ISFDB:Rules and standards discussions

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This page is for discussions about the rules and standards, such as whether certain kinds of publications belong in the ISFDB, or whether the help text defining capitalization should be modified. It also includes questions about interpretation, such as whether a SERIAL type can be used for sequences of short stories subsequently republished as a novel.

Out or In?

Which way books from Pocket Books where the decisions you make determine which page you go to next in the story. My inclination is Out. rbh 22:15, 6 Mar 2007 (CST)

I'd use the same rules we do for RPGs which is if they are speculative fiction or closely related to a published specfict work or series then we usually include them. Many of the books I have though that are like this, such as the Choose Your Own Adventure series books, are not specfict (well, some of the adventures the young children get involved with are specfict as I know the average parent will not let their pre-teen kid go off on a trip by herself through the jungles of Southeast Asia, etc. with zero adult supervision <g>). Marc Kupper (talk) 03:28, 7 Mar 2007 (CST)

Invasion of the Mutants is definitely specfict, the reader is a member of the Galactic Starsquad. The Policy was fuzzy on this so I thought I would ask. I think this was abandoned to me by one of my kids. Thanks. rbh 06:00, 7 Mar 2007 (CST)

Something like this is counted as in: and I agree with that mostly, if only as a warning NOT to buy the book if you like linear reading. We don't have a suitable classification for it though. "NONGENRE" is slightly inaccurate, and "Book for people that like not knowing what's going to happen next, just like clicking random links on the World Wide Web, or here especially" needs a snappy abbreviation before I can get it introduced. "NOVEL" is right out unless you're William Burroughs. BLongley 16:16, 7 Mar 2007 (CST)

SFBC editions

I'm relatively new to the ISFDB so excuse me if these questions have been answered elsewhere. A site search came up with no results. When entering info for a book published by the SFBC, should the publisher be entered as "SFBC" or the name that is actually on the book. When the SFBC reprinted hardcover editions they almost always used the original publisher's names as the book club edition's publisher. When reprinting a paperback edition, they almost always used the "Nelson Doubleday" imprint. Or at least this was the case during the time when I was in the club (from the mid-70s to around 1990.) The "Nelson Doubleday" imprint was also used for omnibus editions or other first "as thus" editions. Also the prices and dates were never published in the book, though I've retained (anal-retentive only begins to describe my collecting habits) the original flyers which announced the upcoming books. I've noticed in many instances in the ISFDB that these book club editions indicate "SFBC" as the publisher, though that is never the printed publisher's name. And that the SFBC number from the book's dustcover is used as the catalog #. Finally, my question: Is there a standard protocol for the entry of information for SFBC editions? Mhhutchins 15:21, 7 Mar 2007 (CST)

I'm one of those who tends to set Publisher as SFBC, because it helps to quickly identify book club editions, and because they really are the publisher in most cases: they often reset type (hence the variation in page count), they specify the binding and materials, etc. I don't think there's exactly an agreed standard, but I would not mind seeing one. (Scott Latham 16:24, 7 Mar 2007 (CST))
Keep in mind that things have changed in the last 10-15 years. The SFBC logo is now prominently displayed on the dust jacket and on the title page. The copyright page typically explains when/where the novel(s) were originally published and when the SFBC edition was published. To quote the SFBC omnibus that I was about to enter:
"Undead and Unwed", Copyright @ 2004 by MaryJanice Davidson Alongi; Berkley Sensation (tm) paperback edition: March 2004
"Undead and Unemployed" Copyright @ 2004 by MaryJanice Davidson Alongi; Berkley Sensation (tm) paperback edition: August 2004
[2 more titles snipped]
Science Fiction Book club omnibus edition: December 2005
[disclaimers snipped]
Published by arrangements with 
The Berkley Publishing Group
A Division of Penguin Putnam (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014

Visit The SFBC online at www.sfbc.com
Visit the Penguin Group online at www.penguin.com

ISBN 0-7394-6139-7
For older SFBC editions which had no (or misleading) ISBN/publisher information, I find the "Doubleday/SFBC" convention to be useful, but I don't think we have a hard and fast rule yet. Ahasuerus 17:12, 7 Mar 2007 (CST)
Many of the newer SFBC editions cannot be identified as such without the dustcover. They have the same ISBN, cover artist (if listed on the publication data page), page count, quality, weight, and no indication that they are other than a later printing by the original publisher. I enter all SFBC books that do not specifically state SFBC as the "publisher" as "SFBC/Doubleday" so that people without the dustcovers can identify this as the same book. I think that as long as both publishers are listed, we are providing useful identification information rbh 07:27, 8 Mar 2007 (CST)

Question about serials

Something that came up on the User talk:Scott Latham#Date changes thread that was "new" to me is the concept of using the SERIAL title type for stories that were published in a single issue of a magazine and then republished as a standalone novel. Initially I had assumed SERIAL meant a story published in two or more parts that were then combined when the story was then published in book form. Related to this is that you would append "(Complete Novel)" to the stories' title. If you do a title search for "(Complete Novel)" you will see there's a little over 200 records, all of them of type SERIAL except for one INTERIORART where apparently a story was accompanied by artwork in a magazine. Previous to learning this I had been merging the shortfiction and novel publications and usually calling it either a novel or chapbook with the thinking being that a single title record would reference all instances of the story.

My questions are.

