Everything Booklikes & Leafmarks discussion

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...


Locking is an automated process, not a manual one. As we start to import books from Amazon, when we find a match (generally based on ASIN or ISBN, plus at least one match between other data elements like author and title), that record is locked because it has a secondary validation.

However, because we know that sometimes even such matched books may need merging, we have enabled superlibrarian deletes of these items.

Which books get locked is still in flux, as we look at various options for managing metadata importing of books that already have records on Goodreads.

Yeah, I just read that and if I was still doing librarian work (and it is work!) I'd be stopping.

Amazon has famously bad metadata, everyone who's ever worked with it en masse knows that (and I have, outside of GR). It's one of the main reasons sites like this NEED librarians.

Sad now.

Just one more way this site is going down the crapper. I remember the days when we all scrambled to rid the site of Amazon data and rescue books so they wouldn't be deleted. What a slap in the face to all the librarians who input hours upon hours to help out.

Very sad.

Very, very sad.

I'm a superlibrarian. I've always been careful NOT to delete any editions. Have barely done any work since the Amazon announcement. (Already had less time for it before the Amazon fiasco.) All I've done is correct things I've cared about or things friends or others have asked me to do that they care about. But all work is now for naught, it turns out.

Once amazon's book currently for sale are listed in goodreads database, they could care less about the goodreads book data.

I'm wondering if that means, since alternate cover editions caused so many bba's and even otherwise normal authors to go apeshit over in librarians group that now:

If you want to shelve, list or use a particular bookcover in a group challenge but a kindle author wants to delete it -- guess who now wins that battle unless you pull in a superlibrarian to revoke the cover change?

Yes, the kindle author who can upload dozens and dozens of new bookcovers at will without obtaining a new isbn can delete bookcovers right off your bookshelves.

I wonder if superlibrarians revoking the illegal cover changes will have librarian privileges removed?

What about kindle authors who delete a book completely on amazon (thereby deleting its reviews) then later "republishes" it under under same or different author/title? Librarians and reviewers took a helluva lot of attacks and arguments from authors insisting old book with its negative reviews get deleted and that the new edition of the work could not say "original title whatever" and be combined with the republish.

Who wins in an argument between amazon data and superlibrarian edits?

The whole system was already a mess, actually. Because all members had to do to gain librarian status was have 50 books shelved, so many of my own editions, many OOP and very old and many first editions, with covers, were deleted by those librarians. Even so, this new change is extremely upsetting.

That's one advantage of LT: members' records cannot be changed by other members. It's always been a better cataloging site, and I fervently wish I'd always entered data into both sites, from the time I joined GR in May 2007. *sigh*

I wonder if the data lock only applies to librarians but goodreads authors can still edit?

Randolph wrote: "I even was a big goodreads cheerleader over LibraryThing but now I wish I had just kept that up all along."

I've got to get to my project which I've barely started: getting all my books over to LT, correcting as I go. It's not that I trust any online site at this point, but if I would just do it, I could get all my read books to the right info/edition. To-read I'll add whatever edition, and then I'd know that exported cvs files would be as accurate as I could make them. LT doesn't record read dates before a certain date though, and I'm so old that is a problem for me. I haven't checked to see if the notes field exports.

The notes field ... I do so wish goodreads would expand how many characters it holds. That would have been a compromise for me deleting reviews here; I could have just copied the review into a private note and still been able see when browsing book data and my own shelves. Moot point now. I've copied all my reviews off goodreads but after months working on, I don't have them all transferred to any other site.

D.A., As long as you have them on your computer, you can always choose a site/sites. I actually have all but maybe a dozen of my reviews (of course I don't know which dozen) in a very long word processing doc on my computer, but I didn't include star ratings.

I trusted GR and shouldn't have, and definitely didn't think ahead as much as I should have. At least I've always regularly exported my books, but while it used to be about once a week, it's now every day I make any changes to my book record, or quotes, as I export my quotes too.

Krazykiwi wrote: "Yeah, I just read that and if I was still doing librarian work (and it is work!) I'd be stopping.

Amazon has famously bad metadata, everyone who's ever worked with it en masse knows that (and I have, outside of GR). It's one of the main reasons sites like this NEED librarians.

Sad now."

