Help needed: Other images of your books

Early next week I'm going to roll out a feature to allow members to store other images of a book. The idea is to use it for:

Title pages
Back covers
Signature pages
Bookplates

My thought is that we define X standard categories of these images, and allow people to add others for themselves.

I'd love your help coming up with that base list. And letting me know what else you want to see in this feature. I feel like this has come up before, but I can't find the topic.

Note: If I get ambitious, I'll make it so that you can allow the title page to be used as your cover image, if there's no cover image. But that's tricky because the code wasn't built for that.

>1 timspalding: Folks will probably also want to add illustrations from inside the book. That might have some attendant copyright troubles?

I could see a case for "Marginalia" as a category, as well.

My concern with allowing folk to define their own categories is then we'll have to have a way of combining them and/or deleting custom categories. Imagine having "Marinalia" and "Margins" in the same system, for example, due to custom categories. Or are we imagining that these custom categories won't be exposed to other members?

I have often wanted the ability to associate pages with illustrations with my books, particularly when discussing them in a talk thread. In some cases, these have been interleaved plates, but in others a single page in a collection of cartoons and in yet other cases they have been chapter beginnings with illustrations preceding the text, or maps or plans in the midst of the text. I'd be satisfied with a generic "page" category so long as I could use it for that purpose, but perhaps one or two illustration categories would be warranted.

Given your initial list, how about a category for endpapers? I've also had occasion to scan and share those.

I would quite like to be able to use the title page in place of the cover, especially for books or magazines that have lost their covers over the years. I also sometimes have a case for books received via ILL where I cannot scan the cover because of the paperwork attached but can scan the title page, and it would be nice to be able to use the title page as a "cover" then, as I like to use the cover of the volume I actually read whenever possible, so I'd be pleased if you are able to accomplish the more ambitious possibility.

Currently title pages are often flagged as "not a cover". I assume they would no longer be subject to flagging. Would spines also be considered book covers or a subcategory too? Or will cover flagging fall by the wayside? Curious how this will work.

>4 Taphophile13: Spines are a good candidate for a subcategory, I think. And, I can't say for certain how Tim has planned it out, but my guess would be that these images wouldn't appear on the Covers page to begin with, and—if subject to flagging at all—there'd need to be a new flag for "miscategorized," or maybe a "not appropriate/spam" flag.

Oh, if only we'd had this before I deaccessioned a thousand books! Ah, well, I'll enjoy it going forward.

Definitely these would not be subject to flagging, except as a violation of the TOS (spam, porn, attacks on others, etc.)

Endsheets! (a/k/a endpapers)

https://www.librarything.com/topic/142094

Frontispiece!

So, these are not eligible for not-an-instance-of-X flagging?

If these are intended purely for personal use, sure, let people upload a photo of their cat as the title page, but if they're going to be more publicly exposed, we may want to be able to indicate that.

I'd certainly want to see spines, but that said all this is under the assumption that none of these would be considered as a subcategory or a type of cover image - I'd thought that you didn't say so because it was obvious, but then Tapophile assumed they would be covers, and lorannen wasn't sure, so I wanted to check.

I think I'm going to love this.

Suggested category -- associated ephemera, e.g.:
-- a letter pasted, tipped or laid in
-- a review slip
-- a newspaper clipping of a review or about the author

I like the option.

I don't think they should be public, so they wouldn't need a flagging option. There are enough 'not a cover/wrong cover' out there as it is.

Copyright pages! Or whatever it's called: all the edition-related stuff that's currently (usually) captured on the back of the title page.

>13 JerryMmm: But if someone is viewing my catalog, I'd want them to be able to see things like bookplates or inscriptions. Otherwise, for me, there wouldn't be much point to it.

Colophons! I've been wanting that for a while:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/44041#779836
http://www.librarything.com/topic/101129#2267531

Signature sheets would be nice for limited edition books.

>15 PhaedraB: copyright issues are important to think about here, whatever personal feelings we may have about the appropriateness of them.

>19 JerryMmm: I'm not clear how it's a copyright issue. If I buy or make a bookplate, it's my bookplate. Copyright is not an issue unless I try to reproduce it for personal gain. Same with inscriptions, ex libris marks, foxing (or not). We're not taking these pictures from another source, we're taking a picture of something in our possession.

>20 PhaedraB: Copyright law prohibits reproduction for any reason, unless fair use applies.* Personal gain per se is not a factor, and commercial use is only part of it. I'm not terribly worried about it, but a copyright holder could complain about making artwork available online and available for reproduction. Inscriptions and foxing, in the US, are likely not copyrightable, but where we're talking about art you don't own the copyright to, it could be, at least theoretically, problematic.