  • Is the type SERIAL record reserved for the original publication? In other words, if the story is reprinted in collections, anthologies, or perhaps other magazines would you file this under the SERIAL title or the NOVEL title record? Inspection of the existing “(Complete Novel)” title records finds that all of them contained a link to just one publication except 79907 where a story must have been reprinted. It’s possible this record is the result of a merge as the search results for “(Complete Novel)” shows several candidates where if merged would result in records linked to two or more publications.
Thus I believe the rule is that the SERIAL entry would only show the original publication (almost always a magazine) and that any reprints would get filed under the NOVEL or CHAPBOOK title record but I wanted to confirm this.
At this time you can have multiple serializations of the same novel. For example, see Ray Cummings' Brigands of the Moon. Back in the day, it was entirely possible for a novel to be serialized in the 1920s/1930s, then get re-serialized in one of the reprint pulps of the 1940s/1950s and then get re-re-serialized again in the reprint digests of the 1960s. Since we can't always be sure that a particular serialization is the first appearance of its "parent" novel, it's probably safer (and less confusing) to allow multiple SERIAL records per novel. Ahasuerus 17:14, 8 Mar 2007 (CST)
  • Does one half of a dos-a-dos count as “published in standalone form” when it comes time to deciding if a SHORTFICTION should be change to SERIAL and a separate NOVEL or CHAPBOOK title record created for the reprints including the ½ of the dos-a-dos? Or, in this case do you just leave it as a single SHORTFICTION record and the dos-a-dos would be an omnibus of this shortfiction and whatever is on the other side?
  • Does the first publication have to be a magazine or would you also use SERIAL if a story is first published in a collection or anthology and then later reprinted as a standalone work. When I was looking at the existing "(Complete Novel)" records it seemed like all of them were magazines but as it was a fast scan I may have missed a collection/anthology. Google only finds a single instance of a non-magazine at MLLNLWMN1979 that contains a type SERIAL "(Complete Novel)" and in that case the story was reprinted in a collection implying these should be merged into a shortfiction as it was never reprinted as a standalone work.
ISFDB provides a hint of an answer to this question in that when it displays the serial records it’s with the header “Magazine/Anthology Appearances” but that hint also implies that all of the included-in-larger works such as magazine, anthology, or collection would be under the SERIAL title and all of the standalone reprints would be under the NOVEL or CHAPBOOK title record. Marc Kupper (talk) 19:39, 7 Mar 2007 (CST)
I think of SERIAL as any work published in several sequential parts elsewhere, or a reasonable-length but non-novel work published in its entirety in another publication that for some reason doesn't get classed as an OMNIBUS. I've already seen this stretched to breaking point with one novel published as TWO serials (Stardance and Stardance 2) and ran away from the problem then. I've considered using SERIAL recently for non-magazine first publications ("Spice World" parts 1 and 2) but concluded they're unlikely ever to be published in one volume on their own, or get serialized over multiple magazines (although I left them as two entries in a collection rather than call them a single work). BLongley 15:16, 8 Mar 2007 (CST)
For me, it helps to have a good idea of what the complete work actually is (we can overlap with Fixup Novels and Series if we don't demand "Part X of Y" suggestions on the part-work publications) but it's never certain. I don't know how many novels get published LATER as part-works, but this lot is already involved in Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, I wouldn't bet on us not having to deal with a "builds week-by-week into a pile of shiny magazines that you'll never read because of the postal strike in Week 37" with a LATER publication date than the first Novel. And without researching too deeply into whether it's already happened, surely a serial in X parts could be republished as a serial in Y parts? Concentrating on the complete work (even if it's not been published as such) makes it easier to think of multiple part-work editions... BLongley 15:16, 8 Mar 2007 (CST)
OK, I think my actual answer to Marc's questions is "I have no clue." But I would like one. BLongley 15:16, 8 Mar 2007 (CST)
One thing to keep in mind is that we are following an old (and arguably unfortunate) bibliographic convention that demands that we use the date of the first book publication as the first publication date for all book length titles. This is the main reason why we have to display SERIAL appearances on the Summary Biblio pages: otherwise many (perhaps most) ISFDB users who are not familiar with this convention would never check the Title page and assume that the first appearance of Skylark was in 1946 etc. Because of this convention, there is an incentive to treat novel length Titles that later appeared in book form as "complete novel" SERIALS. That way we can show both dates (first book publication and first magazine publication) to our users even though it may mean stretching the meaning of the word "serial" past its breaking point. Ahasuerus 00:28, 9 Mar 2007 (CST)
BLongley, I've already seen works divided into both X and Y parts, particularly with large stories reprinted in paperback form where some publishers will divide it in two paperbacks and others in three. A trend seems to be two-parts for the USA and three for the UK. Granted, those are not strictly serials though we could use the serial mechanism to link the title records for the parts with the story published as a whole. Brigands of the Moon that Ahasuerus brought up is also like this in that it's published in four parts and one part in the magazines while also appearing as one part in book form.
I’m still confused on what I believe is a significant question. When a story is published as both part of a larger publication (magazine, collection, or anthology) and is also published as a standalone novel or chapbook would all of the “part of a larger publication” instances go in the type SERIAL title record(s)? If not, then where do these get filed? Marc Kupper (talk) 04:06, 9 Mar 2007 (CST)
If my understanding is correct, the original intent was to capture magazine publications, not anthology appearances. The reason that the heading was later changed to "magazine/anthology" on the Summary page was to include appearances in anthologies that happen to be borderline magazines, e.g. Quark or Destinies. However, my memory is a little shaky in this area. Al, could you please clarify if you see this? Ahasuerus 01:30, 10 Mar 2007 (CST)
To continue the question – does a stories’ appearance as one half of a dos-a-dos count as “part of a larger work” or is it considered the same as a standalone novel or chapbook? I’m thinking it is a standalone work as the story title on the cover and title page and a thus dos-a-dos is really two standalone works, back to back, that we normally deal with via the omnibus mechanism for lack of a better method.
To continue the question (part 2) – What if the story is published in an omnibus (A real omnibus and not a dos-a-dos). I’m guessing this gets classified as “part of a larger work.”
Finally, the trick question – What if a story is published as part of a larger work (collection, anthology, or omnibus) and the title of that larger work is the same as the story title? I’m guessing we will say that the larger work is “unrelated” to the story. I suspect it needs to be tested but perhaps the code already deals with this in that it will only group SERIAL records with NOVEL or CHAPBOOK records but not COLLECTION, ANTHOLOGY, or OMNIBUS.
I was also confused by Ahasuerus’ comment “Since we can't always be sure that a particular serialization is the first appearance of its "parent" novel, it's probably safer (and less confusing) to allow multiple SERIAL records per novel.” Are you saying that if a story is published in a magazine (complete novel), reprinted in a magazine (complete novel), and later as a book that we would one SERIAL record for each magazine appearance and that you would not merge them? Why can’t you be sure that a particular serialization is the first appearance of its "parent" novel? Marc Kupper (talk) 04:06, 9 Mar 2007 (CST)
Sorry, I wasn't very clear! One example of what I had in mind would be a serialization of a sf/f novel in Famous Fantastic Mysteries, the premier reprint pulp of the 1940s. If there is no publication history included in the issue, how would the contributing editor know whether this is the first serialization of the novel or a reprint from some 1900s-1920s pulp? Ahasuerus 01:30, 10 Mar 2007 (CST)
In my mind it would not matter. You enter the magazine contents using SHORTFICTION and during the merge you will see that NOVEL, CHAPBOOK, SHORTFICTION, and/or SERIAL records exist and you would edit and/or merge records as needed. In other words, you make the best decision possible given the data available. It is this decision process that I'm trying to understand/define. It looks like you are advocating that if a story gets reprinted in a magazine that you would record in a separate SERIAL title record (rather than merging it so that one SERIAL title record covers the magazine appearances). Marc Kupper (talk) 03:22, 14 Mar 2007 (CDT)
Sorry, Marc, I am always late answering long questions on the Community Portal since other moderatorial duties interfere and I don't get to the more time consuming/policy stuff until the wee hours of the morning when I don't feel like I can do them justice. Perhaps when I finally retire...
Anyway, let me see what I can do. You are quite right, I don't think that merging subsequent SERIAL reprints would be useful, if for no other reason then because we could easily lose the "(Part 1 of X)" level of granularity when a "(Complete novel)" is reprinted in two+ installments. Also, I don't think that you will always want to enter a "(Complete novel)" piece as SHORTFICTION and then change the type to SERIAL retroactrively when you discover a separate book publication. There were plenty of novels (both bona fide as well as novellas masquerading as novels) that were published in a single issue of a pulp magazine and advertised as such. It should be easy to enter them as SERIALs from the get to.
As far as the specific questions that you ask below go, they are probably best asked of dedicated collectors whose concern with what is and is not a "true first edition" affects industry standards. Personally, I am inclined not to count collections or anthologies (even those mammoth 1950s reprint anthologies) for these purposes, but to count "dos" books. For short stories later reprinted in CHAP(TER)BOOKs, I would simply use a single SHORTFICTION Title record and the date of the first publication in any form.
I should also point out that given the guidelines that I have just outlined I don't expect too many borderline cases. If a Title was subsequently reprinted in book form and that book had more than 100 pages/40,000 words, I would make sure that the original magazine publication record was set to SERIAL, that the dates of the two Titles were correct and that the lexical match worked. The only catch that we have run into repeatedly are the 1950s/1950s reprints (especially from Ace) with more than 100 pages, but fewer than 40,000 words. I would still count them as novels because that's the way they were seen at the time. Ahasuerus 02:16, 18 Mar 2007 (CDT)
I am still confused on what "published in book form means."
  • Does inclusion in a collection count as "book form?" If not, then do we add a new SERIAL title record for each of these or do we file them under a SHORTFICTION title?
  • Does inclusion in an anthology count as "book form?" If not, then do we add a new SERIAL title record for each of these or do we file them under a SHORTFICTION title?
  • Is one half of a dos-a-dos count as "book form?" If not, then do we add a new SERIAL title record for each of these or do we file them under a SHORTFICTION title?
  • Does a CHAPBOOK publication count as "book form?" If not, then do we add a new SERIAL title record for each of these or do we file them under a SHORTFICTION title? Marc Kupper (talk) 03:22, 14 Mar 2007 (CDT)
ps: Searching Locus and the web for "first book publication" gives me the feeling that if a publisher says "first book publication" in the blurb then that's what'll show up in Locus and other sites. Thus I saw this applied to the appearance of stories in 2-story omnibuses, collections, and anthologies meaning if we were literal about it we'd file all magazine appearances under SERIAL and then would have a separate SHORTFICTION and/or NOVEL records to handle the appearance of the story either in or as books. But, I get the feeling that with ISFDB if a story only appears in magazines, collections, and anthologies that we use a single SHORTFICTION record and don't bother with separating out the magazine appearance into a SERIAL record. Marc Kupper (talk) 04:18, 14 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Return to a held edit for Tall's "Stardust Voyages"

