Problems with the "Description" section of the TinyCat catalog

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Problems with the "Description" section of the TinyCat catalog

1ChicagoHerpSociety
mrt 29, 2018, 4:52 am

Sometimes the Description section is blank and I'd like to add information. Sometimes it pulls in information I don't want. Sometimes it pulls in info about a totally different title!

Here's a book which I just added. My search from the Add Books page using the Amazon check-off provided the proper book with good data and a good cover photo. I selected it and it entered my catalog.
https://www.librarycat.org/lib/ChicagoHerpSociety/item/154412897

1.) The cover photo was not pulled over, so a dummy jacket is shown.
2.) The description is for a totally different book from a different author and publisher. Yikes!

Obviously, I can go grab a dust jacket photo online and manually insert it. But why is this happening? Of far more importance to me is my (apparent) inability to control what goes into the Description section. Am I just missing something, or can we really not edit this material? Help! And thanks.

2MarthaJeanne
mrt 29, 2018, 5:41 am

Descriptions are pulled in by ISBN. Apparently the publisher reused the ISBN.

3ChicagoHerpSociety
mrt 29, 2018, 6:01 am

But in the example above, when I manually enter a second copy of this title and specifically omit the ISBN, the Description still pulls in the bad data. From somewhere.

This kinda defeats the speed aspect of entering by ISBNs if we have to double-check every aspect of the data in each record, doesn't it?

But speed is really not a big consideration for me. I'm really concerned about how to get rid of lousy information - and in building the best possible descriptions.

4MarthaJeanne
mrt 29, 2018, 6:02 am

The ISBN is associated with the work, not just the individual copy.

5ChicagoHerpSociety
mrt 29, 2018, 6:50 am

For TinyCat display:
1.) Can we "turn off" the Description section for one or all titles?
2.) Where do we add our own supplemental information to a book entry?

6casvelyn
Bewerkt: mrt 29, 2018, 10:35 am

1) You can turn almost any section on or off in TinyCat under Settings > Detail page sections. You can also rearrange the section order there. I believe you have to have the sections totally on or totally off; there's not customization for individual books.

2) You can put your own information in the Comments field on LibraryThing, which will then show up in the Local Notes field on TinyCat. You have to make the Local Notes field active as explained in 1) to have it show up on TinyCat; I don't think it's a default section.

7kristilabrie
Bewerkt: mrt 29, 2018, 10:41 am

>5 ChicagoHerpSociety:

1. Yes. You should explore your TinyCat Settings, particularly your Detail page Sections Settings here, for removing "Description": https://www.librarycat.org/admin/settings/sections.

2. It depends on what you're looking to add. You can add "Tags" to your books (for things like your own subjects, categories, or any other way you want to tag your items), for example.

There's also LT's "Comments" field, where you can add anything extra you need (such as your own book descriptions, or live links to online resources, etc.). LibraryThing's Comments field will show up as "Local notes" on your Detail pages, but you can now customize the name of that field to anything you need, from your Detail page Settings: https://www.librarycat.org/admin/settings/detail. I hope this helps!

ETA: >6 casvelyn: beat me to the punch on most of this :)

8ChicagoHerpSociety
mrt 29, 2018, 12:16 pm

Excellent! Thank you both. Problems solved. Although in the case of turning off Descriptions it was like cutting off my nose to spite my face. Is there really no way to edit that section? Or is that a possibility in the future?

9kristilabrie
mrt 29, 2018, 4:06 pm

>8 ChicagoHerpSociety: TinyCat's "Description" pulls from LibraryThing's "Library description", which you see on work/book pages in LT, and comes from our library data sources. The ability to edit that field is unlikely. I can't rule out that we might consider allowing libraries to add their own book descriptions to TinyCat (whether this would pull from the "LibraryThing members' description" or what), but in the meantime you can always use LT's "Comments" field.

10littleone1996
Bewerkt: mrt 14, 2020, 3:35 am

I just converted my library to TinyCat, and I have been working on editing my LibraryThing individual book details and rearranging my TinyCat settings details page. My hope is to eventually convert to a volunteer lending library, so I am working hard to make my catalog look neat, organized, and helpful to patrons.

The one problem I am running into is the one discussed above - the problem of the "Description" section's limitations. Many times a book in my catalog doesn't already have a description, or the description is inaccurate or poorly written.

On one book, I tried adding a description manually in the "LibraryThing member's description" section ( https://www.librarything.com/work/9252269/descriptions/179699236 a description I originally wrote for Goodreads), but quickly realized that this would not carry over to TinyCat.

I thought about just hiding the "Description" section completely and using the "Local Notes" section for my own created description, but that solution also presents a dilemma. If I go that route, I no longer have this "Local Notes" section available for secondary, aside notes that don't necessarily belong in a summary book description, like letting patrons know a particular book is not for general checkout and has special instructions or that a particular TV season set is missing a DVD. Or, as another example, there are certain history books where I need to add a concise summary description, but I also want to add "Local Notes" to let my patrons know a little bit more about what key things the book covers. I have used tagging extensively to this end, but you can only have so many tags before it gets chaotic and defeats your purpose of being helpful. Ex: On this book https://www.librarything.com/work/12016730/book/178172703 , I have my usual tags for history categories, individual wars, individual nations, etc. But I would also like to tell my readers that the book has a significant coverage of the Medicine Creek Treaty Council, the Battle of Toppenish Creek, and various other events and persons. If I have already used my "Local Notes" section for a summary description, it leaves no room for such things as special instructions and book keys.