* To quote the law: Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. § 106 and 17 U.S.C. § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:

the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
the nature of the copyrighted work;
the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

Copyright page
Table of Contents

>21 prosfilaes: Others spoke of artwork, I did not.

>21 prosfilaes: So, if all that is true, why are we allowed to take photos of any of our book covers and put them on LT?

Yours in confusion,

k4k

>23 PhaedraB: You spoke of bookplates, many of which have artwork.

>24 krazy4katz: There's no bright-letter law, nor any case law I know of, so the answer may be nobody is stopping you. But generally identifying pictures of works for sale have been okay, and identifying pictures of works for personal catalogs should be the same.

>23 PhaedraB: I wasn’t referencing your use per se, but including the use cases previously stated.

I would most likely use it for title pages for books without a good cover, and would like the option to show them as my main cover.

Other uses would be the spine, back cover, perhaps the inside of the cover (front and.or back) should they be of particular interest.

With that last one the issue of copyright can rear its ugly head fast. Think about the maps on the Tolkien books.

>25 prosfilaes: You spoke of bookplates, many of which have artwork.

Look, I don't take copyright lightly, but this is taking it to an absurd extreme. By that standard, If I take a photo in my living room with my framed poster art clearly visible, is that violating copyright? If my sister takes a picture in her dining room and you can see the candlesticks I made for her in the picture, does that violate copyright? If I do a screenshot of something on the TV, is that violating copyright? If you take a "shelfie" of your books and post it on Facebook, is that violating a copyright?

I'm both an artist and an author, as was my late husband who was also a musician, so I am not frivolous at all about copyright. When I scan book covers to make as a precise image as I can, I can see how that's on the edge. But simply photographing the endpapers of my books which may or may not include bookplates (my husband designed bookplates, too, FWIW) well, as I said, absurd.

Jeez, can we stay grounded in reality instead of imagining worst possible scenarios which are highly unlikely to come to pass in the real world?

That said, the easiest solution, of course, is to ask a lawyer.

Would everyone just calm down about copyright? I expect that Tim will take the same position that he does about using copyrighted author images: reliance on the instruments and protections of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Ex-libris?

>28 lilithcat:

Exactly so.

So, any word on:

1. Are these going to be completely personal, or can they be used by others much as cover images can?

2. If they will be available to be used by others, will we be able to indicate that something is not actually what it's alleged to be?

3. Will these be considered as a subtype of cover images, or not? (I'd initially assumed that a "No" answer was totally obvious, but at least two people including lorannen think otherwise, so it's probably not obvious either way.)

>31 lorax: I think 1 is part of what we're trying to suss out here. I can see arguments in favor and against. If they're allowed to be used by other members, then I think yes, we need to have some flagging system in place.

For 3, these are separate categories, independent of covers, as I understand it, though we've heard some discussion from folks who'd like to be able to use them as covers. I mistyped in >5 lorannen:, based on the post I was replying to.

re 3, I can use the title page now as my cover image of course, but it's not the actual cover image, so that rubs me the wrong way. But it's an acceptable workaround when I can add the actual cover to my book as well.

lorannen (#32):

If they're allowed to be used by other members, then I think yes, we need to have some flagging system in place.

And after I tried *so* hard to avoid that four-letter word starting with "f" that elicits irrational anger. ;)

>31 lorax:

1. I think there's a case to be made that some or all should be usable—spines and first pages seem useful to me. And if so 2 is true. I think they will not be a subtype of cover images, but it depends what someone means by that.

Also, I think it should be possible to link one image to multiple books. (Throws bomb, walks out of room.)

36> Also, I think it should be possible to link one image to multiple books. (Throws bomb, walks out of room.)

Some series books, like Rick Brant from Grosset & Dunlap, have the same back cover for multiple books so this seems a reasonable request.

A standard hardcover with dust jacket sometimes has decorative embossing or tooling on the boards themselves, which is something I'd like to keep track of, since I use the dust jacket as the cover image. On a few rare occasions the dust jacket itself is reversible (something I wish was taken advantage of more). Technically, in that situation that's 3 different covers to a single physical copy, so I can understand the purpose of multiple cover pics. Also slipcases for the fine press collectors.

I also can easily see wanting to keep track of wrap-around covers, back covers, spines, end papers, colophons. All of these could potentially be public since they would likely correspond to more than one copy (dents and scratches aside)

Book plates, signatures, inscriptions, and the occasional photo of something of note within the pages, I think should be user specific; but scanning every page is overboard, even if you really did use the bottom right corner of every page to doodle a flip-comic.

Also, I think it should be possible to link one image to multiple books.

Sure. Which naturally suggests "boxed-set slipcase" as another class of images where this would naturally apply.

My thoughts turn to a real edition layer since this is going to be so edition specific. Any thoughts about finally untangling that knotty issue? This way we can start to build a list of specific attributes of an edition with photographic examples.

