"Price" field, Beta

I have released a new field for the books price. This is a beta feature, not a finished one, please!

Here's what I'm showing:


Here are the details:

1. The data comes from Bowker(1) and is, in theory, the list price.
2. The data is not currently editable. Clearly we need to allow that.
3. The data is tied to ISBNs alone.
4. For now, I'm showing everything we know. I think we will want a feature to show only your preferred currency.
5. My thinking is that, if we don't have data for your preferred currency, we convert another currency to your currency and show it as green or approximate.

All kinds of things are missing, like:

1. Editing data, either your own or globally.
2. A feature to select your preferred currency
3. A stats page to total up the value of your books.

What else? What features do you want to see here?

---

1. The problem with price has always been Amazon. We get prices from Amazon, but we can't use them without refreshing them constantly. Bowker helps us there. But we don't yet know how to use all the Bowker data, and we don't have all of it loaded in our system.

I'm assuming this will be a private field.

I know this has been frequently requested, so I'm happy for the folks who want it.
Yes, it should absolutely be editable.

P.s.: obviously I would want EUR

>2 Taphophile13:

That's a good question. I don't know. If the data is inherently about the ISBN, should it be private? If edits are allowed, should they be private?

P.s.: obviously I would want EUR

They're there. But not there all the time. Obviously I could convert to them.

>4 timspalding: An approximation would be fine. Exact exchange rates fluctuate after all.

>4 timspalding:

I would imagine some users will want to use the field it to record what they paid for a book, what it's been appraised at, or what they subjectively value it at. That would all seem to be fairly private information. Of course, people can just use the "private comment" field now for that, but if you make it editable, I suspect people will use it in what they expect will be private ways.

I hope the field will show up in the TSV file?

Not everybody pays the list price. Not everybody will want this available to others.

Euro prices are often not consistent between countries, as VAT differs between countries.


(I certainly did not pay either amount, as my copy is stamped 'Preis red. Mangelexemplar'.)

1) Presumably as this comes from Bowker it doesn't apply to older books at all.

2) If an edition I have is from the 90s (for example) then obviously the price from Bowker will be for the current edition (assuming the same ISBN) and thus incorrect (for my copy of the book).

I guess if it needs to be clear that the price is the "new replacement price" and at book level.

If it is at catalogue level people will start to use it for what they paid, or even cover price, then you are really in the long-grass. People will want non-decimal prices (Lsd for old UK books), totals will be fairly meaningless for peoples with libraries that are decades old.

>8 MarthaJeanne: "Euro prices are often not consistent between countries, as VAT differs between countries."

As an ebook buyer I find prices vary hugely between websites even though it's all locally charged. Just yesterday I was looking at a few books and one site had only some of them at 50% more than another, yet were cheaper for other titles.

But in as an approximate this is what this collection is 'worth' I guess it will average out something approximately correct.

Can we get collection specific subtotals? Or by tag?

Please can Wishlist be separated out!

As usual a vast amount of my fiction titles aren't available at Bowker, no price listed. Some indication of this should be in the summary.

>9 andyl:

I have wanted a way to accumulate a rough idea of the value of my collection for some time. A "price" field would be very useful.

But only at the level of "what I paid for it" or "what it is valued at". Current replacement cost fluctuates too wildly. Since the end of the Net Book Agreement, I can find different prices for any but the newest books, simply by walking down my high street; if I look online as well, I will find more - and that is before I consider my import options.

Such information is only valid at the book level. If I own an original edition of Darwin's Origin of the Species (I don't), then its value is vastly different to the "out of copyright" bulk printings, even where the latter faithfully reproduce the text.

And such information does need to be private. A lot of people do attach their real identities to their LT accounts. If the site automatically provides a sum valuation of their actual library, then it will become a "shopping list" for thieves.

And the net result of that is likely to be more people listing their libraries as "private".

Can we opt out of this field if we chose?
Why the sudden shift from "Absolutely not" that LT has held for 15 years?
Can the field be made blank if we can't opt out?

I do know that people have been asking for something like this, but for the most part, I don't think they want the "list price". The feature requests I've seen generally ask for a field for value or what the person paid for the book, which are different things.

But if you made the field editable, then someone could decide how the wished to use it. It would also allow someone to enter information on books with no or different ISBNs, which for many would be a substantial portion, if not the bulk, of their libraries.

