Magazines/series - Continuation of discussion…

Hello! I thought I’d jump over here to continue this conversation that MarthaJeanne and AnnieMod were helping me with.

I’ve combined my issue of cloth paper scissors to the existing works in the proper series. However, now there is another one floating out there that I had incorrectly added to the Studios series. I separated it from that series, thinking I could reuse it for the next issue I was going to add, but can’t figure out how to do that.

I was told it’s not as easy as deleting. So, what can I do to clean it up?

>1 BoulderHandweavers: Can you add a link to the record you are talking about and the two series -- it is a lot easier to explain/help if we do not need to guess which is the problematic record :)

AnnieMod I apologize for my delay in responding, as I got pulled away from computer this afternoon.

Here is the link to the record that needs to be deleted or reused or somehow absorbed.

https://www.librarything.com/work/32264112

The two series are here:

https://www.librarything.com/nseries/57339/Cloth-Paper-Scissors-Magazine

https://www.librarything.com/nseries/316260/Cloth-Paper-Scissors-Studios-magazin...

That’s a zero copy work: these remain behind after deleting books (which is why we tend to tell people that deleting does not solve combination issues) and usually as part of works when you edit a title, author or isbn and no actual copy matches the combination anymore. Then when they get pulled out as they do not belong (zero copies belong with their brethren but what happens often is that people add issue 11 twice and then just rename one of them to be issue 12. That leaves an issue 11 zero copy inside of the issue 12 work - and that does not belong there so you have this. :)

If there is an actual copy of that specific issue in LT already, it needs combining with this one. If you are planning on adding one, just add it, then add the new one and this work into your workbench and combine them and then add the work unto its series. :) looking at things, https://www.librarything.com/work/13607306 Seems to be the same issue - if so - you already know how to combine and that is all that is needed here.

We cannot change existing records - user data cannot be changed and the zero copies have no owner so noone can change them. That’s how the system is built.

Let me know if you need assistance with anything or if you want me to combine these two for you.

AnnieMod I went ahead and combined those two records.

I think I’m getting a grasp on the organization of this, and just hope I’m not messing anything else up. I do notice that when I am in the main page and go into the “add/edit” series and work relationships in order to add the title to the series, I see the title is added twice on that next series page. I’ve added a couple more of the cloth paper scissors, and when this happens, it appears as though I can use the red x on the right to delete the duplicate prior to saving? And when I do a general search, and when I look on the series page afterwards, it does not appear to be duplicated, and I don’t see a zero copy work. Before I go too much further, I’d like to make sure that this is all right to do.

I also am wondering about another magazine that I was going to set up the same way. Craft Arts International. I see that there are some of them in the system, but none are set up as a series. Can I still set them up that way? So that my books are entered in the same format across all the magazines we have in our collection? And if so, what do I do about the copies of works that are not in the series? Should they be combined? Or do I just leave them as they are not my books or entries?

I have a lot of magazines to eventually get into the system and I want to make sure I’m doing it correctly. I’m starting with the items that are currently checked out, since I have their cards here in my possession. I’ll fill in the rest of the collections over time - might get some volunteer help. But I’m reluctant to relegate this, as it can be confusing and I want it done right lol!

Thank you again for your help!

When you add a magazine to your library LT tries to match it to an existing work and if it can't find one it creates a new work record for your magazine. Series consist of works and when you do a site wide search that also finds works. So if you find one of the magazines in a site search you can add that to the series and when you add that same issue to your own library if it connects correctly to the work then it will already be in the series

But if the magazine name is long, and the there is something like 'volume', the combiner has already looked at over 20 characters, and has probably said, 'this one!' at the wrong issue, which is why you so often have to separate and recombine.

>5 BoulderHandweavers:
In a situation like in your first example, you can bypass some of the steps you describe. Say you've just catalogued a copy of Issue 12: if you check the series page first, and see that Issue 12 already exists in it, there's no need to add your new Issue 12 into the series, you can jump directly to combining your Issue 12 with the existing one (via adding both to workbench). That's because combining retains the series data on the larger part in the combination, and usually your newly added one is only going to have 1 owner, ie. you, versus the existing one having 1 or more owners.

The combination final confirm page (the page with the grey Combine and Cancel buttons), will alert you to issues so take note of what it's saying will happen with the series (a yellow hazard symbol shows up). If the series info is not on the first work listed, that's where it's alerting you that series data will need to be re-added after combination.

Doing the way you describe is okay though and not wrong if you prefer to work in that method, but would take longer I think, overall. But you can judge it.

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When nobody has set up a series yet, it's entirely up to you :-) and definitely you can take a moment to revel in being the person most interested in that series thus far on LibraryThing :-) Personally I'd recommend set it up based on what already exists on the site, and then expand it with what you add. But you can run into some real messes with different issues wrongly combined needing separation almost guaranteed, because you could be the first actual person to take a look at them.

I have a bit of time on hand so I will start one for Craft Arts International and post the link here when I've stopped. :-)
Edit: it's at: https://www.librarything.com/nseries/375064/Craft-Arts-International

Thank you once again everyone for the vast knowledge you’ve shared.

Nevov - thank you for setting that up. You just put all the craft arts international that were existing into a series for me, which is awesome! So, how easy was that? Do I need to look at them to see if any can be combined? Or is it “good to go” so to speak? I suppose I was afraid to touch other people’s records, but all that did was put them into the series, doesn’t really change their records? Is this all right to do in the future with different magazines if I see they aren’t in series? Or should I reach out to have someone do it for me?

Thanks again for everyone’s help!!!

>9 BoulderHandweavers: You cannot change other people’s records and these records need to go into their series - so it is always ok to do that. :) LT books have two levels - book level (belong to the user, no one can change that - includes things like the title you see in your own catalog for example - that is why you can have yours in any way you want them even if the work title is different) and work level (combined data for all versions and editions and languages and so on of that specific book/magazine issue). Series information and relationships belong to the second layer (work layer) so anyone can fix them at any time.

You need to combine only if there are two different records for the same issue - in which case it is always a good idea to combine. If each record is for a different issue, there is nothing to combine. :)

>9 BoulderHandweavers: Hi, welcome. Just wanted to add it's a good idea to always check whether there are things to combine with when entering magazines, comics and other stuff with no ISBN and often different titles members enter. Auto-combine misses a lot of those compared to books. Aside from combining things that belong together, this can also sometimes reveal if a series already exists. Good luck and have fun

>9 BoulderHandweavers: I think I unjumbled everything that I found. I'd say yes this one was 90% easy. I hit one work which had 12 or 13 different issues wrongly together – because of the title style the other user chose they had all automatically combined but that was no bother to sort out. Separate x1, combine it, repeat. So yep! feel free to do any updates on it that your own magazines need.

The work/book distinction means none of us can directly help with doing anything to your books, but sorting the works can be shared effort; there's a group where calls for help on series can be posted at: https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/3717/Librarything-Series
if you stumble into any random ones that you would like taking care of, just shout.

AnnieMod - That is a good explanation of the different levels. Helps to understand the organization of it all.

SandraArdnas - yes, I’ve been starting by doing a general search before I begin. I do not have ISBNs for my collection at hand here, and only have access to them once a month or so. Magazines are spotty with them anyways. So it’s good for me to see what’s in LT in other people’s collections.

Nevov - Thank you for taking the time to sort that out for me, and everyone else :). I’m always happy to sort something properly when I see it out of order, but I don’t want to step on toes. Good to know I can help with the series. And good to know there is a group for those questions.

Thanks again everyone!