Book Cover disappearing!

Just now I was very discouraged to see that at least 3 books I've added recently have lost their covers.

For Every Child BID160914189
First Day Stories c1: BID159809266; c2: BID159809266
Conchies BID159016652

I don't know how many others have lost their covers, but I'd like to have them back, please. And, NO, Amazon ones are not acceptable.

Also, I've noticed that some books have lost their tags, too, but I'm not going to take time to list them. Too much forward work to do to be constantly having to go back to check on and repeat previous work.

Thank you.

Blessings,
Bevianne

You say at http://www.librarything.com/topic/297739#6613384 that you unticked 'Show Amazon covers'. That would remove Amazon covers from your books, and For Every Child only has Amazon covers.

I notice that often the Amazon cover will show for a short time on entering the book. You do have to check the cover for each book and make sure you agree with the cover shown - on the cover page, not just glance at it on the main page.

I try to avoid amazon covers for the same reason, so I have a scanner near my keyboard :-)

But checking to make sure Amazon hasn't updated my covers gives me an excuse to browse my own library! :-)

>4 RobertDay: Your library is way too small :-)

>5 bnielsen: Oh no it isn't..... :-)

>6 RobertDay: ... checking library size ... ah, okay. It isn't :-)

>1 VicRML: The only covers available for all three of the works you've mentioned are from Amazon, currently, and as >2 MarthaJeanne: mentions, you've turned off Amazon covers. This would be why these covers disappeared from your library. Closing, as not a bug.

For future reference, please include a link to the book or work pages in question—that should be easier for you than just grabbing the book ID number.

>8 lorannen: I never allow Amazon covers. And for those 3 books I had scanned and uploaded the covers myself.

I would be very upset if books are again disappearing and reappearing in our collections, as has happened in the past.

First Day Stories http://www.librarything.com/work/20537604/details/159809266
for every child http://www.librarything.com/work/1126329/book/160914189
Conchies http://www.librarything.com/work/15476168/book/159016652

I will take a look at what the data says tomorrow. - T

>10 timspalding: I've looked up another book - its cover has disappeared:

Love and Honour? http://www.librarything.com/work/19889363/book/143663774

I entered it as soon as I got it from the author, which was the week it was published. I scanned and uploaded the cover. The cover available - which I will not use - is from Amazon. I am not in the library right now, so I cannot locate and rescan the book.

Thanks for looking into this, Tim.

% min later: Oh dear! I've just checked the list of books without covers and there are 344 of them. As I quickly looked down the list, many of them are books I thoroughly entered (covers & all) myself in the past few months. Some have been done by helpers so I can't definitely say they were complete, but they usually do covers as they enter them. Sometimes they catch them up later.

I notice there is a batch entered 2018-07-30 without covers. That was when I was in hospital, so was unavailable and not on line. Later I scrolled through those entries and made note to upload covers, but that hasn't been done. I don't know if this bunch was 'uncovered' from their entry.

I do know I've uploaded the covers for 'My two grannies' http://www.librarything.com/work/5180877/book/154410601 and 'My two grandads' http://www.librarything.com/work/11342066/book/154410604 so many times I've lost count.

Very discouraging!

PS I've made a new collection: 'COVERS MISSING' to keep track of these problems.

>11 VicRML: Thanks for making that collection—good idea! Can you tell me whether you were using the mobile app or the full site to do your cover uploading? That might help us track things down.

I'm sorry, but I don't think there's anything wrong with our system. All cover adds, at since 2010*, are tracked carefully and atomically, and I'm not showing any uploads for those books (143663774, 154410601, 154410604). I can imagine situations where a cover gets deleted or replaced, but they would show up in my data as such.

I suggest you try uploading one of the My two grandads or My two grannnies again, and seeing what message comes back and if they stick at all. I'm wondering if your images have some error in the file. The warning should be clear when you upload a file that has an error. But I could maybe see that as an explanation.

* The system was somewhat different before February 2010, but you are talking about recent edits, to books added long after that.

>13 timspalding:
Tim, I think there IS a problem.

As you might have noticed, I try very hard to keep Amazon and its cavalier changes to ISBNs, titles and covers as far from our collection as possible, so I tried an experiment:

I opened settings and ticked 'show Amazon covers' and many of the missing covers appeared. But I know that for many of those books (probably a majority of them) a helper or I had ignored Amazon covers offered on the 'change cover' screen and scanned and uploaded the book covers ourselves.