So making it editable is important.

And at that point, it should be private. I don't think I want people to know what I paid for that Gutenberg Bible. ;-)

I do think people are interested in the list price, if only because not many of us will remember just what we paid for a book way back when. Also, the list price is the value of the book. If you paid $20 for that book back in 2005, the current market value is $20 * 0.0!

>13 lilithcat:

If it's the Gutenberg, there needs to be a "stolen" checkbox.

>1 timspalding: Your last comment confuses me Is this field set once when the book is entered or does it change whenever the Bowker data changes?

>14 timspalding:

the list price is the value of the book. If you paid $20 for that book back in 2005, the current market value is $20 * 0.0!

"Market value" is defined as the price for which an object can be sold. I very much doubt that I can get $20 for a book that is 15 years old.

If you mean "replacement cost", that's different.

The field I would like is the price I paid for the book, so I will always be entering that myself. I suppose I would be curious/scared to know that total, so some basic analytics, like a total, might be cool. Most of my books do not have ISBN because they are older, OOP, bought used, or from private presses. I would prefer this field to be private. Right now, when I remember, I put that in the private comment field.

While I might be curious about the "market value", I'm not at all interested in the "amazon" value. This field would be private or selectable as private or public. If I could only have one or the other, I guess I'd choose private.

I'm a book lover not an investment lover. I don't think or worry at all what my books will be "worth" after I am gone or lose the use of them. As Wendell Berry says in his story 'It Wasn't Me', "It's not accountable, we're dealing in goods and services that we didn't make, that can't exist at all except as gifts. Everything about a place that's different from its price is a gift. Everything about a man or woman that's different from their price is a gift. The life of a neighborhood is a gift". For me, books and more importantly, literary works, are gifts.

>14 timspalding: I have a mild interest in the list price, and would be fine with that as a field, but I think it should be explicitly a List Price field and distinct from any value or replacement cost or price paid field, as they are not necessarily the same, especially if the book is out of print. For example, in the past, I purchased Fearful Rock and Other Precarious Locales: The Selected Stories of Manly Wade Wellman, Volume 3, published by Night Shade Books in 2001. Its list price while in print was indeed the $35 shown in the new Price field, although I may not have paid that much. And if I needed to replace my copy, the cheapest listing on Amazon (in Used, Good condition, so not necessarily in good shape) is $99.99, and the lowest price on AbeBooks is $50 more than that; the only recent sale on eBay was for $100. So to call $35 the price is not particularly meaningful for library valuation purposes for that book.

So my preference would be for a few separate fields, covering original list price, a replacement cost (or estimated value), and the price I paid, none of which would necessarily match any of the others. I could see the first being public (as publicly available information), but the other two should be private.

How about the ability to see only those books for which a price is listed?

I added this field in one view to see what it looked like. I have lots of books without prices (no ISBNs and books in Italian, for instance), but they're all scattered within the list.

Early ISBNs give odd results. An old copy of "The Two Towers" shows up in my catalogue as having a list price of $1.25; I don't know that's wrong, per se, but it's definitely not what you'd pay for a new copy today, which is what I imagine a "list price" to be.

>19 lilithcat: a sortable column? It's currently not, but I think might be fun to make it so.

>21 reading_fox:

I wasn't necessarily thinking sortable, but that would work.

Shouldn't there be two fields, one with the (uneditable) Bowker price one editable for for what people actually paid (or recon the books is worth or whatever)?

Is there any reasonable use-case for where the 2nd needs to be NOT private?

Why is the value in Canadian dollars showing as CND? The correct ISO 4217 code is CAD

>23 AndreasJ: Any price column needs to be private. Or at least editable so that it can be blanked. It is irresponsible to make values of people's property publicly available on the web.

>25 MarthaJeanne:

I really don't see why a list price field needs to be private. If I want to know whether your library is worth stealing, I can check the prices on Amazon. Heck, that's probably a better MO for thieves as Amazon Marketplace will give an indication of 2nd hand values.

MarthaJeanne (#25):

Is it the name that's the issue, then? "Cover price", which is what this is if it's un-editable, says nothing about how much anyone paid. Still, we have the logic to have a particular field be private (for Private Comments), so there's no reason not to use it here as well.

>26 AndreasJ: that would take more time and deliberation than scrolling through people's collections would.

Anyway, I don't think book theft is the only concern with making this field public and uneditable for everyone.