Marc, I'm finally returning to the subject edit. One of the bits of guidance you gave me in your comments was to (possibly) merge the contents records of the collection with prior records for each of the shorts. Since the page giving the original sources of each of the stories explicitly states that all have been revised to some extent, should the merge be done? It would seem that the collection stories (with their slightly variant titles) should stand alone. What's the general opinion on this one? Sorry to have taken so long on this one. I feel a bit more comfortable with the entire "edit the ISFDB"-thing now... --Dsorgen 19:39, 16 Mar 2007 (CDT)

I'm shifting this one to the community portal to see if there's a better solution or way of dealing with this. An ISFDB title record stands for a particular string of words (the story) with a particular title and author(s). If the author or title changes but not the string of words then you would have a variant title. If the string of words (the story) is revised but the title/author(s) are the same then it’s a new/different title. Sometimes we can distinguish the latter in ISFDB in that the title type is different, a short-fiction and collection could have the same title/author but we “know” the string of words must be different as the title types are SHORTFICTION and COLLECTION. The messy part is when the title type is not changed. It might be a collection that gets reprinted with a slightly different set of stories, a short story or novel, that’s revised, or perhaps a novel with a new introduction.
The general practice in ISFDB has been to document the revision in the title itself using a short note inside parentheses. I’m not sure if we can define a standard for what we put inside the parentheses but the ones that seem most helpful are when it’s with the copyright date as in The Time Masters (1953) and The Time Masters (revised 1971) (1971) by Wilson_Tucker. When someone enters a publication that contains The Time Masters they would need to figure out if it’s the 1953 or 1971 version of the story and would merge the title record with the appropriate ISFDB record.
I would also encourage you to add notes to the title records, publication records, etc. adding as much detail as practical on what was revised. Maybe all you have is a statement on the copyright page saying “All stories were revised for this collection.” And in that case that’s exactly what you would add to all the title/publication notes (also noting what publication and where in it the note was found). The goal being that others looking at ISFDB will understand that these were revised stories.
It gets more complicated if a story title was also revised slightly. I believe the best thing is to still note (revised 19xx) in the title and to make it a variant title of the original. Technically, neither of these things should be done but it will serve to link the stories together and combined with the notes people looking at ISFDB will understand it’s a different story.
I guess we could dream about a speculative, and very fictional, universe where writers, editors, publishers, etc. put date/version and perhaps a unique serial number on each of their stories... Marc Kupper (talk) 16:55, 17 Mar 2007 (CDT)
I agree with most of the above. The main reason that we use parentheses is disambiguation. How else can we distinguish between 20 "Introduction"s written by the same author? We have seen quite a few cases where Title records were merged because our editors didn't realize that identically looking Titles were actually different, e.g. A Robert Silverberg Omnibus (UK 1970) and A Robert Silverberg Omnibus (US 1981) or, to use an extreme example, The Best of Murray Leinster (US) and The Best of Murray Leinster (UK), both published in 1976 (sic!).
Ooh, that's confusing on the Leinster... I've checked out the UK one thoroughly (and found it wanting on its acknowledgements and author info, but I'm sure of the content), can someone look at the US one with the supposed extra 4 pieces and the inaccurate year comment? BLongley 14:40, 27 Mar 2007 (CDT)
The secondary reason to use "supporting data" in parentheses is to make certain that high priority information is immediately visible on the Summary page and not buried in the Note field one+ level deep. For example, The Rebirth of Wonder (collection) immediately indicates to the casual browser that this Title is not an erroneous duplicate of The Rebirth of Wonder the novel, but rather a separate title even though they were both published in 1992. Or, to use another example, it's important to indicate that the 1989 edition of But What of Earth? had its text restored so that any users who were only familiar with the 1976 original would immediately say "Oh, so there is another version of this novel!" Similar considerations apply to "(abridged)", "(expanded)", etc.
Unfortunately, at this point there are relationships in the database that are maintained lexically. Thus, if we had a REVIEW of "The Best of Murray Leinster", it would not appear under either one of the current Title records since the Title strings wouldn't match. It's a most unfortunate choice that we often have to make: leave a Title record ambiguous and potentially confuse our users or clarify its nature using the parenthetical convention and potentially lose Review and Serial information :(
Ideally, we would have a special "Disambiguation" field in the Title record which, unlike the Note field, would only be populated in special cases and used to clarify these things, but until something like that is implemented this is liable to remain a thorny issue. Ahasuerus 00:27, 23 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Page Proofs

