separated 2 works, but now my book is attached to the wrong work
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1woodelph
I’m posting here instead of just throwing this in the “fix this” thread, because I think it’s a little messier, and I’d like to know what happened, how to avoid it in the future, and how to fix it—not just have someone else fix it for me.
Work 1: https://www.librarything.com/work/28224109 There’s only ever been one edition of this book, with ISBN 978-1-952885-70-9
Work 2: https://www.librarything.com/work/30386069 There’s only ever been one edition of this book, with ISBN 978-1-959269-03-8
My copy of Work 2: https://www.librarything.com/work/28224109/summary/241804634 (I’ll call this Book 2)
(And just for completeness, in case it helps, my copy of Work 1: https://www.librarything.com/work/28224109/book/241804744 (Book 1).)
*What I know happened:*
1: Somebody had improperly combined both works at some point before I cataloged my books.
2: I didn’t find either book with an ISBN search, so I added them manually.
3: Upon adding my copy of Work 2, I got the “There is another version of this work in Your books” message, so I started investigating.
4: I discovered the combined works and separated out Work 2. The existing entries for Work 2 had the correct Book 2 ISBN already.
5: I then changed the Canonical Title of Book 2 to be correct.
5a: …at which point I discovered that Book 2 was still tied to Work 1, and I had changed the Canonical Title of Work 1, and thus both Book 2 and Book 1. So I changed it back.
6: I added Work 2 to the Series page, hoping that might help: https://www.librarything.com/nseries/works/351201
7: I tried to add Book 2 to my Workbench, thinking that would let me split it off from Work 1. But after going round and round a couple times, I never could figure out how to find it to split out
*What I don’t understand:*
A) When I separated out the incorrectly combined books/editions into 2 different Works, why did my copy _not_ become associated with the Work that contains an Edition with a matching ISBN? Why did it stay associated with the Work that no longer contained any Editions with a matching ISBN?
B) My entry for Book 2 contains the correct ISBN for Book 2, but is associated with Work 1. So why don’t I see among the Editions of Work 1 an entry with the ISBN for Book 2? How can LibraryThing think that my Book 2 is an Edition of Work 1, but not think that Work 1 includes Book 2 as one of its Editions?
C) How do I fix this? If it’s not changing the Canonical Title, and it already has the correct ISBN, and it’s not showing up on Work 1’s page so I can’t separate it, how do I tell LibraryThing “this book is not an instance of Work 1; it is an instance of Work 2”?
D) There hasn’t been a new 10-digit ISBN issued for 16 years; why do so many people—and LibraryThing—invent a 10-digit ISBN that in most cases never existed when given a 13-digit ISBN, instead of retaining and displaying the actual ISBN? Why complicate the task of comparing to see if you have the same book/edition? Especially now that 979- ISBNs are showing up, and can’t be converted at all?
Work 1: https://www.librarything.com/work/28224109 There’s only ever been one edition of this book, with ISBN 978-1-952885-70-9
Work 2: https://www.librarything.com/work/30386069 There’s only ever been one edition of this book, with ISBN 978-1-959269-03-8
My copy of Work 2: https://www.librarything.com/work/28224109/summary/241804634 (I’ll call this Book 2)
(And just for completeness, in case it helps, my copy of Work 1: https://www.librarything.com/work/28224109/book/241804744 (Book 1).)
*What I know happened:*
1: Somebody had improperly combined both works at some point before I cataloged my books.
2: I didn’t find either book with an ISBN search, so I added them manually.
3: Upon adding my copy of Work 2, I got the “There is another version of this work in Your books” message, so I started investigating.
4: I discovered the combined works and separated out Work 2. The existing entries for Work 2 had the correct Book 2 ISBN already.
5: I then changed the Canonical Title of Book 2 to be correct.
5a: …at which point I discovered that Book 2 was still tied to Work 1, and I had changed the Canonical Title of Work 1, and thus both Book 2 and Book 1. So I changed it back.
6: I added Work 2 to the Series page, hoping that might help: https://www.librarything.com/nseries/works/351201
7: I tried to add Book 2 to my Workbench, thinking that would let me split it off from Work 1. But after going round and round a couple times, I never could figure out how to find it to split out
*What I don’t understand:*
A) When I separated out the incorrectly combined books/editions into 2 different Works, why did my copy _not_ become associated with the Work that contains an Edition with a matching ISBN? Why did it stay associated with the Work that no longer contained any Editions with a matching ISBN?
B) My entry for Book 2 contains the correct ISBN for Book 2, but is associated with Work 1. So why don’t I see among the Editions of Work 1 an entry with the ISBN for Book 2? How can LibraryThing think that my Book 2 is an Edition of Work 1, but not think that Work 1 includes Book 2 as one of its Editions?
C) How do I fix this? If it’s not changing the Canonical Title, and it already has the correct ISBN, and it’s not showing up on Work 1’s page so I can’t separate it, how do I tell LibraryThing “this book is not an instance of Work 1; it is an instance of Work 2”?
D) There hasn’t been a new 10-digit ISBN issued for 16 years; why do so many people—and LibraryThing—invent a 10-digit ISBN that in most cases never existed when given a 13-digit ISBN, instead of retaining and displaying the actual ISBN? Why complicate the task of comparing to see if you have the same book/edition? Especially now that 979- ISBNs are showing up, and can’t be converted at all?
