Help:How to

Explanations of how to do some common tasks within the ISFDB:

Entering data

• Help: How to enter a new novel which isn't yet in the ISFDB
• Help: How to enter a new book that isn't a novel
• Help: How to clone a publication to enter a new book that's almost identical to one already in the ISFDB
• Help: How to enter a SFBC publication
• Help: How to enter foreign language editions of a book or magazine
• Help: How to enter works published under a pseudonym
• Help: How to enter an author into the database
• Help: Entering non-genre magazines
• Help: How to parse data in library catalogs
• Help: Using Worldcat data
• Help: How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki
• How to Interpret Gutter Codes

Connections between data

• Help: How to merge authors (only two can be merged at once)
• Help: How to record a pseudonym if the name X is really a pseudonym of author Y
• Help: How to merge titles if two separate works are really the same
• Help: How to merge publications if two separately entered editions are really the same
• Help: How to record a variant title if two different titles by the same author are really the same work
• Help: How to reverse a variant title relationship between the main title and its variant title
• Help: How to unmerge titles if two books listed under the same title are actually two different books (or, how to move a publication from one title to another)
• Help: How to separate two authors with the same name if there are two people who have exactly the same name
• Help: How to connect serials to titles: relation between a magazine serialization and the novel it serializes
• Help: How to work with series: organizing books and stories into series
• Help: How to create a link to a US Library of Congress (Loc) record
• Help: How to link a magazine to its wiki page and add it to a magazine series

Deleting and modifying data

• Help: How to delete a book from the ISFDB
• Help: How to update author data
• Help: How to update a publication if information about a book is incorrect
• Help: How to change a story in a collection or anthology
• Help: How to remove content from a publication, most often story from a book, if it's listed there mistakenly
• Help: How to verify data if you've checked the book personally data and found that the entry is correct
• Help: How to convert a novel to a "chapterbook"

Finding Data

• Help:How to Use the ISFDB's Basic Search
• Help:How to Use the ISFDB's Advanced Search
• Help:Searching the ISFDB with an outside search engine

Notes

Note that there is no way to directly delete an author. If all the title information for an author is deleted, the author will disappear from the ISFDB, but there is no "Delete Author" function. Similarly, there is no way to directly create an author; once a work by that author is entered, an author record will appear automatically.