I've been trying to add the UK paperback cover to The Thousandth Floor by Katherine McGee and it tells me a book with that ISBN already exists so I submitted a request to have the cover added two weeks ago and told changes would be checked by a Booklikes Librarian but the change still hasn't updated?

Also tried adding a cover to Die For You by Amy Fellner Dominy - my fault added the wrong cover, submitted a change again screen says will be checked by a librarian but as the change I submitted over two weeks ago hsn't happened yet...(and feeling a bit stupid for adding a wrong cover)

Does it usually take this long for errors on books to be fixed or changes added?

It depends - most of the time it's not much more than 48-72 hours, but sometimes the librarians go on holiday or get distracted by RL or BookLikes maintenance cycles and the queue can pile up.

However, I happen to know (because I did it myself) that the queue was cleared as of yesterday and I don't recall seeing your requests off the top of my head. Not that I was the one that necessarily did them, only that the queue was completely cleared as of yesterday. So, that means 1 of 2 things happened:

1. And this really only applies to the first book:
If the cover was missing completely, the cover should have been added without going to the queue.

If it was a cover *change*, and, if you didn't include a valid source URL that the librarian can use to validate the request (because a lot of people just want the book on their shelves to match their cover regardless of whether they have the right edition on their shelves) the change might have been rejected. Unfortunately, BookLikes doesn't notify you, and doesn't give librarians any way to note why a request was rejected, making it frustrating for both sides.

If you'd like, post the ISBN here (since it seems something got lost somewhere) and if you have it, the URL for the book page you're trying to add the cover to, and I'll look at it / update it.

2. As for the second book: I have NO idea what happened to this request - if it was a mistaken upload it should've been corrected and there's no reason for it to be rejected. Have you resubmitted it in the last 24 hours? If so, I'll check the queue to see if it's there; if not, you can either try resubmitting it, or post the book page here and I'll get it updated for you.

I personally try to make sure the queue is cleared every 48 hours or so, but RL has been a pain in the ass the last few months, so I've been a tad slack; I know other librarians do their part to clear it as well, so these changes should have been cleared weeks ago.

Reply to post #2 (show post):
ah, thank you. it must have been me doing it wrong then. i think the edition was already there for the one but it had a US cover and there’s three editions with US cover. i was trying to add the UK edition from the goodreads page https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31244354-the-thousandth-floor
ISBN 13: 9780008179977

i haven’t tried resubmitting the cover for the other book yet

http://booklikes.com/die-for-you-amy-fellner-dominy/book,13770896 is the booklikes URL
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25116446-die-for-you?ac=1&from_search=true this the correct cover

thank you

I'm not clear if booklikes can use images from goodreads (or data mine anything else other than the exported text file members import that contain their own logs and reviews along with fields with retail catalog data publicly available). Leafmarks, Librarything and other book sites were never permitted to. My understanding of it:

Many of the goodreads covers are personal ones members uploaded (granting goodreads permission to use under gr's TOS) that cannot be reused without permission any more than say an eBay seller ad. You can tell by checking the edit log (when on book page over on goodreads in the URL address change "show" to "edits"); see if image was uploaded (A) from a member, librarian or not, or (B) from the author/publisher goodreads account or a data feed from Amazon, onix or publisher.

If (A) is copyright and property issues plus not necessarily a proper source of data even if member upload not yet corrected by a goodreads librarian. Goodreads would also not likely be able to legally data mine booklikes if you took a scan/photo of your own book (noting in URL field that image was from "book in hand") and then use your photo. (I say "likely" because not sure if there are odder Polish laws that might give goodreads a loophole.)

If (B) is less questionable to pull from goodreads (even so, I'm not sure booklikes has permission to data mine goodreads which is not an open archive site nor a retail site with catalog permitted data ) but if image on goodreads was sourced from publisher or author site why not just use the URL for the original image on publisher or author website?

Because booklikes subscribes (I assume still subscribe although still having issues with U.S. link) to Amazon data feed, booklikes does have permission to use data/images on Amazon product page (but not marketplace seller images). So for example, if Amazon.co.uk sells the U.K. editions with images wanted, those and their URLs are acceptable -- again getting away from possible issues with using goodreads data.

Open archives like Worldcat.org are also not an issue; they do grant permission for public use with appropriate TOS.

Reply to post #4 (show post):
ok, i was completely unaware of that. thank you for letting me know. all the covers i’ve added have been used from goodreads. i just saved them to my screen and uploaded the cover without even thinking about it. never even occurred. would this mean all those images would have to be changed?

Reply to post #5 (show post):
That's just what I understood. I'm not booklikes staff or even a booklikes librarian. Not a copyright lawyer. I'm basing on site and librarian policies from experience with book sites, including being a tech editor on fictiondb and a librarian on goodreads with their specific rules on what are acceptable sources for images.

I personally wouldn't change uploaded missing images without someone official telling you to. Booklikes is not responsible for content you upload under TOS releasing them from liability and requiring you to "...respect the intellectual property rights of others, and represent that you have all of the necessary rights to grant us this license for all Subscriber Content you submit ...". You have responsibility for the missing covers you uploaded, not booklikes. If not comfortable you've used an acceptable source, can always replace via publisher or Amazon URL. Or at least check the log on goodreads to see if apossibly personal image uploaded rather than a publisher/author/retailer upload via data feed or manual entry.

