series; otherwise, you may be adding the wrong edition.

There is an original publication date field that provides what you want, but it's not sortable; many people use tags to make series sort properly.

Actually I think that he wants the original publication date which would be incorrect to put in the publication date field in your library as that pertains to the particular edition you own. You can change the columns in your library to display the CK original publication date but it isn't sortable (for now). Some people copy that date into the comments field so they can sort on it.

Even searching on the source I used wouldn't give you the same entry I have, because I edit (almost) every entry to get what I want in there.

Rickl, please ask your students to make sure their title reflects their edition if they are using ESL versions. Those should not be combined with the original book. You could always make a comment in your record of where you found the right edition to help your students.

>Rickl, please ask your students to make sure their title reflects their edition >if they are using ESL versions. Those should not be combined with the >original book. You could always make a comment in your record of where >you found the right edition to help your students.

Good advice. Thanks.