Split help needed

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Split help needed

1Andy_Dingley
feb 23, 2022, 4:46 pm

Can anyone sort this out, or tell me what to do next?

John W. R. Taylor wrote two (or three!) books with the same title, Rockets and missiles

https://www.librarything.com/work/3423036/summary/213059743
https://www.librarything.com/work/3423036/summary/213059707
https://www.librarything.com/work/3423036/summary/213059170

The first of these is a typical cheap paperback, published by Odhams in 1968 and part of the 'Knowledge Through Color' series.
https://www.librarything.com/nseries/15344/Knowledge-Through-Color

The other two are the Hippo Books series (small landscape format hardbacks)
https://www.librarything.com/nseries/336688/Hippo-Books
These started in 1962 as an imprint of Longacre, but were later transferred and updated by Hamlyn in the early '70s.

The Odhams one really ought to be split. Apart from the title, it's a totally different book.

Thanks

2Corinne2020
feb 24, 2022, 8:31 am

You tell us of how they are published differently... Can you also tell us how the content differs?

3MarthaJeanne
feb 24, 2022, 8:51 am

WorldCat considers them to be the same.

4Andy_Dingley
feb 24, 2022, 9:24 am

The content scope is much the same, but the formats are totally different.

The Odhams one is a fairly typical text-base paperback. The Hippos are a well-known series, and they're a list of standard format entries, each entry across a facing page spread, with a table of data points facing a single large photo.
http://dreamsofspace.blogspot.com/2011/08/hippo-book-of-rockets-and-missiles-196...

J W R Taylor wrote many similar books for a whole variety of imprints, from these well-known Hippos (a children's book, issued to military forces as the best recognition handbok available) through to Jane's.

Then WorldCat have it wrong too. But we're not here to fix WorldCat.

5Corinne2020
feb 24, 2022, 9:41 am

We combine books based on content and you can "shelf" the version you own to look the way you want it to appear on your shelves.
Content is the basis for combination, no?

6AnnieMod
feb 24, 2022, 9:47 am

>4 Andy_Dingley: Is the text the same in all 3?

7Andy_Dingley
feb 24, 2022, 9:48 am

Yes, and these have completely different content, just the same title and subject.

8gilroy
feb 24, 2022, 9:49 am

>4 Andy_Dingley: If the content is the same, then they are the same book and same work, just different format presentations according to the way that Librarything is set up.
If the content has significant difference, then they'd be considered different works.

For instance, a children's book, which has maybe removed some of the more disturbing images and terminology, would be different from an adult informative work. However, two of adult informative books, with minor edits/grammatical corrections, yet for two different imprints, are the same work/book.

Now if you can say that the hardback from imprint A had 3 more chapters not in the paperback from imprint B, then we could claim different books and separate them.

9MarthaJeanne
Bewerkt: feb 24, 2022, 10:05 am

The problem is that many of the entries show as only title and author. Those with other info can be separated. We might be able to figure out which book was translated in each case. That still leaves us with 11 that can't be identified. (The nonEnglish titles without ISBN are another 10.) This is out of 37 entries.

With WorldCat not keeping them separate, the research on the ISBNs gets harder.

I'm not even convinced that the Swedish copies belong in here. The title seems to be Rockets, Robots, Spaceships. Not really close enough.

On the other hand Cohetes y proyectiles might well belong in the mix.