I have a book that was sent to the trade to market a new novel (In this case, the Weber/Ringo "March to the Stars"). They are in tp format with "Uncorrected page proofs" clearly indicated on the title page. ISBN, price, publication date, and first printing clearly indicated. Since numerous copies were obviously distributed to booksellers and reviewers, is this something we want listed in the ISFDB? rbh 19:10, 17 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Last time we had this discussion, the results were somewhat inconclusive, but the bias was not to include them as separate record and document anything noteworthy, e.g. changes vis a vis the final text, in the Note field instead. Ahasuerus 21:24, 17 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Attribute Letter Columns to Various?

I noticed that some people are beginning to attribute letter columns to "Various" and I have done so in a couple of issues. The issue of entering all authors of letters is considered "debateable" but using "Various" has the virtue of indicating which issues of magazines have letter columns without having to load the DB with thousands of relatively insigificant authors. Sound like a good idea? Swfritter 21:39, 17 Mar 2007 (CDT)

We definitely want to record the fact that the column was published as per the Help Pages:
Letter column. Letter columns should be included; index them as ESSAYs
As far as attribution goes, well, that can be tricky. Whenever a letter column contains editor responses, we usually attribute it to the editor. If it's just a bunch of letters with no input from anybody associated with the magazine, then I can't think of a better way to record the information than "various" (ugh!) Ahasuerus 23:02, 17 Mar 2007 (CDT)
I ran into a similar thing over the weekend where I had a book where the copyright page credited about 20 people by role/name. It had things like the person who designed the typeface, the cover was a montage of photos that each had a credit, the cover designer, the book designer, etc. It felt like one of those newer movies where the credits scroll for 20 minutes. I ended up entering these as notes rather than interior-art records and someday if ISFDB ever morphs into something more like IMDB which tracks the minor/supporting roles someone can at least copy/paste the data.
I agree with the idea of "various" but would add a publication note explaining it. “On pages 4 and 5 there were letters to the editor from 11 people which got consolidated for this ISFDB listing as Letters to the Editor (publication title) by 'Various'.” Marc Kupper (talk) 16:51, 19 Mar 2007 (CDT)
I agree with "various": maybe if an author already represented here was a letter-writer I'd mention it, but I wouldn't go so far as to count the letter authors like Marc would. BLongley 15:58, 21 Mar 2007 (CDT)
I'm actually a bit more worried about situations like those with Marc's weekend book: Robert Rankin has got a "sculpture" credit on at least five book covers, not shown here, and they're a darn sight better than some of the others he DOES get a cover-art credit for. Is there a case for reviewing the Cover Artist rules? I always like to know when there's some great artwork there, or when the author is involved, I'm not so much bothered with photographers, designers, "technical advisers" etc.... BLongley 15:58, 21 Mar 2007 (CDT)

How to handle omnibuses of collections?

What to do when one (or more!) title in an omnibus is a reprint of previously-published colection? Locus1/Contento also list in its content beside individual stories headings for the collection/s, which makes sense especially if the original typesetting is used; but is ISFDB ready for this, and how exactly should it be handled? Just list the COLLECTION title in the contents beside the SHORTFICTION ones?

I personally like how Locus/Contendo handle this but it seems like a bit of re-engineering to get that into ISFDB. Within ISFDB I suspect it would be better to link directly to the individual stories so that we can get the page # for each one. Just make add note that it's an omnibus. You don't want to call it a collection and to link to the other collection titles as then the "reference title" code will get confused as there will be multiple records of type collection. Thus your choices are
  • Make the omnibus of type OMNIBUS (title and pub) and to link to the existing type collection title records. Optionally, you can link to the individual stories.
  • Make the omnibus type COLLECTION (title and pub) and link to the individual stories and to add a note explaining that it's really an omnibus.
This is something I'll be dealing with right now as I have a copy of The Hugo Winners, Volumes One and Two which is an omnibus of two earlier anthologies. One thing I discovered is that records for vol. 1 and vol. 2 are type anthology and ended up in a group called "Anthology Series" on the bibliographic display. I changed the title type of my vol. 1 & 2 omnibus publication from anthology to omnibus and it got sorted up at the top of the bibliographic display under "Fiction Series" and so I changed it back to being an anthology so that it'll sort under "Anthology Series" along with the other books in this series. Your book is a collection and so should not have this particular issue but it does make a case for linking to the individual stories rather than calling it an omnibus and just linking to the collections it contains.

An ugly example: Starlight: The Great Short Fiction of Alfred_Bester, which according to http://contento.best.vwh.net/b4.htm#A56 is omnibus of the 1976 collections The Light Fantastic and Star Light, Star Bright, has TWO publication entries for the "(Jul 1977, Berkley Medallion, 0-425-03451-8, $1.95, 452pp, pb, coll)" edition: STRLGHTTHG1977 and STRLGHTTJM1977 (this one VERIFIED). The latter has Title Reference link to Starlight: The Great Short Fiction of Alfred Bester, but the former to Star Light, Star Bright (and indeed shows as its publication)! How to correct this? Publication Editor shows just SHORTFICTION and ESSAYs in the Content section of both; however when I do Diff Pub of the latter with SGSF1976, that one shows as containing the two partial COLLECTIONs (and thus indeed appears in Publication histories of both), even though Edit This Pub doesn't show it either! --JVjr 10:23, 26 Mar 2007 (CDT)

This was easy enough to fix - from the collection Star Light, Star Bright I did an unmerge-title of Starlight: The Great Short Fiction of Alfred Bester (there were two). That changed the title reference to be Starlight: The Great Short Fiction of Alfred Bester which I then merged with the existing title of that name. Marc Kupper (talk) 21:43, 26 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Star Trek Calendar

Lorenzr just submitted a deletion of a Star Trek calendar. Any comments? I think it should probably go, but I think we have a Discworld cookbook and mappe, so any thoughts about making the rules of acquisition more explicit? Mike Christie (talk) 21:00, 27 Mar 2007 (CDT)