Sandra wrote: "Just one more way this site is going down the crapper. I remember the days when we all scrambled to rid the site of Amazon data and rescue books so they wouldn't be deleted. What a slap in the face to all the librarians who input hours upon hours to help out.

Very sad."

Amen to both. Cleaning up Amazon's monumental mess on the data imported from them was a huge chore, but I was happy to help doing it in the old days. Man, I am glad I've cut down on my librarian edits -- there really isn't any point anymore now ... nor any respect for years of dedication to this site. Well, if they're determined to let this site go to the dogs, they're welcome to it.

As for our own book records ... Lisa is right I'm afraid, there just is no site out there you can trust absolutely. There's nothing for it but to scrupulously keep on our own computers! (Ditto for quotes.)

Randolph, Mine is so large I have 2 files, including one "full" one. I occasionally get that timeout message. I generally keep trying. It's sometimes good to do it when it's "off" hours in the U.S. How often do you try in a row?

I've never figured out how to divide up the cvs files before exporting, but maybe there is a way.

Otherwise, report it. You might be on a funky, full server.

Good luck. I know how frustrating it can be. When I can't export now, I get panicky, swearing once again I won't make any additions here.

Randolph wrote: "I know this is the wrong place to post this but my export goodreads .csv file is very large and I always get a "Gateway Timeout" 503 when I try to import into LibraryThing. Anyone know how to get ..."

Check your spreadsheet or other software for directions on "parsing" or "parse" the csv file. Some spreadshhet programs your review column will look wonky unless you set that column to word-wrap.

Or manually open main csv in text editor (making sure to save all files as unformatted text), copy the first line (field names or titles) over to a blank file. Save that file to get your fieldnames. Start creating new, smaller files (fewer lines) by adding the field/title line at top of file then clipping a number pf rows from main csv file underneath totke line; save and repeat for next chunk of lines.

Some sites, browsers and internet connections won't upload more than 200 or so lines/records at a time. Not sure about LibraryThing exactly. But 200 is safe for fictiondb, The Reading Room and BookRabbit. Booklikes should handle whole file.

I recommend Book Collector. I have a lifetime LT membership and I'm at BL but I prefer to have 100% control over my data now.

Screw anyone getting to decide what my shelves look like. I'll hopefully find a real social book home but until then my data is safe, my notes are safe, my books are logged and stored on my own computer.

http://www.collectorz.com/book/

Looks like an interesting site. I wish some site would let me import non-ISBN books by title and author only though.

Lisa wrote: "Looks like an interesting site. I wish some site would let me import non-ISBN books by title and author only though."

I wish I had some money. I'd create a new website for social reading. I have some great ideas (IMO, lol) to help keep the clashes down to a min but no $$$ to pull together a sample site to get started with a kickstarter.

:(

MrsJoseph, and I'd join and I'd pay a members' fee, as long as it was reasonably affordable. Yes, I'm waiting and hoping for that type of site!

Lisa wrote: "MrsJoseph, and I'd join and I'd pay a members' fee, as long as it was reasonably affordable. Yes, I'm waiting and hoping for that type of site!"

Yep, that's where I am right now, too. I don't have the money or the technical know how to build that better mouse trap. But it will happen...eventually.

Or I'll eventually find some young and eager student desperate to start to sharpen their skills and we'll embark on the journey together.


*sigh*

I dream big, don't I?

Well, I've had the same dream since the Amazon announcement. Many of us have!

Lisa wrote: "Looks like an interesting site. I wish some site would let me import non-ISBN books by title and author only though."

You can do that on your computer with Calibre, which is how I've kept track of my reading since Amazon bought GR.

Lisa wrote: "Well, I've had the same dream since the Amazon announcement. Many of us have!"

:-) I know, right?

MrsJoseph (taking back my data & giving GR the middle finger) wrote: "I recommend Book Collector. I have a lifetime LT membership and I'm at BL but I prefer to have 100% control over my data now.

Screw anyone getting to decide what my shelves look like. I'll hopef..."

Thanks for the site!!
This looks promising. I used to keep an excel spreadsheet and then got away from it when I joined this site. I really feel the need to protect my notes and this looks quite promising so thanks again

willaful wrote: "Lisa wrote: "Looks like an interesting site. I wish some site would let me import non-ISBN books by title and author only though."