I have been greatly enjoying TinyCat and am excited about using it in the future. But I have to admit that it would be a welcome improvement if there was an option for creating your own book description that you could set TinyCat to default to. Does anyone know a way I can work around this hurdle?

11kristilabrie
mrt 16, 2020, 10:37 am

>10 littleone1996: So, yeah, the "Description" field pulls from the Library description/s on LibraryThing's end. That said, you can now vote those descriptions up or down and those votes get taken into account each night.

If you want to add your own descriptions, we do recommend the "Local notes" bit, though I see your trouble of the field being used for other things:

  • Re: books not for general checkout, you could apply a custom lending status to those books from your Check in/out page (still marking the book as available for loan) by using the Other > Other... status menu and create an appropriate status for those books.

  • Re: missing components of an item, perhaps you could add custom Media types for this (incomplete DVD set, etc.). I realize it's not ideal but perhaps it would work for you.

  • Re: the more in-depth descriptions, I would think these are fine to add below your general descriptions. Those that care about the extra info would read on and those that don't can keep scrolling/ignore. You could also add your own reviews to those books and include your "Library's review" on your detail pages in TinyCat.


I'm also making note of your request to use your own descriptions on TinyCat's end, and we'll be sure to announce any updates on that front. I appreciate your patience in the meantime, and hope my suggestions are of some help.

12littleone1996
mrt 20, 2020, 2:18 am

Those are all helpful suggestions. Thanks very much. I'll go ahead and do some tinkering and try some of that out. Thanks for making note of my request too. I appreciate your kind help.

13LBKennedy
Bewerkt: sep 30, 2022, 6:14 pm

Dit bericht is door zijn auteur gewist.

14LBKennedy
sep 30, 2022, 6:23 pm

The description seems to come from the "Work detail" in LT. The Work information/detail for 2 of my records is not for the item I added - it's the wrong format (musical score vs sound recording on 78 records), wrong date, and wrong edition (title does not match!). How can I decouple my records (imported in MARC format from LoC) from these incorrect ones?

15gilroy
okt 1, 2022, 7:30 am

>14 LBKennedy: Can you give us the links to the offending pieces? We can help you sort them out.

16MarthaJeanne
okt 1, 2022, 10:27 am

One of the most important things in keeping scores and performances separate is having something in the title to make it clear what work your entry belongs in. All copies of Gaspard de la nuit by Maurice Ravel will otherwise end up in a single work.

17LBKennedy
okt 1, 2022, 11:51 am

>15 gilroy: Can I just copy links from my edit page and the work detail page when I'm logged in?

18LBKennedy
Bewerkt: okt 1, 2022, 12:07 pm

>16 MarthaJeanne: I am importing a MARC record from LoC - I didn't want to change the title. But if I do change it, is there a standard format for adding things. Date? Publisher? Performer? I have now added those 3 things to my title, and also changed Melvil and LC info in my record - but it still wants to link to the manuscript, ignoring my changes to Melvil and LCC. What does "recalculate title/author" do?

19MarthaJeanne
okt 1, 2022, 12:12 pm

>18 LBKennedy: It recalculates the work title and author. What you need to is separate your copy from the work on the edition page.

20LBKennedy
Bewerkt: okt 1, 2022, 12:38 pm

>19 MarthaJeanne: Ok. I separated my Sound Recording from the Work on the Editions page - and that seems to be what I want to do. Wonderful.

So do I really need to change my title? Or just separate my edition if it gets linked to the wrong Work? (The LoC title for my edition didn't seem to match the title of the Work that it got attached to - do you know what field in my copy is used to attach it to a Work).

And if I now change my title, will it get linked back to the Work it was originally linked to?

I see now that adding the performer, publisher, and date to the title is helpful in the LibraryCat displays! (Adventures in adding sound recordings.)

And when would I want to recalculate the title/author? Thanks.

21MarthaJeanne
okt 1, 2022, 1:30 pm

If you take that info out of your title it probably won't autocombine back in. It will probably be combined in the next time someone works on that work or author.

When I am the first person to enter a work, often the title is over long, or has weird characters or is otherwise not optimal. Once I have changed my record, clicking on that makes the computer look again and it choses my version over the version that now has no entries.

22jjwilson61
okt 2, 2022, 10:35 am

Wait a minute. Separation is only half the process. Once separated shouldn't the edition be combined with the correct work if it exists?

23MarthaJeanne
okt 2, 2022, 10:49 am

>22 jjwilson61: Well, yes, if there is a work already of that performance, and if you can find it ... LT is not well suited to cataloguing music that is available in many different printed forms as well as lots of different recordings by different performers with various other pieces on the CD.

24LBKennedy
okt 6, 2022, 9:11 am

>22 jjwilson61: I'm cataloging 78 rpm classical music sound recordings from the 1920s to 1940s - where it's important to match things like the publisher's record set number and individual record numbers (usually it's a set of several records because you can only get 3 or 5 minutes on a side, depending on the size of the record), the orchestra, the conductor, the performers, etc. These records are unlikely to already exist in the catalogs used to autocombine. And the general information about the work is less useful in our catalog than all of those details.