I don't think it matters either way. In other words, I'd approve deleting it and would also approve someone adding it. If we keep it I'd classify it as non-fiction and in the Star Trek series. Marc Kupper (talk) 23:38, 27 Mar 2007 (CDT)
From ISFDB_talk:Policy
Would Calendars be in or out even if the material is speculative fiction related Star Trek Calendar?
How would it relate to art books like Infinite Worlds: The Fantastic Visions of Science Fiction Art ? Lorenzr 19:43, 27 Mar 2007
In thinking about this further and looking at Lorenzr's question I'd say keep then and to classify these as "Works about speculative fiction published in the English language and their foreign language translations." per ISFDB_talk:Policy. Marc Kupper (talk) 00:10, 28 Mar 2007 (CDT)
No harm keeping it or deleting it, I'd say. "Binding: tp" looks a bit suspicious (did Dissembler add it?), there's no notes or authors or any indication from cover picture that there's a known ISFDB artist involved. If a human submitted it I'd probably question the submitter over whether there's actually any fiction in it, any essays that aren't just about the TV show, any interviews with ISFDB authors or artists, any original artwork by ISFDB artists. BLongley 14:36, 28 Mar 2007 (CDT)
Yes I think the "tp" is an conversion issue. I am working though some of the unknowns and many items are "Binding: tp" (floor displays, magazines). Ray 10:37, 29 Mar 2007 (CDT)
The Discworld Mappes and Cookbook qualify on ISFDB Artist, Essays, Fiction, but probably not on Interviews until we get clearer guidance on Pseudonyms. If people want it I'll add the full contents of the "Nanny Ogg Cookbook" this weekend - well, maybe not "full", there's only 6 articles listed in contents but I could get over a 100 content titles out of it. Even the Discworld Diaries contain a small Fictional and/or Essay content, although most of the books are blank diary pages with small quotes once per week: I wouldn't create 52 "(excerpt)" titles but I wouldn't ignore the fact that for a completist, here IS genre fiction you can't get in any other publication. But if there was, say, a Discworld "Hogfather Calendar" containing only pictures from the TV show and no literature-relevant words I'd be happy to leave it out... and that Star Trek Calendar might be photographs only from all we can see so far. BLongley 14:36, 28 Mar 2007 (CDT)
After thinking about this for a few days I would say keep them. My primary reason is the "art books". Ray 10:37, 29 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Multi Book Collections

Working on some unknowns. Came across two simlar items and had a question on how to handle "boxed sets" or CD/DVD collections?

Greatest Digital Collection of Fantasy and Science Fiction Books Amazon's Entry is one example.
Star Trek, 4 Vol. Boxed Set is a book example but not a great exampe. I think this is a boxed set of books.
Other examples. CD included in some David Weber books containing all previous books. Some Heinlein boxed sets sold.

Ray 11:03, 29 Mar 2007 (CDT)

  • The Greatest Digital Collection of Fantasy and Science Fiction Books looks like an omnibus.
Spaced this type thanks. Ray 16:51, 29 Mar 2007 (CDT)
  • re: The Star Trek box set.
    • My first thought was to delete it as there no way to know which of the Pocket Star Trek books were included but....
    • It has an ISBN and as it's a November-1992 release it's probably a gift box and also is new enough that the box is barcoded. Someone may show up that saved both the box and its books.
    • This is a record from ISFDB version one and on http://www.isfdb.org/pocket.html
    • I was thinking the author name could be changed to either "Star Trek" or "Pocket" but other Star Trek box sets are
      • 30802 Star Trek (Boxed Set) by Silhouette
      • 30803 Star Trek (No. 2/ Boxed Set) by J. M. Dillard
      • 30808 Star Trek 2: The Klingon Gambit/Black Fire/Web of the Romulans/Demons/Boxed Set by Murdock and Aruego
      • 30816 Star Trek Firsts-4 Vol. Boxed Set: The Motion Picture, Encounter at Far Point, ... by Silhouette
      • 30856 Star Trek: The Entropy Effect/the Covenant of the Crown/Yesterday's Son/the Idic Epidemic/Boxed Set by Weinstein and Aruego
      • 30862 Star Trek: The Next Generation, 4 Vol. Boxed Set by unknown
    • It seems that a solution would be to put all of these in a series called "Star Trek Box Sets" and to change the unknown authors to "Star Trek" adding notes that the authors are unknown.
Related to this is that I looked at unknown and am tempted to change the author of the Tom Swift books to Tom Swift, the W.I.T.C.H. books would only be by W.I.T.C.H., etc. and the author records would explain that the the books were written under house names or not credited at all. Marc Kupper (talk) 11:47, 29 Mar 2007 (CDT)
That puzzled me too about pseudonyms of unknown. I was pondering some of unknown types on my profile page. A solution would introduce complexity to someone not familiar to the setup. But different type of unknowns like. 1. Unknown (Data entry) 2. Unknown (on purpose) house names, corporate reasons. 3. Unknown (recognized never credited or lost) famous works. 4. Unknown (Items that would typically not be credited). Confusing. I might be missing an existing solution too. Getting off topic too. Ray 16:51, 29 Mar 2007 (CDT)
Yeesh! I just looked at unknown too and saw a load of titles that I could put a "correct name" on: not enough to verify them, but it might put some of them back into a position where a verifier would at least SEE them! A quick scan suggests ISBNs starting "999" are suspect, and others even have cover PICTURES that would show the probable author... if they're unverified pubs, can anyone see any reason for me NOT to "correct" the obvious mistakes? BLongley 16:16, 29 Mar 2007 (CDT)
I started on the unknowns by correcting titles familiar (some Heinlein and Laumer titles) to me. I was wondering why such obivious titles were listed. So I started working on removing the junk before fixing more as a way to familarize myself with the new setup/process. So what are ISBNs "999" typical are? Amazon sometimes finds a record for them. Example. Ray 16:51, 29 Mar 2007 (CDT)
Many of the unknowns for "obviously recognizable titles" are the result of data imports from sites such as Amazon. I also have thought about proposing various classes of "Unknown" - mainly so that as people go through the main unknown list there don't be duplication of effort as people research what the correct author may be. By all means - if you can figure out the author with a reasonable degree of confidence then go ahead with editing the title and underlying publication. Every so often I look, grab a title from the middle of the list, and figure out who the author should be. There's also an anonymous author list though with that one the distinction is that the publication states "anonymous."
A related project that ideally should be scripted is to change the cover and interior art records from "unknown" to uncredited or to blank it out as that's what Template:PublicationFields:Artist asks for. On the subject of artwork - when entering/verifying publications When the artwork is not credited then besides leaving the cover art field blank I'll add a note that the cover artist is not credited so that people will know I looked but could not find an attribution.
I would like to remove the cover artist of unknowns. But not a high priority to discuss yet. I think the unknown authors were there for a DB requirement. Getting into "uncredited" could be confusing too. Some artist are not credited in the credits while clearly signed on the art work. Old books are guilty of this. Some artist were unknowns due to data entry, some aren't known, and some artist can be guessed at. Cover artist are 2nd hardest to find with (one time) short story anthology author's the hardest. Ray 13:44, 11 Apr 2007 (CDT)
My guess is that 9999 ISBNs are from Powell's bookstore and that Powells assigns them to books that don't have a barcode much like Amazon assigns ASIN codes like B000I1L5EQ. I think it's Powell's as I was browsing their site once and realized a fairly high percentage of the ISBNs were of the 9999 variety and that they did not seem to be data imports from Amazon. Thus I assumed Powell's creates the codes and exports them to Amazon when it acts as a bookseller. Marc Kupper (talk) 22:40, 29 Mar 2007 (CDT)
So should "9999" ISBNs entries that match a valid book title should be kept? I think some could be duplicate titles with only the ISBNs to reference I can't tell. These entires do look like a feed loaded from a major export versus a manual entry. So I leave this for the moderators to discuss a such a wide update should take place, or decide another policy. My thinking was just to update the unkowns to the valid author and let the entires appear under the author for further validation. Ray 13:44, 11 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Regularisation/Regularization

