Better work combining
Until now, work combination was an author thing, if two works didn't share authors they couldn't be combined. This is good enough most of the time. But some works have multiple authors with different ones taking the "main author" spot in different catalogs. And it didn't work with authorless works.
For now, you can't combine any work, but only ones that share an ISBN. The list of potential combinations is available on each work's "book information" page (
), at the bottom of the page. If it proves useful and popular, I may move it.
Here's a good example—three editions of (multi-author) Cluetrain Manifesto that weren't combined with the main one:
But not every suggestion is good. Here's The Rule of Four. I have no idea what that Babichev book is doing there. It might be member error, a source error, a publisher reusing ISBNs or a rogue publishing reusing a known number instead of paying for a new one. Anyway, I suggest you don't combine it!
Unfortunately, this doesn't fix authors generally. The Cluetrain Manifesto is still listed under a single "main" author. We hope to change that soon.
For now, you can't combine any work, but only ones that share an ISBN. The list of potential combinations is available on each work's "book information" page (
), at the bottom of the page. If it proves useful and popular, I may move it.Here's a good example—three editions of (multi-author) Cluetrain Manifesto that weren't combined with the main one:
But not every suggestion is good. Here's The Rule of Four. I have no idea what that Babichev book is doing there. It might be member error, a source error, a publisher reusing ISBNs or a rogue publishing reusing a known number instead of paying for a new one. Anyway, I suggest you don't combine it!
Unfortunately, this doesn't fix authors generally. The Cluetrain Manifesto is still listed under a single "main" author. We hope to change that soon.
posted by Tim at 9:02 PM
22 Comments:
Yaaaaaaaay! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Seems to be a good start. :)
All those trades with writers and artists can be joined together in a lot of cases, which is great.
I'm just checking before I start getting too carried away:
Does combing works in this fashion effect in anyway authors? I'd hate to combine works of a popularly incorrect author pair, and end up messing their whole catalog together. (ie the whole Gaiman/Pratchett debacle.
If I understand you correctly, you're asking if doing this also combines the authors. No, it only affects the works.
Yep, that's what I meant.
Not sure its working right though, have a look through the Combiners New-Never feature thread. Blue Salamander ran into problems with a Chrisitne Richey work, so I haven't persued the matter.
The option to combine works without going through the author page is excellent. We can finally get to all of those books with no author entered. However, finding books that need combining is a grand task.
Would it be possible to work up a search option that would identify books in your library that have potential combinations?
>Would it be possible to work up a search option that would identify books in your library that have potential combinations?
Yes. I'll think about it.
Thanks,
Tim
Good idea eromsted
I'm wondering, could this be extended to all the related ISBN's, such as the list generated from ThingISBN? I haven't thought this out, but if I remember right, the related ISBN's are just other editions, correct? We would want those combined.
although, it would be a really fun feature to be able to see how many libraries have a certain publisher's edition of a particular work...hmmm Zeitgeist perhaps, someday? :D
Just great, Tim ... and it came soon after I wrote Abby about a problem I had with multiple entries of Blab Magazine et al.
While I was combining, I found suggestions for combining (some very useful) that seemed to go beyond the duplicate ISBN matching you instituted, i.e., after I combined two with the same ISBN, in some cases I got a list of "possible" matches, and I was able to select a few that I was certain were the same issue. Since this ISBN announcement, have you expanded the matching capability?
Anyway, thanks for a wonderful new feature!
Serph, if you're watcthing this, can you give me some examples. Strictly-speaking magazines should have ISSNs, not ISBNs, and it shouldn't be matching those. Can you shoot me what you were combining?
That was fast, Tim!
I looked at my Blab's, and they all seem to have ISBNs rather than ISSNs.
I found the same to be true of some other comics/art periodicals such as Kramers Ergot AND Ganzfeld. These publications are indeed attractive and substantial enough to warrant treatment as monographs, but I guess that they should still follow the rules--at least those publications that come out at regular intervals.
I sort of went nuts combining everyone's Blabs, so you need to search the title "Blab," and most of what you'll come up with is that title. I combined so many that I can't point you to a specific one.
I merely took any Blab 6, e.g., Blab #6/Blab 6/Blab 6 by Fantagraphics/Blab by Monte Beauchamp Nr 6, and combined them all.
It seems that once I combined the suggested ones, I was then presented with another list of "possible" further combinations that were a mixed bag of anything with Blab and numbers. I was then able to find a couple more combinations.
Perhaps the above happened because I failed to do some combining the first time around.
I hope that I've explained this enough for you to investigate.
Bob
Bob,
So, chances are, someone has some ratty data that has ISBNs for the wrong volumes. I think sometimes people add the same volume multiple times and then change the titles, not bothering to change the ISBN. Anyway, the answer to to separate the ones that are wrong, and not listen to the "potential combinations." Does this make sense, or is there a software fix?
Thanks, Tim, it makes sense. Bob
Tim,
Combining is all very fine, but it has its disadvantages when one's trying to find all copies of a work in a specific language. It seems to be impossible, for example, to find all the Latin copies of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets unless you go to the trouble of separating all the Latin versions from the main work (and if you do that, somebody else will come along and recombine them in short order). Could some feature be added to the book information page that lets you identify copies in a specific language?
I have trouble combining books with editors, where occasionally the editor is listed in the biblio feed and other times it is left off.
For instance, try this search for Guide to Economic Indicators. 4 of those works are the same, but I can only combine the two that share an author.
My company published that book, so it's of particular interest. But I know that there are so many programming hours in a day to develop solutions for work for every scenario.
Yes. It's can be done.
What would you like to see? Users who have it? Reviews? What?
Andrew: You can combine them by looking at the card-catalog page. It has the combination potential at the bottom. I was able to combine 5 of them. Now there are still two editions. They share neither author nor ISBN. Eventually, I may allow totally arbitrary combinations--important for pre-ISBN books. For now, I want to see this develop a bit more before opening the sluice gates some more ;)
Tim: Mostly I'd like to see users who have the book in a specific language. That would be great!
Tim: thanks for replying. I looked on (what I think is) the card catalog page and couldn't find a way to combine these works, which my company also published. Can you (or someone else reading this) post a link to a sample card catalog page and the text that I should be looking for on that page? Many thanks.
hope LibraryThing is better prepared for 13 digit ISBN
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