Forum

Jane/Fiona, a number of people, in various forum posts over the years, have suggested that we be able to add books without ISBN numbers. I've thought a lot about this because I too would like that ability. I don't know the structure of the EYB datebase, but imagine that allowing this could cause you problems.

To keep EYB out of having to track down every non-ISBN book (an impossibility), perhaps people could add their own books to the existing "book" database. However, I suspect allowing this would cause database quality problems. If/when that happened, EYB could end up handling way too many error notices, creating an administrative nightmare. Since acurate information is key to EYB's appeal, I don't like this idea.

Another approach might be to add another main category called "personal libraries", to the existing categories: "books", "magazines" and "blogs". The name of the new category doesn't matter. The new category could come with notice that EYB isn't responsible for the accuracy of, and errors in, this category. In other words, keep books added this way (unsupervised entries and unsupervised errors) separate and apart from the existing database.

I'm sure there are many other approaches, and am not sure my idea would work. I'm throwing this to the community for discussion. Any thoughts?

Tasteslike, I agree that it could be an administrative nightmare, but I like your "EYB holds no responsibility" suggestion...about 1/3 of my cookbook collection doesn't have an ISBN number (or the one they do have is invalid) - I'd love to be able to list them to have an accurate reflection of my cookbooks. Watching with interest!

The more I think about the 'Personal Library' idea, the more I like it.  It makes sense as a pair with the existing feature Personal Recipes.

It could well be that a handful of cookbooks will turn up on multiple members' Personal Libraries (visible to EYB database workers), and so become stronger candidates for indexing -- which would add them to the EYB Library, accessible to all members.

If you have older books with only a 10-digit ISBN (discontinued in 2007 in favor of the current 13-digit ISBN), there are free ISBN converters online you can use to find your book's corresponding ISBN-13. Also, EYB's Import Books feature will let you add books to your Bookshelf by entering or copy-and-pasting 10- or 13-digit ISBN's.

Goodreads has volunteer moderators checking the book entries, merging two versions of the same book, adding book covers, making certain that the information entered by users is correct.  This is necessary because so many books now don't have the ISBN numbers and many only have an Amazon version of an ISBN.

EYB could have something similar.  Allow users to submit ebooks or books without ISBN numbers and have volunteers verify the information before it appears on site for everyone else. 

There could even be projects/challenges/contests where teams of users could enter the index/ingredient data for each book and maybe earn badges for participation.

Just some thoughts from someone with more ebook cookbooks than deadbook cookbooks.

J.

jhardesty - we would love to do something like that. We have always thought we would like to have "editor" members, who have proved they understand the EYB indexing rules (by indexing some of their own books), who can directly edit errors they spot on the site.

For non-ISBN books we want to add a feature that allows members to add their own book data. I'm not sure whether it would need to be verified by volunteers.  It might just need someone to check that the category tags are correct and that it's not spam or offensive before it gets added (in the same way Christine checks over the member added recipes). If another member then feels some of the data is incorrect, they can contact us and we will correct it (we have one member who emails us almost daily with corrections to book data).

Goodreads has 40 million members and 90 staff so is in rather a different sphere than Eat Your Books. They can introduce new features quickly and manage them more easily than EYB can.

I'm not sure why you think ecookbooks are less likely to have ISBN numbers than print books.  In my experience eBooks have ISBN numbers.

Actually quite a number of ebooks are being published these days without the ISBN, especially through self-publishing sites.  I noticed it when I downloaded a report of my purchases from Amazon last year.  I don't know how to add them here.

[quote=Jane;6753]

....we have one member who emails us almost daily with corrections to book data....

Wow!

Adding a unique ISBN adds another level of bureaucracy (and $$$)  to self publishing - and  the use of an ISBN for ebooks is recommended, but not required.  ebooks from recognised publishers will generally have an ISBN.

I have quite a few prior-to-ISBN cookbooks, like two  different sets of Progressive Farmer Cookbooks that are highly valued. One of them has the only published huckleberry pie recipe I have been able to find in print! Not a blueberry pie recipe that can be modified... an actual Huckleberry Pie recipe! My whole family (of which I am the eldest grandchild from 6 siblings, the first of 36 grandchildren) wanted that Progressive Farmer Desserts cookbook. I bought the "second" set of Progressive Farmer cookbooks trying to get a copy! Lucky for me, Grammaw decided that since I made desserts out of that book every Christmas, I got it two months ago! Whoot! She is still with us, BTW, but decided that since she is living with Mom and is no longer cooking, it should go to someone who really wants it. But there are many recipes in there that I want to try. Those sets are unique by year published. I really want a way to search those recipes quickly.

rumpledsilkskeins You can always consider offering to index it yourself (member indexing).. you'd need to contact deborah, jane or fiona  at eat your books, scan the cover, copyright pages, give them info about the book - eg: page numbers, what its about etc and then fill a relaxing few cool winter's evenings indexing.. on average it takes around an hour to index 15 - 20 recipes when you're starting out .. that's how I got most of my bookshelf done!  And you discover some amazing things alomg the way.. detailed contact with the books on the shelves aside!!

rumpledsilkskeins - take a look at the Member Indexing Manual and see if it is something you might be interested in taking up. The rules do look rather complex at first glance but they are mainly common sense and once you have indexed one or two books, you will need to refer to the manual less and less. About 30% of the books indexed on EYB are done by members.

If you want to index those titles then we will add them for you. Please contact us at [email protected].

Reading the January notice about the best sellers of 2015 I spotted the words "Don't forget to list all of your cookbooks..." and had to check back to the forum to see if you had worked out a solution to the non-ISBN books.   Like many other collectors I have a lot of books not on my bookshelf here because they don't have ISBNs. About one third of my collection as a matter of fact.

Since quite a few of them are older books I'm pretty sure there are many members who have copies of the same books and they might easily warrant indexing, but as your last line in that paragraph says "But none of that can happen if you don't own the book!"  

So have I missed something and you have resolved the issue of listing the books or is this topic still in limbo?

lsgourmet - you still are not able to add non-ISBN books to the Library unless you want to index them. It is on our development to-do list but we have limited resources and have to assign our funds to development work that will grow the site. I don't think there will be many (if any) pre-ISBN books that would qualify for indexing. Do you have any in mind that you think would?