Did this conversation ever result in a consensus? Or was one reached elsewhere?

No that I have noticed. I concur that this is an area that can use more attention. As a general observation, I agree with Mike's comment that he made at the end of the last discussion ("I will generally argue for entering exactly what's on the publication, but I think that some regularization is OK"), but we really need to document what we are copying from the Publications verbatim and what we are "regularizing". Without clear guidelines, we will have no end of confusion.
The good news is that many of these "problem records" can be easily found with one-two SQL queries, and it shouldn't be too hard to automate cleanup tasks at some point. Ahasuerus 18:58, 3 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Agreed: and I think the "clear guidelines" are probably easier to achieve while we're still a comparatively small group of editors. (What is our growth rate?) BLongley 14:00, 4 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Well, beta started around Christmas, so in about 14 weeks we have gone from 5 to 25+ active editors with 100+ edits. About 1.8 new active editors per week? Ahasuerus 18:14, 5 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Thanks for the reminder of that link - it seems to be growing fast, and I think we ought to look out for a few of those newcomers on 10 edits or less to make sure we don't lose them. Two are Fannish names I recognise: of course there's no guarantee that the people I know in real life are behind the names here, but I wouldn't want to put them off by holding them up with ID checks. BLongley 19:02, 5 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Er, ID checks? What ID checks? :) Ahasuerus 00:40, 6 Apr 2007 (CDT)
"Ben Aaronovitch", "Pmorwood" and "Marcus Rowland" all looked suspiciously semi-famous to me. I think Marc challenged "Pmorwood" over edits to the relevant author details... no harm really, they can edit MY author entry if I ever get one! (Dammit, I've had reviews published, letters published, songs published, got an award: what do I have to do, write a novel? :-/ ) BLongley 19:22, 7 Apr 2007 (CDT)

(I'm a newbie at wiki-searches, although I'm getting more confident with the ISFDB ones.)

As an aside, our Wikisearch capabilities are not all that they could be, probably due to the fact that we are running a very old version of the MediaWiki software. Ahasuerus 18:58, 3 Apr 2007 (CDT)

It's just that I regularised the "Ph.D."s last weekend (as it seems we usually DON'T put a space in there), and nobody seems to have complained. This did mean changing the help text to match - although I find today I missed some of the other help texts due to my poor search skills. :-/

Today I looked at the "M.D."s, and although I got side-tracked with "M.D. Broxon" versus "M. D. Broxon" and "Mildred Downey Broxon", I'm happy with those edits: but now I'm unsure about "E. M. Clinton, Jr.", "Ed M. Clinton, Jr." and "Ed. M. Clinton, Jr." (Note the full stop after "Ed" in the last). Is there a rule we're all happy with over shortened but not initialised names?

The obvious (to me) next check was for "Wm." and that leads to people like "Michael Kaluta", "Michael W. Kaluta", "Michael William Kaluta" and "Michael Wm. Kaluta" that need a clean. :-/

I think that going beyond spelling (mostly periods and commas) regularization could be asking for trouble. Ahasuerus 18:58, 3 Apr 2007 (CDT)
That's my point: I would not regularize "Ed." to "E." or "Edward", nor "Wm." to "W." or "William". But I'd be tempted with "Ed." to "Ed" and "Wm" to "Wm." And as that means I'm being inconsistent, removing a "." for one case and adding it for the other, I thought I'd bring it up for discussion. I've just noticed another: "Geo" or "Geo."? We have a stray "Geo. W. Proctor". How many examples can we think of - if there's only three we could add them to the help, if there's dozens we need a more general rule (even if it turns out we make variant a lot more.) BLongley 14:00, 4 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Just found a fourth example: "Thos." BLongley 17:43, 5 Apr 2007 (CDT)
I had a script that searched for these bad boys a while back and I think I found a couple dozen occurrences. I'll see if I can find it and post it in the projects area. Ahasuerus 18:14, 5 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Fifth example: "Chas." Doesn't cause any problems here though - yet! BLongley 15:15, 9 Apr 2007 (CDT)

I suspect, but can't prove (as I can't do my usual REGEXP searches here (or can I and just don't know how?))

The easiest way to do SQL queries and regex searches is by downloading the ISDFB backup file, importing it into a MySQL database and going from there. Ahasuerus 18:58, 3 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Yeah, I really must take a break and do that soon. I think I know what I'll be doing over Easter. BLongley 14:00, 4 Apr 2007 (CDT)

that we mostly ARE following a convention about spacing multiple initials, know how to abbreviate most common forenames, etc: but it's also clear we are ending up with multiple unconnected author entries we aren't spotting or fixing. I hope this is just my overlooking the relevant help texts (although if I am, maybe "Regularisation/Regularization" needs to be a separate entry?) but if not we may end up in an edit war, and I wouldn't want that as some of the edits could be HUGE. BLongley 16:18, 3 Apr 2007 (CDT)

