Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

"An Exaltation of Larks" has an "ultimate edition" and the standard edition, which I believe is still in print. They have been combined but a quick search shows that they have very different content, the "ultimate" being greatly expanded.

It seems like these need to be separated, but will that screw up the reviews?

Define "greatly expanded", please?

Much stuff added.

http://www.amazon.com/Exaltation-Lark...

Amazon has very little information about the differences, but from what I can see, they are no more different than many revised editions, and we combine those. I suggest keeping the editions combined.

Any GR reader with more than one edition of a book can rate each one individually.

this is from someone's review on Amazon, and someone's review here says the same thing.

>Where the 1968 edition--which has never been out of print--had only had 118 pages and 175 terms, the Ultimate edition has 300 pages and 1,100 terms.<

So it's a much different book apparently. I haven't actually seen the new one though.

It might be more trouble than I want to get into.

I missed that review. Hmm.

Someone else want to weigh in on this? I'm conflicted.

Hmm. I'm usually on the "when in doubt, combine" side, but this does sound like a strong case for separation. And the title did change, even if only by a token. (Maybe it's like X-Men and Ultimate X-Men? *grin*)

My thought is that if it's different enough that your review would reflect that difference then it probably should be separate. As in "I like it more/less than the original". A new forward probably wouldn't fall in that category, but this one seems to, to me.

My thought is that if it's different enough that your review would reflect that difference then it probably should be separate.

But we clearly don't follow that guideline -- we combine audio books with dead tree books, we combine abridged editions with unabridged, etc.

Indeed, and who knows what difference people chose to highlight in their reviews? I've been known to give a paragraph on new cover art.

This edition, though, apparently has over half of its material new, which seems textually significant.

Edited to add: Okay, I'll do it. Separated!

over half

I agree -- that's the key point.

That was the consensus that was reached. I think . . .

I find it hard to see how a review of the abridged audio book relates to the real book. I understand the point about not being able to see reviews if too many things are separated, but why would I want to see that review? Would we combine Cliff Notes then?

Cliff Notes are a distinctly separate work in a way that an audio book (abridged or otherwise) is not.

Probably a good idea. :)

I generally follow the "substantially different" rule in combining abridgments -- like, if a 300-page novel is suddenly a 30-page kids' book, I don't combine, but if it's a "reading level x" book for schools with 150 pages, I usually will....

Agreed. Although sometimes it's not so easy to tell from the available info.

Are annual editions of a textbook or medical book supposed to be combined if their titles include the years of the edition? There are many examples but here is one.

See David B. Reuben (sorry, can't seem to get the link inserted this morning).
Thanks. :)

Textbooks, yes. We had a long discussion on that one. I think medical books (you mean like the DSM and such, yes?) would fall in the same category.

Ivo Andric's

A Ponte Sobre o Drina and A Ponte sobre o Drina are the same book (added by the same GR member :)

I don't know what to do. Please advice so I can do next time.

Thanks

Heather, I think that makes sense. Might want to make a Librarian Comment (or maybe a Note) on the kids' adaptation.

David, separate those two from the other editions, so they are combined just with each other. Then delete one, and recombine the other back with the editions in other languages.

Thanks rivka

Right away!

Could someone point me to instructions on how to separate books please?

I checked for duplicates in my books & found that Deathstalker & Deathstalker Legacy show as the same book. Apparently someone added the latter to the former as one of its editions. They're not the same, but part of a series.

There's also "Traquemort. Le proscrit (Broché)" listed as an edition of "Death Stalker" & my high school French fails me. "Death Stalker: Rebellion"?

I have another case that needs separating here:
http://www.goodreads.com/work/edition...
There are 10 singly published books in
The Great Book of Amber The Complete Amber Chronicles, 1-10

There are only the first 5 books in The Chronicles of Amber: Two Volume Set (Hardcover) which is listed as an edition of the above. They should be an edition all on their own, with their translations.

I'd like to fix this, but I don't know how to break them off into their own book & then move the translations to them.

The easiest way to separate multiple books is to use the separate tool. The link is on the combine page, at the bottom of each group of editions.

Thank you. It's very intuitive to use, once you told me what to look for. I made some changes to Simon R. Green's DeathStalker books & to Roger Zelazny's book.

I could not separate out books from Zelazny's Great Book of Amber. It has lots of other editions that are incorrect. It shouldn't have any other editions & those listed under it are 2 separate editions; one is a 2 volume set, the other is a 1 volume set. When I tried to separate either one out I get an error:
"Sorry, undefined method `each' for nil:NilClass"

Please help & if someone wouldn't mind making sure that my changes that did work were correct, I'd appreciate it.

If you're getting weird errors like that, try editing and saving (without making any changes) the specific book records. Then try again.

If you still get an error, I suggest emailing MICHAEL. He has a special touch with odd database weirdnesses like that.

And yeah, the separate tool is one of the best presents the GR team gave us librarians. :)

Thank you.

Looks like someone else took care of the issue. Thanks to whoever it was!

I am not sure is this right discussion, but I think that Gaiman's Coraline & Other Stories in the link

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/67...

should be separated from the rest of Coraline's editions, as I think that all the others are just one story, above-said Coraline?

I have separated it out

I'm going to use this thread for a question that came up for me the other day (and I'm sure it's already been discussed) - if a book has "bonus materials" should it be combined with the others? I thought so but I've been seeing them separately. For example, http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14... and http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12...

In general, I would say yes. But to some degree it depends how long the bonus additions are, I would think.

rivka wrote: "In general, I would say yes. But to some degree it depends how long the bonus additions are, I would think."

The ones I'm thinking of pretty much have a sneak peek and some extra character info, nothing major. Thanks!