>9 andyl: 1) Presumably as this comes from Bowker it doesn't apply to older books at all.

Unless the book is out of print, which is often the case.

If an edition I have is from the 90s (for example) then obviously the price from Bowker will be for the current edition (assuming the same ISBN) and thus incorrect (for my copy of the book).

No, because it's edition based. So it's the price of that edition—as defined by ISBN. If a given ISBN stops being published, the price won't update.

>10 reading_fox: "Euro prices are often not consistent between countries, as VAT differs between countries."

Maybe. I tend to have list prices, which differ from "net" prices. I think these are stable?

>11 -pilgrim-: And such information does need to be private. A lot of people do attach their real identities to their LT accounts. If the site automatically provides a sum valuation of their actual library, then it will become a "shopping list" for thieves.

I just don't see this. Unless you have something rare and collectible—which Bowker won't have data for—books are basically worthless. No thief in their right mind is carting off your modern novels. I'm sure my books are worth many thousands of dollars, but you'd have to rent a moving van to remove them, and carrying them into it would take all day!

>12 gilroy: Can we opt out of this field if we chose?
Why the sudden shift from "Absolutely not" that LT has held for 15 years?
Can the field be made blank if we can't opt out?

I think there's some failure to communicate here. The data is ISBN-level data about the price of books. This data is available thousands of places online.

We can indeed make it private. I think this would be necessary if it's to be editable.

>15 jjwilson61: >1 timspalding: timspalding: Your last comment confuses me Is this field set once when the book is entered or does it change whenever the Bowker data changes?

Whenever the Bowker data changes, or rather whenever the Bowker data changes and LibraryThing gets the update.

>16 lilithcat: "Market value" is defined as the price for which an object can be sold. I very much doubt that I can get $20 for a book that is 15 years old.

You missed the joke. As I said "the list price is the value of the book. If you paid $20 for that book back in 2005, the current market value is $20 * 0.0!"

Perhaps using * for "times" threw you. Books are worthless, basically.

>18 harrygbutler: but I think it should be explicitly a List Price field and distinct from any value or replacement cost or price paid field

Yes, I think this is a good way to frame it.

>20 gabriel: "Early ISBNs give odd results. An old copy of "The Two Towers" shows up in my catalogue as having a list price of $1.25; I don't know that's wrong, per se, but it's definitely not what you'd pay for a new copy today, which is what I imagine a "list price" to be."

Can you give me the ISBN? I want to track it down.

>24 andyl: Why is the value in Canadian dollars showing as CND? The correct ISO 4217 code is CAD

If you say so. Changed.

This exchange sums up my feelings:

AndreasJ: Any price column needs to be private. Or at least editable so that it can be blanked. It is irresponsible to make values of people's property publicly available on the web.
MarthaJeanne: I really don't see why a list price field needs to be private. If I want to know whether your library is worth stealing, I can check the prices on Amazon. Heck, that's probably a better MO for thieves as Amazon Marketplace will give an indication of 2nd hand values.

However, since clearly some people are freaked out by this, i'll make it private.

>29 timspalding:

Perhaps using * for "times" threw you.

Indeed. When I was a kid, we used "x" for "times". But I'm old. ;-)

>29 timspalding: It's been a while since I actually bought a book, but no one actually pays list price, do they?

I'm not sure I would find the feature useful the way it looks in >1 timspalding:. But perhaps my use case is pretty unique; hard to say, since I don't know how other people do things.

I've been buying books for decades now, in at least a dozen different currencies, several of which no longer exist or may not be around for much longer. I also keep a spreadsheet of my book purchases where I note how much I spent on each item, in the relevant currency. So if the feature allowed for it, I would be able to go back and add prices to all my books, in multiple currencies.

Perhaps that modus operandi is too rare to make it worthwhile the development. On the other hand, LT is precisely the site where meticulous note-keepers catalogue their books, so who knows? There might be dozens of us! Dozens!

That said, in my own spreadsheet I convert everything to euro for ease of comparison and calculation -- several of my defunct currencies were replaced by the Euro, so their exchange rate is permanently fixed. So, at a pinch, an editable field that allowed for only one user-specified currency would do. It would have to be private, obviously. It would also have to be book-specific, not work-specific: I own several duplicates that I acquired at different prices.

Ideally, that field would be exportable, too (as >7 bnielsen: said).