It is a prime cataloguing rule at VicRML that if the only option offered for anything is from Amazon, we do all parts of the entry manually. And often the first comment people make is that they very much appreciate how our TinyCat shows what our actual books look like.

So I reckon the covers we added manually should be the ones attached to OUR books. And our collections should remain as Amazon-free as possible.

(BTW I ordered a book from a used bookseller (not Amazon!) and the wrong book arrived. Another person ordered the original title for his personal collection, and the same thing happened. When I was cataloguing the correct book ordered from another company, the wrong cover - the one for the twice-substituted book! - came up as 3 covers on LibraryThing. So of course I flagged them.)

I hope this can be fixed so what we upload is what shows with our books.

Blessings,
Bevianne

Do you know that even if you enter a book from a library source or even manually, if the ISBN field is filled out that LibraryThing will still grab the cover from Amazon (unless you've uploaded your own cover or used another user-supplied cover). I think a lot of people think that the source of the book data has something to do with the source of the cover, and it really doesn't.

Just adding to >15 jjwilson61:. You can see your book covers under stat/memes, i.e.
http://www.librarything.com/profile/VicRML/stats/covers

This also gives a link to a search that will show all amazonisbn covers you have:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/VicRML&deepsearch=coverstats::amazonisbn...

I've used this stat myself to get rid of all amazon covers in my library.

>14 VicRML:

Sorry, but I don't have much else to say here. The books in question have never had a cover uploaded to them. The table that receives the data literally can't delete data from itself.

Do you know that even if you enter a book from a library source or even manually, if the ISBN field is filled out that LibraryThing will still grab the cover from Amazon (unless you've uploaded your own cover or used another user-supplied cover). I think a lot of people think that the source of the book data has something to do with the source of the cover, and it really doesn't.

If I read VicRML correctly, they have Amazon covers turned off normally. In that case it will not indeed use an Amazon cover. It might use a cover uploaded by another member which looks like an Amazon cover, of course.

(BTW I ordered a book from a used bookseller (not Amazon!) and the wrong book arrived. Another person ordered the original title for his personal collection, and the same thing happened. When I was cataloguing the correct book ordered from another company, the wrong cover - the one for the twice-substituted book! - came up as 3 covers on LibraryThing. So of course I flagged them.)

Do you know what the book was? My guess is that there is some sort of ISBN reuse problem, and that it's general in book data--since LibraryThing and the place you ordered from made the same mistake. It might also not be a "mistake" per se.

>14 VicRML: It is a prime cataloguing rule at VicRML that if the only option offered for anything is from Amazon, we do all parts of the entry manually.

And yet the list at https://www.librarything.com/profile/VicRML/stats/covers shows that you are actually using many Amazon covers. You may enter all of the book details manually, but if LibraryThing is showing an Amazon cover based on the ISBN or ASIN (which is the case for 439 of your books) that cover can change or disappear at any time. (You can click on the "Amazon-provided cover" links to see which books are included in the count.)

You say "we" - is everyone that enters books into your account aware of this?

VicRML (#14):

It is a prime cataloguing rule at VicRML that if the only option offered for anything is from Amazon, we do all parts of the entry manually.


Either this has not always been the case, or not all of your catalogers are aware of this "prime cataloguing rule", as you have more than 100 books entered using amazon.com as a source.

There is something odd going on here though. The second book on VicRML's "Amazon-provided cover (ISBN)" list is https://www.librarything.com/work/8074731/book/42819226, and as expected the cover that is in use comes from Amazon. However, if you go to the available covers for that work - https://www.librarything.com/work/8074731/covers/42819226 - there is one member uploaded cover, which was uploaded by VicRML. I'm not sure what to make of that. Why would VicRML's copy of the book not be using the cover they uploaded?

>20 r.orrison:

They have the book three times, in two editions. They must be re-cataloging? https://www.librarything.com/catalog/VicRML&deepsearch=Quality+and+depth+of+...

I assumed the role of librarian for this collection in mid 2015. I cannot say what was done before that, and 'we' (everyone that enters books into y/our account) have not used Amazon anything since I found out how casual they are about information.

We still have a few thousand uncatalogued books to work on so going back to correct errors is tedious and frustrating.

