Help:How to
Revision as of 13:47, 22 February 2016 by Hitspacebar (talk | contribs) (Added link to "How to get the image displayed on its wiki page" and a new section "Troubleshooting")
Explanations of how to do some common tasks within the ISFDB. For performing tasks within the Wiki go here.
Entering data
- How to enter a new novel
- How to enter a book other than a novel
- How to clone a publication record to create a new one for an almost identical book
- How to enter a SFBC publication
- How to enter translated editions
- How to enter works published under a pseudonym
- How to enter a new author into the database
- How to enter non-genre magazines
- How to parse data in library catalogs
- How to use Worldcat/OCLC data
- How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki
- How to use HTML in ISFDB records' note fields
- How to interpret Doubleday's gutter codes
- How to determine the value for "Pages" field in a book
Connections between data
- How to merge two authors' records
- How to record a pseudonym
- How to merge titles
- How to merge publications [OBSOLETE]
- How to record a variant title
- How to reverse a variant title relationship
- How to unmerge a publication from its title record
- How to handle two authors with identical names
- How to connect serials to titles
- How to work with series
- How to create a link to a US Library of Congress record (LCCN)
- How to add a magazine issue to the magazine's issue grid
- How to link a magazine to its wiki page and add it to a magazine series
Deleting and modifying data
- How to delete a book from the database
- How to update author data
- How to update or add data to a publication record
- How to change a content record in a publication record
- How to remove a content record from a publication record
- How to verify a publication record's data
- How to convert a novel to a chapbook
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
Troubleshooting
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.