>31 jjwilson61:

no one actually pays list price, do they?

Yes. I want my local independent bookstore to stay in business. I'll buy from them at list if that's what it takes.

>33 lilithcat: That. Plus the local booksellers are the EASY way to get books.

>33 lilithcat: & >34 MarthaJeanne: I wish I had a local bookstore to support.

>29 timspalding:

The Lord of the Rings one is 034523510X; another one which clearly isn't a modern price is 0919654061.

>35 amanda4242: I order online from indie bookstores in my region or small specialty presses that don't sell in bookstores.

And >31 jjwilson61: yes, sometimes I pay the list price.

>29 timspalding: However, since clearly some people are freaked out by this, i'll make it private.

Thank you, Tim. I can't think of how making this data public in collections would help us but several ways it could contribute to problems.

From what's been written, it seems to me that folk are going to use this field, if at all, in many and various ways. This in itself makes a private field a better choice, doesn't it?

>28 aspirit:

The extra effort of going to Amazon for data is minuscule compared to that of getting to MarthaJeanne's library and finding the handful of books among thousands that might both have Bowker prices and be worth stealing. (And again, Amazon is far more likely to tell you what is worth stealing than Bowker.)

>29 timspalding:

You got the attributions to MarthaJeanne and me the wrong way round.

>8 MarthaJeanne: I confirm that prices in EUR are different among nations. KDP even allows to set different prices in their different marketplaces.

>8 MarthaJeanne: I confirm that European prices vary from nation to nation. Just to say, Amazon KDP allow the writer to set different prices for different marketplaces.

I think that if there are public values for that field they must be the ones that the publisher set. A "perceived value" must be private.

>39 AndreasJ: not when you already have a reason to target a member's collection. And, again, theft is only one concern.

Why do you want that field public?

Thieves aren't strong enough to move a house full of books. And they don't have enough friends to help.

jjwilson (#31):

It's been a while since I actually bought a book, but no one actually pays list price, do they?


Um, yes? Almost always, if I'm buying it new? Most independent bookstores charge cover/list price. I think it's only Amazon that routinely discounts everything.

>31 jjwilson61:

I often buy from small presses directly - usually at a full price - even if the big resellers have the book cheaper sometimes. :)

And mass market paperbacks are rarely discounted even in Amazon for example.

>43 Bookmarque: Some LT members have collections which would not require the removal of more than a random handful of books off the shelf nearest the door to be a worthwhile endeavor. I've personally catalogued one (not mine, alas), and am aware of a few others through that one.

I've made the field private.

As the field is not editable, and only has the list price of the ISBN, which is available one click away, I'm not sure this is necessary. But the minor advantage in seeing it outside your catalog is not worth the worry some apparently have over this.

>42 aspirit:

I don't particularly want it to be public. I do believe those who think making it private meaningfully improves security are fooling themselves. Schizophrenically lazy thieves are not the ones to worry about.

I'm not really interested in this at all. Adding my vote to it being an opt-in field, or private at the least. (It should not be opt-out. I hate new features which pop up on websites by surprise or stealth that I then have to opt out of.)

the_red_shoes (#49):

It's a column that you could choose to add to a viewing style, if you so chose. It doesn't appear on the book page. Is just knowing that it exists, as an option you could choose to include, so onerous that you need to request even that availability to be opt-in? Just don't add it to a style! I won't, but I certainly don't hate that suddenly there's a new option in the list. That seems a bit extreme.

>32 Petroglyph: There are at least two of us! I have added all my purchase price data including different currencies to the private field since I started using LT over 10 years ago... (and >47 timspalding: thanks for making it private - I certainly don't want that data visibly attached to my library, I get more than enough flack for the number of books I have already... if people could easily work out even a fraction of how much I've spent, I'd be dead 👀)

>51 skullduggery: Me too (well, I have my own DB offline of all my data, including price paid in original and my own currency). I have that data, plus where I got it and when in the private comments (mostly because I started doing this way before the From Where field was even a new item on Tim's to do).

As a private field, I can "look up" someone else's price simply by adding that edition to my own catalogue, no?

A little extra work. Perhaps less than searching online for it, perhaps about the same.

I don't think this means to not make it private, though.

As a private field, I can "look up" someone else's price simply by adding that edition to my own catalogue, no?

At present, yes, because it's only about their ISBN. Once this becomes editable, no.