(Yes, I know it's ironic that I can't even tell which spelling of regulari[s|z]ation we should use...) :-/ BLongley 16:38, 3 Apr 2007 (CDT)
We have been able to avoid the messy "British-vs-American spelling" area so far since our emphasis is on recording titles exactly as they appear, so we just create Variant Titles as appropriate. However, there are some areas where spelling regulari(s/z)ation may become an issue, e.g. do we really want to have a tag for humorous sf as well as a tag for "humourous" sf? I see our Help pages as less problematic since the two languages haven't diverged to the point where their differences could significantly affect comprehension of general purpose texts. Ahasuerus 18:58, 3 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Haven't they? ;-) Am I the only person that had to check a dictionary after reading "Do not kern initials"? :-/ BLongley 14:00, 4 Apr 2007 (CDT)
True, there are a few non-technical (i.e. not related to automotive and other technologies where the usage is significantly different) cases that can be confusing, e.g. "tabling an issue", but kerning is a technical term and I am sure there are plenty of Americans who would be confused by it as well. Ahasuerus 18:14, 5 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Ah, good! Although I'm a Techie I realise there are many other classes of Techie, and it's not a US/UK/NZ/Oz/SA/etc "English" problem as such. If "kern" was a common American word I'd be worried about it. I already know the dangers in phrases: e.g. "I could murder an Indian" and "I'm going outside for a fag" are perfectly normal here, but get you some amazing stares from our American visitors at work. :-) BLongley 19:02, 5 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Oh, sure, slang is another area where the two languages have diverged quite a bit. And if you tell an American that you have left a torch in the attic, she could get rather agitated :) But general purpose help files shouldn't be too bad, although if you find anything ambiguous, unclear or grating, please post it here so that we could sort it out and make it Atlantic-neutral. Pacific-neutral too, of course! Ahasuerus 00:40, 6 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Multiple, Strange Published Dates

My Permabook edition of "The Third Galaxy Reader" contains 3 dates and I'm confused as to which one to use. The first is the Doubleday edition date, so obviously that one is out. The second is listed as "Permabook edition published July, 1960", and directly underneath it it has "1st printing.....May, 1960". Should I use the printed date, or the published date, which was 2 months after the printing? CoachPaul 09:29, 5 Apr 2007 (CDT)

This isn't covered in Template:PublicationFields:Year so whatever the answer, we need to update that. Without more information I'd use the earlier of the two dates. However, I'd like to know if someone who knows the ins and outs of the publishing industry can explain why a book might have been annotated that way. If nobody here knows, there are editors with blogs who might be able to answer the question. Mike Christie (talk) 09:35, 5 Apr 2007 (CDT)
This practice is peculiar to Permabooks: they list both the printing date(s) and the original publication date. The publication date is when the books actually went on sale, so that's probably the one we want to use. The printing date (obviously) is always earlier than the publication date. (Scott Latham 10:34, 5 Apr 2007 (CDT))
This was also done by Pennant and Pocket books. My edits have used the printing date and put the publication date in the notes. Since this field is for the printing date i would think it best to be consistent. The book may or maynot have been on sale on the publication date.Kraang 21:58, 7 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Thanks, I think that is what I used, but I'll check and change it if I didn't.CoachPaul 12:15, 5 Apr 2007 (CDT)
This Permabook quirk may well be worth documenting in the affected Notes field(s) as well as in the Help file so that future editors/verifiers could tell how to deal with this situation. Ahasuerus 15:30, 5 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Rather than adding yet another specific-case note to the help pages how about "If you see something that looks strange in a publication then please document exactly what's shown and where in the ISFDB notes field for this publication. Likewise, if you see an error or misspelling in something like a story title or author name then please also add a comment in the notes fields so that others looking at the ISFDB record will know it's an error in the publication itself and not a data entry error." Marc Kupper (talk) 00:32, 9 Apr 2007 (CDT)

What to do with foreign magazines (etc.)?

I can understand or at least put up with the eventualist aim to include all "foreign language translations of speculative fiction works originally published in English". But ISFDB:Policy#Rules of Acquisition point 2 continues, "Support for ... collections and omnibuses that have no direct analogs in English, etc) may need to be enhanced" and I'm afraid the time has come at least to remove the qualification. I've run across a publication of Polish SF magazine Fantastyka from 2001 (to make things worse, a stray one with no corresponding title, not mentioning several typos in the Polish) containing three translated stories: UKLG's Birthday of the World and Robert J. Sawyer's Just Like Old Times (I have no idea about the third one, the Polish title seems to mean "Touch of Silk"). The Polish titles now appear in their authors' bibliographies as independent stories. Of course, they could at least be made variants of the originals, but that is just a tiny bit less frustrating: why should just these three clutter the top-level view, when obviously it's impossible (and useless for the ordinary Anglophone users of ISFDB) to list in this way every translation of every title? But is there any better solution at this time?

Somewhat similar problem with German translations of David_Drake's Lord of the Islands saga (and much else, probably) where each title is split into two volumes. So far I've solved it by treating German books as a publication of the appropriate English one (which thus has two different German publications [or would, if all German books were in the ISFDB, which is currently the case just of the opening volume, fortunately]) and adding a Note to them explaining the situation.

Which reminds me, this practice of splitting books for paperback is becoming more frequent even in US/UK publishing as books get bloated (say, UK pb of A Storm of Swords and OTOH US of Night's Dawn Trilogy); having some software support for treating this would be nice. Frex Robert_Silverberg's Legends anthology series is currently in a terrible mess (and I see that with Peter_F._Hamilton the one-volume UK originals are treated as "O/2N"; this really doesn't seem sensible to me...) --JVjr 18:53, 5 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Note: User:WimLewis submitted MakeVariant of the Sawyer story. I've put it on Hold, as I think that with current state of the system it is better to merge it to the original (the Polish title is mis-spelled anyway) and list the translated title just in the Notes to the magazine publication (which also seems to be the practice at HNSCNCFCTN1982 etc.); however, it will take me some time to research. (I also noticed that Sawyer has as a variant a French translation of his story without any publication, but will leave that for now.) --JVjr 10:45, 11 Apr 2007 (CDT)

The Enigmas of Brian W. Aldiss

I'm not sure if this situation has been brought up before, but here goes. From the early 70s, Brian Aldiss has written quite a number of three-part stories he calls "enigmas". Each story is separately titled and is complete within itself. They share a common theme, but otherwise, each of the three stories could be read on its own. Locus deals with this by designating the overarching title as a group (gp), and proceeds to supply the story titles individually as, usually, short stories (ss) or vignettes (vi). There must be other authors who have done the same but Aldiss seems to be the king of the practice. So the question is, how should it be handled here on ISFDB? In the Aldiss listing, they all appear as shortfiction, sometimes providing the individual story titles, but more often not. Someone searching for a specific title would come up with a blank if the separate story titles are not listed. Any suggestions of how to handle it? I would personally take on the task of providing all the titles, if a standard can be established. Mhhutchins 16:44, 5 Apr 2007 (CDT)