2MarthaJeanne
https://www.librarything.com/work/28224109/summary/241804634 - the URL you give above is not a valid link. The book and work are not connected.
Your book is at
https://www.librarything.com/work/30386066/241804634
Your book is at
https://www.librarything.com/work/30386066/241804634
3AnnieMod
To expand a bit on >2 MarthaJeanne:, LT has a bit of an oddity when book URLs are involved: when the work ID and the book ID are both in the URL - as is in yours, the site will show you a combination of the work record and the book record. You want that when you have the correct values but it will not check that - so it will show you exactly what you asked it to - in this case: show the combination of work 28224109 and book 241804634 together.
The easiest way to clear that is just to reload your catalog and grab a fresh link from there and if you are making your own links or want to include links somewhere outside of LT, use this syntax: https://www.librarything.com/work/book/241804634 - that forces LT to actually use the work the book is inside s you are not referencing a specific work in the URL but just the book ID. :)
The easiest way to clear that is just to reload your catalog and grab a fresh link from there and if you are making your own links or want to include links somewhere outside of LT, use this syntax: https://www.librarything.com/work/book/241804634 - that forces LT to actually use the work the book is inside s you are not referencing a specific work in the URL but just the book ID. :)
4woodelph
>3 AnnieMod: Is “reload your catalog” different from “refresh the webpage”? Because I’ve reloaded multiple webpages (my Your Books page, my Add Books page, probably a couple others) multiple times, and they continue to give me the “not valid” URL referenced above—which apparently is some sort of valid, since it loads a page. Do I need to log out and back in again? Or clear cache or something?
Both the link you gave and the one MarthaJeanne gave get me to the correct book page, regardless. So now I’m accessing the proper page for the book. So now how do I tell LibraryThing that this is an edition of a work? In the past, it’s always just happened if the title and/or ISBN match, but this time it’s not. Should I edit in the Canonical Title from the Work entry to my Book entry?
Both the link you gave and the one MarthaJeanne gave get me to the correct book page, regardless. So now I’m accessing the proper page for the book. So now how do I tell LibraryThing that this is an edition of a work? In the past, it’s always just happened if the title and/or ISBN match, but this time it’s not. Should I edit in the Canonical Title from the Work entry to my Book entry?
5AnnieMod
>4 woodelph: LT knows - your browser is possibly caching information to "help you". A simple refresh is usually enough for me but it depends on the settings of your browser.
The URL is valid because of how LT shows these - it literally just shows you the information for two separate records together. Which is what you want when you have the correct combination and hilariously fun when you have the wrong one. Such as https://www.librarything.com/work/12345/241804634 for example (to pick a random work and use the book ID of your book after it) :) There is no connection between the work and the book anywhere - they are just visualized together because you asked LT to do that.
The URL is valid because of how LT shows these - it literally just shows you the information for two separate records together. Which is what you want when you have the correct combination and hilariously fun when you have the wrong one. Such as https://www.librarything.com/work/12345/241804634 for example (to pick a random work and use the book ID of your book after it) :) There is no connection between the work and the book anywhere - they are just visualized together because you asked LT to do that.
6Nevov
>1 woodelph:
Your process as you describe was right up to the end of step 4. At that point the site has actually done things like you expect (and your book was attached to the new workID). But the site will also happily let you view any custom mixture of bookID and workID, so if you don't abandon the URL with the old workID in it things go wrong as you saw.
So it's essentially the same answer behind A, B and C, what you need to do at step 5 is open the new workID's page (the link shows up on the page confirming that a combination/separation took place). Steps 5/5a failed, because you were in the now-outdated URL combination of 28224109/241804634 and your CK Canonical Title changes were being done to work 28224109 (since that's the workID in the URL).
There is a link in the sidebar on work pages under Advanced "Work-only-work page" which can be helpful here, in that it lets you see things without having your book info 'interfere' with what you're trying to do.
Then question D: I thiiink from past conversations the site accepts 979- ISBNs and only converts 978- ones into ISBN-10. I found these Talk links from Tim which might be useful about this:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/298717#6629821
https://www.librarything.com/topic/294090
Your process as you describe was right up to the end of step 4. At that point the site has actually done things like you expect (and your book was attached to the new workID). But the site will also happily let you view any custom mixture of bookID and workID, so if you don't abandon the URL with the old workID in it things go wrong as you saw.
So it's essentially the same answer behind A, B and C, what you need to do at step 5 is open the new workID's page (the link shows up on the page confirming that a combination/separation took place). Steps 5/5a failed, because you were in the now-outdated URL combination of 28224109/241804634 and your CK Canonical Title changes were being done to work 28224109 (since that's the workID in the URL).
There is a link in the sidebar on work pages under Advanced "Work-only-work page" which can be helpful here, in that it lets you see things without having your book info 'interfere' with what you're trying to do.
Then question D: I thiiink from past conversations the site accepts 979- ISBNs and only converts 978- ones into ISBN-10. I found these Talk links from Tim which might be useful about this:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/298717#6629821
https://www.librarything.com/topic/294090
7jjwilson61
Also don't set the canonical title unless the title the system comes up with is egregiously wrong. And if you see a canonical title it might be worth removing it and recalculating the title to see if it's really needed