>17 timspalding: >25 MarthaJeanne: >26 lorannen: Yes, it looks like we'd be best served by uploading every cover ourselves, as covers used by other members could be Amazon, therefore compromised. Adding that step to our routine for every book won't be impossible as many of our items are unique to us, or without covers from anywhere

The book wanted was 'Encountering the Light' by Martin Lynn, ISBN 9781850723622.
The wrong book was 'Compassionate Listening' by Gene Knudson Hoffmann, ISBN 9780970041012.

Yes, we have both. We wanted many more of the 1st for a study group, not the 2nd, which was what replaced the wanted book for at least 2 buyers.

>22 VicRML: I can appreciate the frustration this has caused, and I'm sorry. But as Tim has indicated, there's no evidence that you had added covers for the books you've cited into our system at any point, which is nigh impossible if they were in fact uploaded—even if they somehow vanished from your own records.

Assuming you're using the site on a computer, and not a mobile device, I suspect what happened is that one or more of the folks cataloging may have selected the image to upload, but not clicked the final "Upload" button to upload it into our system and attach it to your record.

My recommendation: with your next cataloging batch, check a couple of book pages immediately after you've added covers (and take a screenshot, if possible). Post links/screenshots to them here. Then I'll be able to look in on them directly.

Encountering the Light
Compassionate Listening

I see no sign of a current mix-up between those two books on LT.

>23 VicRML: "Covers used by other members"—so long as you're selecting covers from the first group you see at the top of the Change cover page (labeled "Member-uploaded covers"), you're not running the risk of Amazon covers or data sneaking into your library. Those are all, as they are labeled, images uploaded directly by other LibraryThing members.

"The book wanted/the wrong book"—I'm not sure what you're telling me here. You currently have both these titles in your library.

>21 timspalding: If you look at the call numbers, you'll see that there are two different editions of that title. The covers for either match the entries correctly. All three copies are correct.

I was discussing with a professional librarian how I could solve a classification problem with a set of books we have. She said it doesn't matter what classification we settle on, just so long as we are strictly consistent in using it. Otherwise we just have a bunch of books on shelves instead of a fully useable library.

>27 VicRML: If you type ">" and then the number of the post you're responding to (with no space between them), that might help here. As it is, I'm not sure what title you're talking about in this particular post.

I very rarely use the app. Sometimes a patron asks for a book they need immediately for something and they know we have it, but it hasn't being fully processed. Then I do a quick entry on my phone and sign the book out to them. When the book is returned I complete the LT entry properly.

Yes, one of our cataloguers sometimes forgets vital steps in the process, but they're getting much better at focus and self-checking.

>26 lorannen: In theory, yes. In real life, if they've chosen Amazon, Amazon takes over.

>30 VicRML: "If they've chosen Amazon"—you mean if your catalogers have chosen Amazon? In that case, yes. But for existing cover images, if they're labeled "Member-uploaded covers" then they have absolutely no connection to Amazon's system whatsoever, and can't be changed by Amazon. Even if you download a cover image yourself onto your computer, from Amazon.com and then reupload it on LibraryThing, then you have a member-uploaded cover, and that's not subject to change like Amazon covers.

>31 lorannen: >25 MarthaJeanne:> 21> and everyone else: Thank you for all your help, ideas, suggestions. We are now scanning and uploading every item we add to our collections. Even if the correct cover comes up from anywhere. :-)

Blessings,
Bevianne

Closing.

I just imported my library into TinyCat and none of them are showing covers. I have both of these boxes checked: Show Amazon covers; Show member-contributed covers. There are several thousand records so I can't do it manually

>34 rockwellmuseum: How long ago did you upload? Today? Last Week? Last month? Covers can take up to 72 hours to settle once an upload is complete.
Also, how did you upload? MARC file? CSV file? GoodReads Import? This can also alter what covers are chosen.

Do your uploaded books have ISBNs? This will also alter what covers may be selected.

Also, checking through your library, you are the sole owner of more than 800 books listed (these may need combining but I didn't dig that deeply.) These might need you to upload covers.

Member joined today. I combined a couple of singletons, but without any ISBNs I doubt that will help much.

Ah, so yeah, they have 72 hours at least until their covers settle out.

Okay, I only just uploaded the CSV yesterday so I will give it the 72 hours. But, they did not have ISBNs so I think it will not provide covers. Thank you all!