Can't add some books that already exist & are added by others

Hi everyone,

I'm fairly new to the site and currently in the proces of organizing my library both at home & online with LT.

On more than one occasion i found a book on LT, owned by several other members, but when i try to add it to my book collection, i am unable to do so. One example is the following Dutch book;

Author: Nicki Bullinga
Title: In de voetsporen van Koning Arthur (translated; in the footsteps of King Arthur)

Anyone else encountered this problem and has a solution?

I considered adding the book to LT myself, but that would "create" a new book. But this is only an option if the different versions would be added together later on by LT (otherwise lots of the same books would be added by lots of members, making it more difficult to browse and organize).

Greetings,

Anton.

LibraryThing is not itself a source for adding books. The issue with this book is that all the people who have it used manual entry, rather than a library source, which is why the green "add" sign won't find it. So you will likely have to do the same. Don't worry about creating a new work; if your copy doesn't autocombine with the others, that can also be done afterwards.

Nicki Bullinga

In de voetsporen van Koning Arthur

I'd also suggest adding some Dutch sources to your list of sources if you haven't already. Even when the Add Book button from work page doesn't find any, going to Add Books page and searching in your select sources might. There's almost 5000 sources to choose from. Navigate to Netherlands (perhaps Belgium too?) among them and see if any might be useful for your books and add them to your list and you'll be able to quickly search in those in the future

To add to what >3 SandraArdnas: said, the Vlaamse Centrale Catalogus is often a good source for Dutch language books

And just to add to what everyone else said - adding a book manually does not always create a new work and neither using a source (via the plus button or directly) guarantees that the book will auto-combine. Sometimes books added via sources will not auto-combine and sometimes books added manually will. It all depends on what is already in that work and in other works and if the algorithm finds a match it likes enough to auto-combine.

And sometimes the algorithm is hilariously wrong and a book need to be rescued after an auto-combination happens. These are often additional volumes in the same series for example but sometimes there is absolutely no reason for it to happen and the algorithm just misfires.

Unlike other sites out there, LT does not have a list of books/editions that you chose from - we really do not have that level at all. We have a book level (your own data) and work level (all translations and formats added by any member). So adding manually or via a source makes little difference.

Either of those is easily solvable via the Editions page (just pull out the wrong one) or via the Workbench (to combine them if you cannot find them in an author page together). Or if you are not sure how, come over to the Combiners group and we will be happy to assist.

Welcome to LT!

If you are entering non-English books, you will do well to get used to combining. If you don't care to combine yourself, please add original titles (in CK) when you add translations.

Thanks everyone for your replies!

All of them are very helpful to me :)

I managed to add the book i mentioned by adding Vlaamse Centrale Catalogus as a source (i did not know i could add sources).

In the near future i'll probably keep on stumbling in the dark a bit, getting used the the site and all the options available, so it's very pleasant and welcoming to know so many of you are here to help, thanks again!

Anton