You can do that on your computer with Calibre, which is how I've ..."

How? I use it to store my ebooks but how do I use it for others??

Charming wrote: "https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...


Locking is an automated process, not a manual one. As we start to import books from Amazon, when we find a match (generally based on ..."


Yeah I started doing librarian work with the amazon mess I knew they would be the overriding party but dang it stings.

Stings and the blasted inaccuracies in the amazon data was a big part of what made work for librarians in the first place. Amazon is not Bowkers or any other isbn agency, Library of Congress or other library system with huge database, big five publisher or any other recognized authority in the book data area. I don't care how big they are, when it comes to books they are a bookseller and no way in hell is their data better than even the Ingram/onix or publisher data feeds much less better than something already reviewed and settled via librarian policies or consensus. Ridiculous!

And another way of vandalizing our book catalogs. That is, shelve a specific isbn edition with a specific bookcover then amazon moves isbn around or overwrites the bookcovers just because the spa author is allowed to do so on the amazon.com site—and screw however members of goodreads chose to organize their books or which edition they wanted to shelve.

Dawn wrote: "Thanks for the site!!
This looks promising. I used to keep an excel spreadsheet and then got away from it when I joined this site. I really feel the need to protect my notes and this looks quite promising so thanks again "

Welcome!

Dawn wrote: "How? I use it to store my ebooks but how do I use it for others?? "

You can add manual entries, I believe. And there are tons of plugins.

If you have time/inclination check out this forum: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/foru...

This site is focused on mobile reading technology and there's a lot of super smart people there who have created guides, wikis, plugins, etc.

Here's the Calibre Wiki: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Calibre

MrsJoseph (taking back my data & giving GR the middle finger) wrote: "I recommend Book Collector. I have a lifetime LT membership and I'm at BL but I prefer to have 100% control over my data now.
..."

Lisa, this program was made for you. I used it for years for my bookshop data. I just use an Excel file now because it is faster for what I want. If I just want to catalogue again though, I would use Collectorz. I had the Pro edition which lets you export with a csv file. I am sure I used to import books without an isbn, but I am not sure that an isbn didn't then get attached to it. It was a while...

Lisa wrote: "MrsJoseph, and I'd join and I'd pay a members' fee, as long as it was reasonably affordable. Yes, I'm waiting and hoping for that type of site!"

Me too. I would definitely pay for a booksite that was both serious about data and very social.

I like BookLikes, but there is just no emphasis on book data at all. I do wonder though if doing things like bookpages isn't so difficult that it is something being worked on that will emerge.

Fish Lips wrote: "Me too. I would definitely pay for a booksite that was both serious about data and very social.

I like BookLikes, but there is just no emphasis on book data at all. I do wonder though if doing things like bookpages isn't so difficult that it is something being worked on that will emerge. "

Yeah, i just don't understand.

To use calibre just for book info, click on the little arrow next to "add books." You can add with the ISBN, which is easiest, or pick "empty book" and add with author's name. Then go into metadata, add the title and download the rest of the info. You can make separate libraries to hold this info. I currently have a library of my owned ebooks, one of my books I've read, one of my TBR and one of all my imported GoodReads information.

I agree booklikes sucks for cataloging books or any other book data including reviews, series information, editions, etc.

But, I have high hopes that in a few months it will have the book data stuff addressed wonderfully.

(Of course, in a few months some other sites may have stepped up or started up to compete.)

At any rate, I'm still willing to give booklikes a chance. But they are not the only site I'm trusting with my content -- particularly with no export feature. All other features aside, I'm not at this time willing to try any sites that won't import csv file; and I'm not making any site with no export option my primary book catalog/content site.

*smirk* playing with searching some of my transferred review content on assorted search engines - booklikes showed first when it always used to be goodreads and almost a whole screen of goodreads links before amazon or anyone else showed up.

(Well, I may be smirking too soon about those search results if it means the trolls will now start hitting booklikes -- but, who wants to give any weight to trolls?)

I noticed that some of the newly imported Kindle editions have ISBNs instead of ASINs, I just facepalmed and moved on.

Yeah, amazon added searching kindles by isbn to their website fairly recently but still only displays asin numbers. So pretty much the entire book community outside the book author looking for a kindle book only has the asin shown on amazon's site or shown on their kindle device/apps. There's an isbn behind every asin but durned if anyone (but author) knows it or knows how to obtain.