>1 timspalding: Indeed it would be nice to show signatures in our books. I understand that such pics will be public, right?

Bookmarque (#40):

My thoughts turn to a real edition layer since this is going to be so edition specific. Any thoughts about finally untangling that knotty issue? This way we can start to build a list of specific attributes of an edition with photographic examples.

Front covers are edition-specific too, of course, but I'll never turn down an opportunity to support a real edition layer.

I would probably never scan interiors (...except possibly endpapers for my Stratemeyer collection, or the occasional inscription), but add my vote for:

dustcover vs. bare boards
a way to handle cases for box sets
spines
wraparound covers
also, the fronts of books with missing/damaged/repaired/replaced covers

I am not sure how best to implement it, but I use LT covers for two different things: "This is the edition of the book I have, isn't it pretty" and "I have no idea what this book looks like and I need to find it on the shelf, help."

It would be supremely useful if I could have an option for a "what the book is supposed to look like" cover and a "what the copy I own actually looks like" cover for cases when those two are very different (such as a book with a missing cover or a rebound book), and then pick which of those I want displayed as the "cover" on a given catalog view.

(Also, while we are dreaming, this is probably not part of this feature, but I would really love the ability to upload a few "private" default covers, that showed as an option for every book. So I could upload, say, a default cover for any of my books with their covers missing, or for coverless ebooks from a certain source, or for an entire series with matching boards, etc., without having to reupload every time or have them showing as shared member-uploaded covers on every book I use them for.)

>42 lorax:

Front covers are edition-specific too

Not necessarily. A publisher may use the same image for multiple editions, or use different covers for the same edition (but different print runs).

lilithcat (#44):

Well, obviously, but none of those are different for front covers vs back covers or spines.

>1 timspalding: Those categories are fine for me. I saw a suggestion for the page that has the copyright, isbn number, edition, etc but don't know what it is called. I would like that as well.

>46 ulmannc:

Oddly enough, it's called the "copyright page" (or, sometimes, "edition notice").

>46 ulmannc: >47 lilithcat:

Or sometimes the title page verso, or the t.p. verso, or even just the tpv.

Not to be confused with TVP.

>49 paradoxosalpha: That's a vegan alternative to leather-bindings?

>47 lilithcat: and >48 Crypto-Willobie: Thanks for the information. Now I feel like only a partial dunce even though I look at the page almost every time I buy or index a book!!

A few other thoughts.

What to include for things like records, CDs, DVDs, etc? Adding covers (front, back, maybe spine and inner covers (for the book-like LP albums or similar), the record inner sleeves, and the record labels. CDs or DVDs with informational booklets.

Also, there are the 3 dimensional non-book/book-related items/objects which have multiple sides.

>52 papyri:
For cds and dvd it's common to include a photo of the actual disc, if not for the metadata then for the artwork.

>52 papyri: Even though Tim did add the media field, isn't it still policy not to add non-book features?

>54 jjwilson61:
Looks like it. If author roles such as director and actor and producer and extra were added (or would become available upon selection of the proper media subtype), I'd librarything my film collection in a heartbeat! Well, that and scraping imdb for metadata.

>55 Petroglyph: Director has been added! https://www.librarything.com/topic/209050#6040254

>56 amanda4242: I did not know that. Not enough to warrant a film catalogue, though.

Did this get released? I have a title page that I've love to upload!

>1 timspalding: I feel like this has come up before, but I can't find the topic.

This was an RSI from 2013 - http://www.librarything.com/topic/160310

Is this still in the works?

I wonder if something like a photo upload option could be added to the private/personal notes area? For instance I have a signed copy of a book that's signed to a specific individual, so it's only really relevant to my specific copy. For people using LibraryThing as their catalogue it might be helpful to have an additional spot for photos that show the actual book if there are condition issues that the library may not want as their "cover," or to show items like vinyl records with different labels on the actual record.

It would be handy to have a spot to put the verso, especially as I've seen records that have a copyright date that shows differently in when populated via isbn vs. the physical book.

>61 WeeTurtle: You can always upload the cover to your photo gallery here on LibraryThing and paste the URL in either the Publication field or one of the Comments fields.

Yes that sounds perfect, and the categories are great. Especially for signed editions as well as Edition/Printing info. Allowing extra images for some unusual special features would be great too.

Thank you for the quick reply

So Tim, after 63 posts, much thought, many suggestions, and circa 8 months--would it be a spoiler to know whether this project is:

1) Dead
2) In limbo
3) Another can of worms you're sorry you opened up ;-) ?

(In my 67+ years I've often managed to accomplish #3 (in public & private) and continue walking away sheepishly, hoping no one noticed!)

I hope you at least got something out of the exercise?

Hi folks, did anything ever come of this that I missed in the interim? ;-)