the Complete History of Middle Earth, omnibus editions

Perhaps I've missed the info, but for some reason, I cannot edit the work info for my copy of Part 2, containing volumes 6-9. The existing info would if anything pertain solely to Part 1.

Clue, please?

Hi, deoradh, welcome aboard.

I suspect the record has been automatically combined into the Work record for this book. LT has book-level records (which is what is in your library) and work-level records, which combine all the editions of one book. Omnibuses present a particular difficulty, since some people catalog the individual volumes separately, and others, like yourself, catalog them as one item.

If you could post a link to the record in question, we may be able to be of more help.

BTW, this group is for discussing new features members would like to see in LibraryThing. If you are having a problem or think you've found a bug, the Bug Collectors group is your ticket!

There's often little to distinguish data error from bug from feature request :)

These 3 volumes represent the complete history of Middle Earth (there's also a separate index). The first is books 1-5, the second 6-9, and the remaining in the third. Each of the books therein were published separately, of course.

The series & edition data seems to be confused here and the UI doesn't seem to address fixing all of it. That could be a new feature or it could be pilot error on my part.

http://www.librarything.com/work/184695/book/52769889

http://www.librarything.com/work/184695/book/52769885

http://www.librarything.com/work/3448204/book/52769877

I see what you mean about series data being confused. I am going to forward your query to the LibraryThing Series group for some attention.

In your first post, you said you couldn't edit the work info; what page were you on? Did the bolded text in the left navbar say Main page or Edit book? You can't edit on the Main page, only on the Edit page or in your catalog view.

Fun, eh?

Walkthrough:

Take the second link (for Part 2)

Note "other editions" shows Part 1, but not Part 3 -- inconsistent at the least, inaccurate at worst (no omnibus overlaps in content, though the Index I have en route would overlap with all three). There's the first problem.

Edit Book, Work Details -- shows wrong work, and no way to edit that on this page. I expect this is an alternative example of the first problem. Whether the solution is the change the details of the work (problematic, I think) or switch which work this item is an exemplar of, I can't decide. I suspect the latter.

Continuing...

Following the series link at the top of the page brings us to http://www.librarything.com/series/The%20History%20of%20Middle-Earth%20(Omnibus%... .. which is obvously (1) misnamed, or (2) abused. People have put the entire series in, and we can't seem to rename the series to be, simply "The History of Middle Earth". This is another problem.

Okay, one point: on the Edit book page, to the right of the bottom of the cover image, there are two tabs. If you are on the Work Details tab, yes, you can't edit at all; this is a summary of everyone's copy of the book (Work-level record I mentioned before). The Book Details tab is just your own record. Click on the little pencil icon at top left of the box to edit it.

The whole series actually can be renamed, but it is tedious. It is done by going into the Common Knowledge record of each book in the series and changing the data in the Series field (first field in the list). This should be done with great caution, since fields in Common Knowledge affect everybody's record, not just yours - they are at the Work level.

You might be interested in reading the Series article in the WikiThing
http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Series
for some more background on series in general.

I think I've solved the part 1/part 2 miscombination problem: there was one book belonging to part 2 (with 5 owners) among the many actual part 1 books. I've separated it and recombined it with the proper work.

Now regarding the series: it is neither misnamed nor abused. The link on the book page is actually an alias for the canonical series page http://www.librarything.com/series/The+History+of+Middle-Earth

It's just a small bug regarding this newly introduced link (previously, the series could be reached through the Common Knowledge section of a work) that makes it look like the numbering is part of the series title. It isn't. Really.

#5 "Note "other editions" shows Part 1, but not Part 3 -- inconsistent at the least, inaccurate at worst (no omnibus overlaps in content, though the Index I have en route would overlap with all three). There's the first problem.
"

Other Editions - means other editions of the same work. ie. if the work has been released with various ISBNs you'll see them here. It has no connection at all with related works. There is no related works concept at LT yet.

@Felugund: From my book page for Part 2, I still see the "Omnibus 1-5" version of the series link, which doesn't go to the same series you link to.

reading_fox: Perhaps I wasn't clear. The relationship that Part 3 bears to Part 2 *should* be the same relationship that Part 2 bears with Part 1. If Part 1 is considered an "other edition" to Part 2, then Part 3 should be as well.

HOWEVER

None of the Parts share any content; they are not alternative editions of each other. They could (should), individually, be considered alternative editions of the individual works they each contain, but those again do not overlap.

Ergo, at least in my understanding of how this is supposed to work, that "other editions" section should *not* show Part 1, nor any work contained in Part 1 (being the first five books of the series to which Felagund links).

Am I making sense?

Based on the combining/separating thread (http://www.librarything.com/topic/76027), is it true that "other editions" are based on ISBN number? If so, that's pretty scary, and (since this is a recommendations forum) I'd certainly recommend against that. Sure, ask if they should be, but don't presume they are. "Shares ISBN with.." would be a much more accurate statement of the situation.

I'm not sure what you mean with "other editions". If you go to an editions page for a work - for example this one : http://www.librarything.com/work/19531/editions/52774830 - you'll see editions with and without ISBN mentioned, often in several languages. It takes a lot of manual combining (and/or separating) to get it this far and though ISBN plays a role it's certainly not the only factor.

However, it is not unreasonable for the system to suggest combining if two works share the same ISBN - is that what you mean? - since any ISBN should be unique and only used once. If that suggestion is in error it usually simply means that the publisher messed up - it happens. It only goes to show that suggestions should not always be followed automatically.

It was the case (earlier) that Part 1 was listed as another edition of Part 2 (not merely "suggested", at least as how it was presented in the UI). I think that's cleaned up now in this instance.

Now I think the rest is a matter of separating current works that are actually series of several works, and for that there's a different forum which I'll move to.

Thanks all -- this is the sort of site I'd started making when I got a cuecat years ago. Glad to know I don't have to, anymore. ;)