My immediate thought is to make them "series", and we can stack multiple series levels if necessary until there's a grand "Aldiss Enigmas" series covering them all: although we have problems if any of them are in other series already. Maybe a Tag would be better in that case. If you have them ready, dump the titles with whatever categorization you've got already and let us take take a look: I've only got a dozen pubs of his but that might be enough to make a start, and there's online biblios too. And someone else here (if not several) will have the entire collection even if we have to poke them into actively looking at them. ;-) BLongley 17:10, 5 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Second thought: are the Polytropical Paramyths I mention in that title a similar example? If so, I may have already have dodged answering the question once, but feel a bit more responsible now. If it's relevant, when there's a consensus I'll fix Farmer and you do Aldiss, OK? BLongley 17:34, 5 Apr 2007 (CDT)
"Series" was the first thing that came to mind as well since it's as close to "groups" as we can get without making changes to the software. Ahasuerus 18:17, 5 Apr 2007 (CDT)
I didn't think that series would work, until BLongley mentioned the leveling. Here's an example of what I thought would work (all would be listed under shortfiction):
The Aperture Moment: Waiting for the Universe to Begin
The Aperture Moment: But Without Orifices
The Aperture Moment: Aimez-Vous Holman Hunt?
But with the series levels it could go something like this:

Fiction Series

  • Enigmatic Stories
    • The Aperture Moment
      • Waiting for the Universe to Begin
      • But Without Orifices
      • Aimez-Vous Holman Hunt?
    • The Eternal Theme of Exile
      • The Eternal Theme of Exile
      • All Those Enduring Old Charms
      • Nobody Spoke or Waved Goodbye
Of course, titles would have to be created for each story within the group, giving the group name as the series title. Then the group titles would have to be assigned to the "Enigmatic Stories" series. There's going to be a lot of work to do, especially in revising the contents sections of the publications in which the stories appear. I might test out a few to see if this works, unless someone has a better idea. Mhhutchins 21:13, 5 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Two Titles by Jessamyn West

My copy of "The Chilekings" has printed on the data page, "Originally published under the title of Little Men, copyright 1954, by Ballentine Books, Inc." The db lists "Little Men" as a Novella, and shows it to be about 65 pages long in the book "Star Short Novels", edited by Fredrik Pohl. This book is about twice that length, but is an edition for students, with a page entitled "A Note to Teachers and Parents", and is widly spaced, so it is very likely that this is the same story. It seems to me, that "The Chilekings" should be added as a variant title to "Little Men", but should "LM" be changed to a novel, or should "Chilekings" be changed to a shortstory/novella? CoachPaul 09:43, 6 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Our Help pages follow the current Hugo guidelines, which state that a novella is a "work whose length is greater than 17,500 words and less than or equal to 40,000 words. (Roughly 50 to 100 pages in a book.)" It's very likely that this story is a novella according to our definition, so we will want to set the Title type to "SHORTFICTION", the "Storylen" field to "nv" (for "novella", not to be confused with Contento's terminology) and the "Pub Type" of the standalone Publication (edition) to "CHAPTERBOOK". By the way, was the standalone published by Ballantine in 1967 (code U284) and have 123 pages, by chance? Ahasuerus 00:10, 7 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Yes, the standalone information you gave is correct, but it also states on the cover, and nowhere else, that it is a "Ballentine Bal-HI Book Original". Should I add the Bal-Hi to the Publisher information? I have started this process outlined above, but need to go out now. I will finish it later. CoachPaul 08:39, 7 Apr 2007 (CDT)
We do want to capture this type of information since it can help with distinguishing between different editions and printings down the road, although perhaps not in this particular case. The right place to record it would be in the Notes field, though, since the Publisher field is reserved, as per the Help pages, for "[t]he name of the book's publisher". Ahasuerus 11:06, 7 Apr 2007 (CDT)
I'll get it right eventually. Now that I've got "The Chilekings" listed as the varient title, I need to move the pub to the varient title and then remove the existing bad record. And maybe do something else I haven't thought of yet. CoachPaul 11:11, 7 Apr 2007 (CDT)
I must admit the methods confused me (you could have merged three titles at one point rather than delete one and merge two), but you seem to have got there now. Have a look. BLongley 14:18, 7 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Edward L. Ferman Problem

Under Series title "Best from F&SF", you can tell just from looking at the dates that "25 The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: 25 (1974)", is clearly out of place. When you open it's link, the pub is "The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction, 25th Anniversary, (1974 , Edward L. Ferman, Doubleday, hc, anth)", which is already under the Series "F & SF Anniversary Anthologies", and has two editions listed there. Pub # THBSRSY441974, the one that is incorrectly placed, has the most information listed of any of the editions that have been entered into the db. Can this title be removed from the incorrect series listion, and placed in it's proper place? I can't figure out how to do it, and don't want to screw something up. CoachPaul 20:20, 6 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Yes, it was possible to remove this Publication record from the incorrect Title record (using "Unmerge Titles" on the left), which would have created a new Title record for this Publication. You could then merge the newly created Title with the Title in the Anniversary series. However, since there were no other Publications under the "bad" Title record, there was an easier way. Simply merging the two Titles (using the "Titles" option on Ferman's biblio page) resulted in the "good" Publication record with all its Contents data getting moved under the merged Title record. Once I did that, all that remained to do was a little bit of polishing (adding the ISBN from OCLC etc) and things are in synch now. The 1977 paperback contentless paperback reprint looks suspect, but I left it alone for now. Ahasuerus 00:02, 7 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Thank you. I got this cloned to a pb, I'm not sure if the suspect one is good or not, but my copy is wierd. It lists a bunch of dates in the beginning of the book, but none of them are specificaly attributed to any stories, nor is there a date of publishment for the book as a whole. I left the dates as they already were figuring that they were in the hb, and used the last date listed as the date for the pub. Should I change the date on the pub to "unknown"? CoachPaul 08:35, 7 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Unfortunately, this is not uncommon with reprint anthologies. OCLC lists this paperback reprint as "1975?", so I have changed the date to 0000-00-00 (displays as "unknown") and added a Note about it. I also created a clone for the British hardcover reprint based on what OCLC has listed. The page count is the same as the first edition's, so I assume that there were no textual differences, but we won't know for sure until somebody verifies it. Ahasuerus 17:53, 7 Apr 2007 (CDT)

The 6th Annual of the Year's Best S-F Judith Merril ed.

My copy of the dell edition of this book contains several cartoons, one of which is several pages long, and another of which is a Sunday Strip of Pogo from 1961. Should I add these to the contents or leave them out? CoachPaul 23:37, 7 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Rules for including artwork. If artwork illustrates a particular story, it should be included. If it does not, but is a significant piece of artwork, or is signed by or credited to a well known sf artist, then it should be included. Cartoons are always included; the title should be their caption, if they have one, or "Cartoon" if they don't.
Although I can only think of one pub of mine where I've had to.... I need more "funny books". BLongley 05:38, 8 Apr 2007 (CDT)
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