Is this price field something I can currently see? Or is this still forthcoming? Just asking because Tim said he made it private, which made it sound like it already existed.

>55 al.vick:

Go to your styles (https://www.librarything.com/settings/styles), "Price" is under "Miscellaneous". You can add it to whichever style you want and it will show up in your catalog there.

>55 al.vick:

You can see it now, but you will have to add it to a "style", one of the ways you view your catalogue. It isn't on your book page.

There seem to be various minor formatting issues in the data at present, e.g. trailing zeros being dropped (“$2.5”). Euro symbols don’t seem to render properly on iPad, South African prices are missing the “R” symbol.

I don’t know if you’re planning to keep the multi-currency listing, but it’s difficult to read the way it’s formatted at present, with the (ambiguous) currency symbol on one side of the value and the ISO code on the other. There’s no natural reading flow. Why not either drop the symbol or put the ISO code before the value as well? Or use a two-letter country code plus the symbol?

thanks for this - for insurance purposes, this field would be super helpful - so long as I can total it! (and in my currency)

another field for people to put in cost price (what they actually paid) woiuld be great

look forward to seeing this develop

For all practical purposes, the National Library of France (BNF) has for many years been listing the official displayed price of publishers book's for a very lot of books (almost all since 1981).
This is a price imposed since 1981, in France (with a maximum discount of 5%) for resellers (excluding sales and destokage periods). And even before 1981 the prices had to be displayed.
The info can be found in the Intermarc (020) or unimarc (010) notice

Note a difficulty lies in the change of currency
1958-12-27: Ancien Franc / 100 = New Franc
2002-01-01 Franc (New) / 6.55957 = Euro

BNF indicates the value in the current at the time of legal deposit

https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb42307636m.unimarc

Example

>59 FergusS: Your insurance is hardly likely to consider list price as evidence of value of your copies.

>61 MarthaJeanne:

Isn't homeowner's insurance normally replacement cost? List price isn't that far off, I kinda doubt an insurer would fight you on that.

>64 gabriel:

Depends on your policy. Some will cover replacement costs, others actual cash value.

If your books are particularly valuable, you should have separate coverage, which would require an appraisal.

>65 lilithcat: And even on a less valuable library (i.e. heaps of unsigned bestsellers), any steps you take to thoroughly document will speed your claim and increase the chances of the insurance company giving you a better payout.

Though many points have been successfully made already, I wanted to add support, particularly for potential evolution (er, maybe complication) of the field. After entering prices in the private notes field for years, I really appreciate that LT is adding a price feature. However, a static and possibly public field of list prices from a specific source falls short of my personal needs.

First, I would prefer an editable field where I can consistently enter the type of value that is meaningful to me and accurate in that parameter.

Like others, I own books without ISBNs or in foreign languages. A cursory glance through my library with the price field on shows at least a third of my books without prices.

Like others, I own older editions of books whose price or replacement value won't match the list. ISBN/edition data on Amazon and other marketplaces can be incorrectly linked. I also own books that have been modified (signed, annotations, condition issues), which can alter the value. And as a supporter of independent used bookstores, I've paid prices for books that are unlike the depicted list, and many of those books are still available at non-list prices, even if Bowker doesn't discover that data. List price can prioritize big name outlets and fail to allow for the many ways and places people buy books.

To make the field personally useful, I would need to be able to edit, both to fill in missing data and to correct inaccuracies.

Second, I don't want it to be publicly visible in any way.

Respectfully, I don't see the benefit of a public field for any type of price, and I'm concerned by the pushback. Who or what is the price data meant to serve?

The argument that list price is publicly available information seems to demonstrate the current insufficiency of the field. Just because data is available online doesn't mean it needs to be included, and if all it can offer is the same data found elsewhere, what is its intended purpose? As this thread has indicated, the list price is meaningless for many. If the field becomes editable, then the data will be too differentiated to make public analysis useful. Valuing beyond the list price can relate to information that should stay private as desired. Arguing that making it private doesn't stop thieves isn't a justification for making it public.

Finally, I know the original statement about market value was meant as a joke, but I'm going to treat it seriously because not everyone knows about valuation. As an appraiser, I reiterate lilithcat's comment that market value does NOT mean the same as the list price you paid twenty years earlier. It is explicitly related to the current market. I advise caution before trying to use the LT price field data for any kind of formal valuation.

