Trouble adding books from another person's library

(I apologize for this most likely being posted in the wrong location, but wasn't sure where to pos
I'm sure I'm just missing something or not understand the process of copying an entry that another user has into your library. Example:

1. I search for Traveller Charts and Tables and get a hit (https://www.librarything.com/work/18643209)
2. I click Add to Your Books and it takes me to the search page that says there's no hit in the search
3. I get confused :)

I would think the "Add to Your Books" would do just that, but it doesn't. What am I doing wrong? I guess what I'm asking is ....l haaaalllppp! :)

All the add to your books button does is give you the normal add books page with the title in the search box.

LibraryThing is NOT a source for entering books. You cannot just copy someone else's entry. You can see what source that person used, but they may have edited it after entering. In this case, the only copy was added using Amazon.com. (However Amazon often has really bad data on older books.)

Gaming handbooks are specialized and ephemeral and not widely held by libraries for very long. Look for other members with collections similar to your tastes and see where they pull titles from, if not Amazon.
I’ll bet there is a gamers group here on LT as well.

Yep:
https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/84/Gamers

First off, let's make sure you know how the Add Books process works. It is confusing.

https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/HelpThing:Addbooks

Okay, now, here's how to find which source another member used to enter their book.

1. Go to the work page.
2. Look in the Members section.
3. Click on the member's name to go to their profile page.
4. Using the "Search (Member)'s books" field, search on the work's title or author.
5. When you find it in the results, click the title back to the work's page, but this time it will show the member's book info. Example: https://www.librarything.com/work/18643209/book/135947009
6. Click "Book details" in the left menu.
7. Look for "From where? Data source" and note the answer.

Next, use that source when trying to add the book.

However! A source won't return the same results all the time. For example, you might no longer find it on Amazon. Looking up how other members added their books is only a way of increasing your chances of finding yours.

If you can't find what you want/have, then you might need to use the manual entry form.

Thank you all for the help! I'll look into the group and finding the other member's source. You folks are great :)

>5 reismanjk:

My guess is that the work as manually entered, and wasn't imported from a source. You will have to manually enter it yourself (and copy the details across).

>6 andyl:

It was entered from "Amazon.com books".

For what it's worth, entering manually is not that difficult or time consuming. Before LT had Austrian sources I often had to enter books manually. In my experience it is often easier and faster than entering from a bad source and then having to edit everything.

The link for a manual entry is below your (left hand) list of sources.

If you are happy to do so, you can use a GreaseMonkey script to semi-automate copying another member's entry: https://www.librarything.com/topic/115928#n7502951

1. Install the script - you need to activate the GreaseMonkey extension in Chrome
2. Go to your Add books page in LT. Select the collection you want to add your RPG books to.
3. Search LT in the top right search box to see if the book has been catalogued already. If it has, click on the entry, and then click on the Members with that book (the link is a number).
4. Select a member with that book, click on their name. Search the book in their catalogue, and open up the book page. Select Book Details in the left pane.
5. If you've installed the script, you'll see a second button 'Copy work to your library' in the Book details. Click that button, and a manual entry form with basic book details will pop-up.
6. You will need to edit the following for sure:
*Tags. These aren't completed.
*Collections. If you've selected the correct collection, it will appear as well as Your Library.
*Other Authors
*Media Type
*Publication Details

I've got the script, and it's invaluable for entering comic issues. Once I have one issue entered, I just clone it again and again...

However, if there is no work catalogued on LT, you will either have to add from an external source or do a manual entry.

For what it's worth, I have a load of RPG books catalogued (and more to come), but mine are 99% indie games, and the only Traveller book I have is Book 6: Scouts (which I used to generate interesting planetary systems for FASA ST:RPG).

By the way, one random thing I found when trying to get ebooks is that they won't show up unless you put a comma after the title and add the word "ebook". Then it will come out at the top of the list.

krazy4katz:

By the way, one random thing I found when trying to get ebooks is that they won't show up unless you put a comma after the title and add the word "ebook". Then it will come out at the top of the list.


I haven't found that to be the case. There's some special handling in the case of Amazon (since at least for a while they were heavily promoting Kindle editions, so that Kindle would always show up first - so Tim suppressed them unless you specifically look for them with "kindle" or "ebook") but for non-Amazon sources ebooks always crop up for me, whether I'm looking for them or not.

>11 lorax: Tim suppressed ebooks in Amazon.com results? I had been complaining about and struggling with Amazon's results (still better than other sources! 😫) for months because of that, only learning the "ebook" trick in this thread, and the disappearing ebook editions in searches was LibraryThing's doing the whole time. Wow, that is annoying. Sure would have been nice if Tim et al. had announced the change. Or did I miss it?

You missed it. It was done years ago in response to people not being able to find the paper versions of books. Probably before you joined.

>12 aspirit:

I seem to recall reading that he had done so, but of course I can't find that now.

I can't either, but it was 2012 or earlier. https://www.librarything.com/topic/145797#3739012

Found it! https://www.librarything.com/topic/69658 July, 2009

>11 lorax: Yes, I agree. This is for Amazon. Sorry for the confusion. If I want books from MobleRead or another free website for ebooks, it is different. Sometimes I have to enter those manually.

>15 MarthaJeanne: Okay, then it has nothing to do with the recent change in Amazon results. I used to be able to find ebooks within the results of all formats. Now the search results when adding books is only paper editions unless I specify "ebook", which seems to return only ebooks.

aspirit (#17):

Do you have some non-Amazon examples? I just spot-checked a few of the ebooks I've recently added, and in no case did adding "ebook" make a difference - searching LOC or Overcat either found the ebook without the specification, or did not find it even with the specification.

>18 lorax: Ebooks definitely appear normally among non-Amazon results, without adding anything. Just a title search will return ebooks too in Brooklyn or Toronto Public Libraries, which are my go to sources for ebooks

When I add a book using amazon.ca, I'll enter the book name. It often comes up on top, but then I'll add either 'audio' or 'ebook' and then re-search, and the one I want usually comes right to the top. If I add ebook or audio from the beginning, I'm less likely to get the one I want. Weird.

SandraArdnas (#19)

Yes, that's my experience as well, but aspirit seems to have seen otherwise. That or they just can't conceive of using anything other than Amazon? (shrug)

>21 lorax: Flagged.

I have used other sources. Amazon.com is the most convenient for most of the books I add, because I dislike manual entry for every books that libraries don't yet have, don't care to add, or couldn't be bothered to enter accurately (or in the way I prefer).

My point is the results have changed. I don't know if that was because of anything that's changed on LT or if it's all Amazon.

reismanjk's by now has probably seen more than desired of the attitudes on Talk. Anyway, we no longer seem to be helping. I'm stepping out of this conversation.