If I'm wrong and booklikes has permission to data mine goodreads, certainly never-mind. If booklikes subscribes to same data feed uploading image to goodreads that data feed should also have uploaded here rather than someone needing to take from goodreads.

It's a weird bit of intellectual property law granting public use of published retail product catalog data (rule of thumb being anything visible on outside packaging is usable data -- meaning bookcovers and back cover wording but not the inside text of a book) but restricting the use of personal images by other persons without permission.

Sites allowing public use and data mining of their images and data simply specify in TOS that persons uploading images are releasing their rights to public domain and are now open archive.

Amazon has taken legal action and even shut down websites and businesses using their images (even if same image as from publisher) that do not subscribe to their data feed under their conditions. Booklikes does subscribe to Amazon data feed so those non-marketplace seller images and data are okay for booklikes to use.

Also nevermind worrying about data-mining an image from goodreads if you were the goodreads member who added it, that is, if it was your personal image from book in hand. Goodreads TOS is clear that your content is still your content and you are granting them use of it, not exclusive use of it.

Reply to post #5 (show post):
Goodreads images are fine; the agreement BookLikes has included permissions for GR, although honestly, they're a terrible source since the amazon takeover; I find most of their information suspect or erroneous anymore. A sad thing knowing how great it used to be. As a rule of thumb the best places for images are publisher sites and libraries - author's too if they actually maintain them.

I'll take a look at both those records and see if I can get them fixed up.

The first record:
http://booklikes.com/the-thousandth-floor-katharine-mcgee/book,13708307

The second one:
http://booklikes.com/die-for-you-amy-fellner-dominy/book,13770896

Do they look as you expect?

brilliant, thank you so much

You're welcome. :)

Reply to post #8 (show post):
Cool. A faster way to get images onto booklikes. Faster to just upload image wanted to goodreads (even if have to create a new alternate cover edition), then refer to that URL here on booklikes than to wade through other sources to find an image URL there. (I won't personally do that just because I no longer upload things to goodreads.)

I must have missed the TOS change on goodreads about your content staying your own not even shared (except if you opted into sharing reviews on the subscription feed) and the change in Amazon data feed rules so that a subscription now ncludes data from goodreads. Certainly back when I uploaded photos of bookcovers to goodreads the TOS was clear that it was strictly for goodreads use.

When I find a photo of my copy of a book uploaded to one site on another site, I absolutely do issue a takedown notice. I would do so even if someone uploaded my bookcover image on goodreads to booklikes without getting my permission since I uploaded it under the TOS.

I agree goodreads info is becoming a terrible source. Partly because Amazon data feed -- including anything from a customer selling a used item -- now overrides not only publisher data but human eye librarian edits. Which has frustrated a lot of experienced, prolific goodreads librarians away from doing corrections. Major, longstanding goodreads database policies are being changed to whatever Amazon authors and sellers want ... definitely changing from a carefully maintained library of book data into having to match Amazon product pages.

I'm actually surprised Amazon's data feed subscriptions now include goodreads data use permissions. Not that I didn't expect during the takeover they wouldn't make use of the work done by goodreads members to improve their own book and series data; just that since the initial takeover they've been so adamant that goodreads data take a backseat to Amazon data where you'd think they wouldn't want to pollute their feed with the data they deride.

I'm surprised that even now they have subscribed to something giving them permission to use goodreads that booklikes considers goodreads an acceptable source for bookcover images with so many just member uploaded ones that goodreads doesn't require a URL like booklikes does. Add recent goodreads policy changes in image rules ...

I am only going by the information I was given when I became a librarian Debbie, although I certainly would not want to be a lawyer in any copyright case that confronted the issue of who owns the image of a book cover. I can only go by my own ingrained sense of ethics here, but personally, I could not scan an image of a book cover and call it mine with a straight face. At the end of the day, the image - to my mind, to be clear - ultimately belongs to the publisher. It's their cover; at best my scan is a fair use reproduction - and if it's fair use for me to do that, than it's fair use for someone else to use my scan for the same purpose.

THAT'S JUST MY OPINION however - at the end of the day, when doing work in BL, I follow BookLikes' rules.

I'm not arguing booklikes rules. I'm glad we can now upload images from goodreads on the one hand. I imported most of my own shelved books from what I had shelved on goodreads. Pre-Amazon takeover, I would have also uploaded any missing covers for my shelved books to goodreads. Which means .i can now copy those images over to booklikes to fix my own shelves here. On the other hand, I'm ticked off that Amazon is now reselling photos I took and allowed goodreads to use.

In the U.S. (goodreads is a U.S. site) -- I thought copyright of the artwork behind a cover belongs to the cover artist who licenses to publisher individually or as work-for-hire, copyright of the bookcover ithen created is to the publisher (with retail product cataloging exceptions allowing for catalog/library/databSes like goodreads to use), scans or photos of personally owned used items belong to the owner of the used item (allowing "owner" to upload and do things like create seller ads on eBay, cataliging sites and such but not allowing that owner image to be reused without permission -- said permission sometimes a part of site TOS).

I have no clue about Polish or U.K. copyright rules. I think it would give even a copyright lawyer a headache determining acceptable source issues when the image owner and websites were all in same country nevermind when multiple countries get involved and after the fact TOS changes.