Tl;dr: as the price field stands right now, I will regretfully ignore it and continue to enter data in my own way. I'm very glad to see a starting point, and I look forward to seeing how this work progresses. Thanks also, as always, for being open to feedback.

I would like the ability to manually enter the information because the ISBN I have here in Australia isn't always generating the correct book. Therefore I 99% add my books manually so I can accurately reflect the book I have and not what the book Amazon thinks it is. Being able to add it manually gives the user the control on whether they want that information added, especially if the book is no longer available but the user knows what the price was because they have tracked that information themselves. I think having that as a private field too. I currently type the cost of my books into the private comments as no one needs to know what I spent on a book. I also note the amount I paid versus what the full amount is, if I've been able to get it cheaper. I want to know what I paid, not what Amazon says the book cost.

FiLoMa (#68):

the ISBN I have here in Australia isn't always generating the correct book. Therefore I 99% add my books manually so I can accurately reflect the book I have and not what the book Amazon thinks it is.

Let me make sure I understand - you are entering the ISBN, and Amazon returns a different ISBN (not just ISBN-10 vs ISBN-13, but a truly different one)? That seems like a bug to me.

Personal price paid should definitely be private. I don't really see why I would be interested in what someone else paid for something (as I am not looking to pilfer other people's rare manuscripts). But the list price/cover price that is printed on the book is sometimes useful to help determine exactly which edition/printing it is. Consider, for example, old mass market science fiction books: the difference in the cover price would be how you could tell if it's the 1966 printing vs the 1975 printing. This is the kind of thing that I am much more interested in as it is simply part of the identifying features of a book. (The ISFBD shows lists prices in this way, and sometimes people will make notes about it which I enjoy reading for the historical value.)

I don't think having public prices is going to lead to theft, but I do wonder if having public prices would lead people to think this is an appropriate place to sell or buy books so I'm glad the field is private.

>71 norabelle414:
Good point!

>70 macsbrains: ISBNs can stay the same through multiple printings, and the list price for that ISBN will be for the current printing. Cover price does not have to be the same as the list price Bowker gives.

Just to chime in again with another plea that this be made an editable, private field. Approximately 1/3 of my library was published before ISBNs existed. Many of those published since are private-press books without ISBNs. Many of my books (even mass-market, recently published books with ISBNs) don't have prices attached for whatever reason. For the books that do have prices attached, those prices are fairly irrelevant for my purposes. I like many others, apparently, have used the private notes field for keeping track of prices paid; I've been comparing the two fields this morning. Even for books I bought new, if I bought them from Amazon, I paid less than half of list for them (wow, I feel bad about this now).

Almost all of my books I buy used; it's far more important to me to know that I bought a Terry Pratchett paperback for DKK150, GBP5, or USD2 than it is for me to know that its current list price is $7.99 or $8.99.

Separately, it's very important to me to keep track of the prices I've paid for my collectible books, and many of them are quite high. I upload covers for all of my books, as well: lots of early books don't have their titles on their spines, so it's very helpful for keeping track of which books are which. This combination means that if this was a public field, I'd basically be handing out an illustrated shopping list of my bookshelves. Not to mention the expensive books that I got for far below market value for one reason or another, and which might embarrass booksellers with whom I would very much like to have an ongoing relationship, or cause others to demand the same discount from them.

Finally, as a former antiquarian and rare bookseller, let me just add that there is quite simply no "one price" for really any book as defined by an ISBN. The booksearching website vialibri.net fought adding the ability to search by ISBN for literally a decade for that reason. I have books that have stickers on them that cut their price in half; I have books that have signatures or bookplates that double their value. Realizable prices for a lot of modern hardcovers, as well, can be much above list price if they're the "true first" editions, which is completely impossible to tell from ISBN. A first-edition, first printing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (one of 300 printed) will go for minimum five figures at auction. A 150th (or whatever) printing is worth $3 at any reputable Goodwill. Book prices must be treated as individual to the book; there is almost no value to an individual book owner in knowing the list prices of their books.

I know that I am an edge user case for this website in many ways: I've complained about the language code EPO not connecting to Esperanto, for example (although that bug is now fixed). That said, this field will be completely useless to me if it's not private and editable, and I don't particularly see a strong need for this to be public: as others have said, if you're curious about the list price, add it to your own library and find out.