I guess it helps the sockpuppet and paid reviewer accounts given the unseen isbn by author of book.

But, once again, who cares what is useful to readers? Or how much effort librarians put into making sure kindle editions had correct asin?

For what it's worth, BookLikes just recently had this response to one of Petra X's posts in Bug Reports:

#5 It will change with new book data base.

(this was in response to Petra X reporting author names missing from book records)

Sounds like they are actively working on a new BookLikes book database. While I can not *wait* to get it, I hope they're taking care to build it well and not build it fast...

Well, that'll be something to look forward to, then!

I don't add a lot of books, but I do add author and narrator profiles and pictures quite a bit. I also add pictures of books when I have extra time because some of the ones I read/listen to are pretty old.

When Goodreads hated Amazon, I did spend a really long time adding info for Kindle books. I don't know if this was a standoff between Goodreads and Amazon where we pretended Amazon didn't matter to Goodreads, but I feel like they shouldn't have used us, their members for this. Goodreads should have worked overtime to fix as many books as they can.

The thing I'm finding though, is some of my old Kindle books are not longer listed on Amazon, which just seems wrong, especially if there appears to be no other version out there. I don't know where to go to get the information to add the book to Goodreads if it's not available anywhere else now. I have a list of reviews for several books that this has happened to.

MrsJoseph (taking back my data & giving GR the middle finger) wrote: "Dawn wrote: "How? I use it to store my ebooks but how do I use it for others?? "

You can add manual entries, I believe. And there are tons of plugins.

If you have time/inclination check out th..."

Oh cool who knew they had a wiki?? I use it for my ebooks but maybe there is more stuff I can do.

Carolyn F. wrote: "When Goodreads hated Amazon, I did spend a really long time adding info for Kindle books. I don't know if this was a standoff between Goodreads and Amazon where we pretended Amazon didn't matter to Goodreads, but I feel like they shouldn't have used us, their members for this. Goodreads should have worked overtime to fix as many books as they can..."

That hate-time was a whole nasty kerflunkle with posts about as long as the September announcement thread. Basically amazon has a data feed they make available to sites who agree to a TOS. For years, goodreads was okay with the feed TOS and used (resulting in a lot of librarian edits needed but at least all the kindle exclusives imported to goodreads database).

Then a couple of years back amazon rewrote the TOS to where only sites who would show amazon as the only bookseller on book data page could use. Goodreads pretty much told them to fuck off. They said it was okay if goodreads wanted to put a link readers could click to other booksellers but no purchase links, green get a copy buttons (not even member customizable or library ones) or other bookseller ads anywhere on book page; amazon only could show as place to purchase book. Goodreads refused.

Okay, that was bad enough.

Then amazon decided they would threaten to take goodreads to court, not for still using data feed once TOS changed, but to force goodreads to remove any existing data previously obtained from amazon under the old TOS (Actually, there are a zillion sites who would not even begin to know how to handle that and would have to destroy their database trying to comply.) goodreads told them where to get off and removed data replacing titles with "unknown book ####" and authors with "unknown author ####" and furious librarians would seach for the unknowns and attempt to restore. A year's worth of work. More than 20,000 pages of search results when I was much later made a librarian and a sisyphus list that librarians were always asked to spend at least part of their editing times restoring. No doubt 100+ times that before I was aware of the list.

Librarians began persistently blaming and bashing amazon in their anger (some fun posts if they haven't been deleted). About like the non-announcement in September that creeps into every current thread.

Not revisiting all of it; feedback and librarians group have plenty. I know I spent a minimum of four hours every weekend restoring the unknowns (admittedly a good way for new librarians to get used to the system).

Incidentally, that data feed TOS is why places like fictfact on the book pages have purchase links for "amazon" and "other" -- not because of some partnership with amazon but in order to use the data feed. Possibly (I don't know for fact) a factor in how booklikes let's you see one vendor at a time—that is ot avoid those issues (although I don't believe booklikes uses data feed but rather searches data when requested, certainly doesn't seem to have all kindle books anywhere nor do they seem to use the same ingram/onix feed nearly all bookstores and booksites, including goodreads use.)