>74 jonsweitzerlamme: If you are curious about the price just click through to the Amazon of your choice to see both the list price and their selling price. Less work and two prices, not just one.

What an odd notion. Is it really worth the bandwidth? Would users' needs be equally served by utilizing a private "notes" field where users who wish to track this information could enter it manually?

I read ~170 books a year on average, but purchase very few of them at retail. I'm a heavy user of public libraries, have an active account with an on-line book swapping group, and occasionally buy a bag of books from a UBS or charity shop.

Most of the time, when I'm finished reading a book, it gets passed along -- returned to the library, listed on the swap site, donated to a non-profit, etc. According to my private book journal (kept on an Access database), of the 1693 books I've tracked over the last 10 years, only ... are you ready? ... only 22 made it into the permanent collection. Part of this has to do with storage space. Much of it has to do with a mindset that, in general, considers non-reference books as disposable entertainment.

Overall -- the price field is an interesting idea, but I'm wondering how usable it will ultimately be, and how much value it will hold for the average LT user.

>76 LyndaInOregon: etc
"Overall -- the price field is an interesting idea, but I'm wondering how usable it will ultimately be, and how much value it will hold for the average LT user."

... and how much developer time it will absorb that used be used otherwhere...

>73 MarthaJeanne: Yes, cover price and list price are definitely different, and without being able to track editions very specifically, trying to show a price by ISBN is not generally helpful. Just pointing out that there can be an edge case for identifying specific editions, so it can be nice to know for those who like that kind of minutiae. Generally agreed that for LT purposes people mostly just want to track what they personally paid and I can see how they'd want a separate field for it for use in sorting.

>76 LyndaInOregon:

This is a frequently requested RSI. I don't know that I care about it particularly, but there are people for whom it is extremely important.

So why not?

My copy of Life is a Seventy-Five Cent Paperback (which is titled "Life is a $1.50 Paperback" but the touchstone doesn't like it, and it somehow attached the cover of the "Life is a $1.25 Paperback" edition) shows a price of $1.75, which seems wrong. :P

>1 timspalding: You mention converting currencies.

Currently US$16 is CAN$ 21.4 or AUS$22.7 as against your first book
showing US$16 or CAN$ 22 or AUS$27.99

As in the case of Euros for different countries, book pricing is more complicated because of taxes, transport, different distribution arrangements.

>75 MarthaJeanne: What price, though? There's only one price I want to know, and it might be closely related but not identical to the Amazon price, deeply disconnected from the amazon price (thank you book pricing bots) or even completely impossible to connect to any price on Amazon (look at my library I think you'll agree that there are books on there that have never and will never show up on Amazon).

>1 timspalding: I just found this thread this AM and I only skimmed the replies (so apologies in advance for any redundancies). I added the "Price" to my styles / view and quickly noted that there was a vast disparity between the actual book price and the price listed (yes, I know I am not the first person to notice this). One I recently uploaded so it was near the top of my book list is a small paperback from 1993 with a $6 (USD) list price on the back cover whereas the LT price shown is $20.95 (USD). I guess my point is that when this field becomes editable - presuming it will - I guess LT users can correct them, but I am not sure if that will create other problems. Still, it seems like for most books there should be a fixed price associated with the book; it doesn't matter what individuals actually paid, but for a great majority of books there is usually a list price in whatever or multiple currencies. Different editions (and those sold in different parts of the world) will have different list prices, but I still think that is valuable data to obtain and store (per edition / volume / ISBN).

As for Amazon, they can be a good source to look up pricing, but for the most part they are always jacking up prices so they can show some whopping savings (real or otherwise). And if you try and correct incorrect information on Amazon through Amazon, well... good luck with that.

Anyway, "Price" was a good add.

>1 timspalding: Replacement costs As a school library, our main concern is replacement cost for lost or damaged items. We usually list the publisher price regardless of what we actually paid as it is a more reliable constant. Any ability to edit the field would be great and having it show up in the patron listings would be the cherry on top.

Hi everyone. I am new here and came across this thread while looking for an easy way to get prices for the books in my library for the purposes of determining whether or not I have adequate homeowner's coverage. Is this field now included in the database? I do not see how to find that information.

Thank you for your help and guidance,
Kevin

>85 Handlebarman: Yes, you can add the field to your catalog in the catalog settings under "miscellaneous". However, it only shows the list price based on ISBN, which might not reflect the actual value of your copy, and it also does not add up the prices for all of your books. You'll have to do that yourself.

>74 jonsweitzerlamme: I agree with most of this. I suppose when Tim says that "books are basically worthless" he is joking to a large degree. Many books are worth less than their new-book purchase price because they have temporary interest in the market. But some books transcend this and become collectible.

A lot of the juvenile series books I collect never had an ISBN but did have a retail price of USD$0.50 80-100 years ago. This is meaningless as a "value" today since the books are almost never sold at any fraction or multiple of that number.

From a standpoint of a collector with thousands of scarce books, the prices I might wish to track include:

* Purchase price, date, and location/store.
* Price sold (if sold).
* Comparable prices seen online of copies sold (with details) or offered.

On the comps, I can't see there being much opportunity to automate it. It is too hard to find the listings that are nearly identical to the printing and condition of the copy in hand. It requires informed human assessment.

But, these are figures that are important to consider if one is trying to get insurance that is not going to treat them as replacement value from the cheapest prices on Amazon (which probably don't account for shipping charges on used books which add up fast).

Not all of our books are valuable but some are. Some of our books have no comps at all and it would be only a matter of informed opinion as to what an asking price might be.

The circumstances of a sale (timing, who on both sides, condition, promotion, etc.) are hugely influential in the collectible price of a book.

With coins and comics you can have a list because most items have only one "printing" per item. Then the variable comes down to condition of which there is only one summary.

With books a given title can be printed many times and in many locations. Sometimes the identification of first printings is not obvious and many people think they have a "first edition" (or "first addition" which shows a little about their knowledge of the field) and really they have something far less interesting such as a book club or late reprint that is not clearly marked as such.

Knowing the original retail price of a book can be very useful information if it is an old book and the jacket price becomes a clue to the printing when there are few others. Publishers like Random House in the U.S. often didn't say much about the printing but the jacket price can identify at least a range of time frame for the book (to couple with ad listings) to at least narrow down the range of years before the prices bumped from $1.95 to $2.50 on Dr. Seuss books for example. In the same way, the name and address of the publisher can be a clue when there are few others.

Only some of the required information is findable on Google. Sometimes you have to know exactly what to look for such as a Doubleday or Harper's date code. The Doubleday codes are hidden in the gutter at the end of the book so are not often noticed except by those who know they exist. Yet, they were involved in so many book club and trade editions that it is helpful to know the printing date (approximate) from them even if the "FIRST EDITION" practice by the publisher is the first thing to look for.

I am always glad to see a little movement on a dozen-year-old RSI. But before springing it on the membership because there is some easy way to get Bowker data, it might be well to find out what the use cases are and then figure out how to meet them. And in writing this, I fully realize that this is a thread that started some 14 or 15 months ago.

James

>87 Keeline: Yes, I've been wondering about the "price" of my books as well. Some of my latest purchases were from a used-book store and the books were from a collection from one of my teachers at the university :-)

As a buyer I liked the price, but that must indicate a rather low price for the seller :-(

Still it is better to sell the books cheap than to just ditch them.

>85 Handlebarman: This field would not tell you if you have enough of a homeowner's policy for your collection. It will only tell you, based on the ISBN in the catalogue, what your most recent copy might sell for. To get a proper assessment of the value of your collection, you'd need a proper book appraiser to come to your home and tell you approximately what it might get at auction.

>89 gilroy: When it comes to appraisals, there are two main kinds. One is based on replacement costs (for the purposes of insurance coverage). The other can be related to what they would get when sold for the purpose of a tax deduction for a donation to a charitable institution. (This latter might be a U.S. phenomenon and I know LT has a strong international audience).

James

>90 Keeline: I think there's something similar in Denmark, but I've never used it. I just give stuff away I'm happy to be rid off and don't want to mess up my tax records :-)

I have just stumbled upon this thread, and have now added the new Price field to my catalogue display. It's interesting, but of limited practical use.

However, the fields that I really really want are Price Paid and the Currency used. Like many commenters here, I currently store this data in Private Comments. I also maintain a parallel Access database which calculates the totals per currency.

Can it be so difficult to add a couple of fields which will only be populated by the user, rather than some complex algorithm? Then ideally show totals in the stats?

+1 for Price Paid and a Price Estimate field (can be private) so it is easier to track value of a collection of books.