ETA: angry typing typos; apparently I'm still angry that existing data had to be removed and us sucker librarians wasted months of time restoring only to have amazon buy ... *gag* ... And to now lockout librarians ...

D.A. - one last team challenge ☺ - wrote: "And to now lockout librarians ...."

Whoa! Okay, I'm not spending that much time here these days so I don't get through all the posts even in my few favorite groups.

What did I miss?

Lisa, you missed that all the records from Amazon's feed are now locked. They can't be changed by librarians regardless of how inaccurate they are. Today I did a search to obtain a book that I was interested in but couldn't find because Amazon had the wrong ISBN. And now that can't be changed.

I bet that authors effected by inaccuracies that make their books unfindable will complain, and they will then have to do something for the authors.

Shomeret wrote: "I bet that authors effected by inaccuracies that make their books unfindable will complain, and they will then have to do something for the authors. ..."

I think SPA authors can change a lot of data on amazon so maybe instead of complaining they'll just change it there then presumably imports here?

Here on goodreads, is it only librarians who cannot correct amazon data imports or are the goodreads authors also locked out of?

I have no idea what they are thinking. I mean for crying out loud if you don't think a librarian is following policy (or is really a paid reviewer/sockpuppet as advertised on fivver and other sites) and won't listen, revoke their librarian privileges and move on (not like amazon didn't add an option to flag librarian edits). If you don't want librarians, then discontinue the program. This passive/aggressive annoy them until they quit therefore not our fault and we won't get bad pr when we shut the librarian program down due to lack of participants ...

Rip that durn bandaid off all at once so the remaining librarians can relax and enjoy the holidays without dealing with all the new to goodreads goofs new kindle users are likely to make ... er ... nevermind. I think I just answered my own question. Of course they want new kindle users to be able to access librarian help for a while.

Shomeret wrote: "Lisa, you missed that all the records from Amazon's feed are now locked. They can't be changed by librarians regardless of how inaccurate they are."

Ugh! Profanity isn't my thing but I feel like swearing right now. Thanks for that info, Shomeret.

For not the first time, I wish I'd gotten a complete (accurate) copy of all my books over to LibraryThing.

Do we know for sure this affects Superlibrarians. I am one. But I assume so.

I wonder if it locks out paid staff too. Does anybody know?

I believe, if I remember what I read, that Supers are the only ones that can edit a locked record.

Carolyn F. wrote: "When Goodreads hated Amazon, I did spend a really long time adding info for Kindle books. I don't know if this was a standoff between Goodreads and Amazon where we pretended Amazon didn't matter to Goodreads, but I feel like they shouldn't have used us, their members for this. Goodreads should have worked overtime to fix as many books as they can. "

I've concluded that Goodreads was demonstrating to Amazon that it was worth paying big bucks for - "you need us more than we need you." The timing is just too coincidental otherwise. So I did my part in making the acquisition possible by adding covers to hundreds of books! Awesome!

❂ Jennifer (reviews on BookLikes) wrote: "I believe, if I remember what I read, that Supers are the only ones that can edit a locked record."

FYI, I think that the lock-out only applies to deletions (and yes, only supers delete dup/errant imports). I know that I was able to edit a few of the amazon_kcw imports and I'm not a super. (Mentioning b/c fixed something for an author today--import added extra space to her name for some reason.)

I did the same.

I feel fucked over, too.

I would spend something something like 30+ hours a week digging through and cleaning up the unknowns. I mean I made a major dent in the shit.

I still have a shitload of them attached to my "favorites" profile as that's where I would save them to go back to them with ease.

Fuck goodreads and their amazon bullshit.

This is why I am no longer trusting ANY internet site with MY data. BL inherited a bitter woman.

I'm not your bitch, don't hand your shit on me.

Well, I am a super, but have little time these days (to even read) and not too much inclination to do librarian work here, though I've corrected a few things I care about or that friends have asked to to change.

PM me if there is something that's driving you crazy and I'll try to correct it, but I make no promises, especially if I get many requests.

Lisa wrote: "Well, I am a super, but have little time these days (to even read) and not too much inclination to do librarian work here, though I've corrected a few things I care about or that friends have asked..."

Cool

I'm not likely to do much myself. I'm still a librarian but... no passion.