adding duplicate titles

hello,

i know that there will be some truly logical reason why we cannot do this; however, i was wondering if a "duplicate" button could be added.

i understand the part about not being a housing system for books. but what about a work you already have in your system, but want to add it more than once. it would be such a relief to hit a button that duplicates/replicates the entry

I definitely don't want this. If you're running a small library, make it a library account.

>1 EGBERTINA:

On the "Edit your book" page, under "physical description", there's a option to indicate the number of copies.

>2 reconditereader:

You wouldn't have to use it.

Just to make it's clear: We can already add a title to our catalog an unlimited number of times.

I have works showing up as a duplicates that are separate entries so I can make notes on different editions. However, you could enter the same edition (ex: an English-language hardcover of a work printed this year) multiple times. (The edition description field for number of copies referenced by >3 lilithcat: is an alternative method that can make the book's data tidier.)

As for your request for a duplication feature... I doubt we will see a button specifically for duplication before there's an add button for generic/non-edition titles not added through manual entry. You would need to convince the LT team it's worth their time. I personally don't see how it is with the processes we currently have, so you might want to make explain how it would benefit the site.

>5 aspirit: just a thought. it benefits my laziness, which is icreasing.

i have many duplications, both for multiple editions and for multiple translations.

i am working on another of my translator projects and wish i had an easier way to enter tin soldier etc by HCA without hand typing it 100 x.

>6 EGBERTINA: I think it could be automated (I'm thinking Selenium and Python). I've just not had the need, so I'll not invest time in it. Another possibility is perhaps to create your own library source (setting up a Koha server and publish a z39.50 connection and get someone to list it as a LT source).

Both of these would be fun projects if I didn't have anything else to do :-)

There is always the CSV spreadsheet and import features...

>7 bnielsen: Thou speakest in tongues, good sir.

lol

>9 EGBERTINA: Thanks :-)

Selenium is a way of remote controlling a browser (I think). I.e. rather than you clicking on the "Add books" page and filling the fields with information, you'd write a program to do it. Selenium can be used from various programming languages and I think Python is the language of choice for this. I've not felt the need for looking more into it, so I keep hoping that someone else will do the work.

Koha is a free library system. https://koha-community.org/
So you can set up your own version of the Library of Congress if you like. Or maybe a subset :-)

And like >8 gilroy: says, you can also use the import features.

None of these are quite as easy as requested in >1 EGBERTINA:.

But if you have "multiple editions" and "multiple translations", they are not duplicates.

I have a collection of The Wind in the Willows, 28 versions of the original story and illustrated by various artists. But I also have 59 abridged or adapted versions of the story, with the main author being the adaptor or the illustrator of the simplified story.
I unite them by using the tag ‘WITW.’

https://www.librarything.com/catalog/2wonderY&deepsearch=Witw

>7 bnielsen: thank you.

scraping my face across concrete is also fun :-)

i could see that it would be fun if i knew such things.

>10 bnielsen: I glanced briefly, at your koha link.

I think I will have enough trying to sort out my library here. I still haven't entered all that I own, because I keep reading things that I don't.

just slowing down

>1 EGBERTINA:
Hi,
I also also wanted a button to "duplicate" entries but after reading this thread, I believe at least for my purposes a button that allowed us to add another edition would work and also be something LibraryThing might actually do.

I have been going through my collection and I have several books that I got both the print or eBook version and also the audio version to help one of my aunts read more and help with her dyslexia.
While in my mind I don't see these as different books or duplicates with why I got them I can see as a cataloging system why LibraryThing would look at it that way.

Another way I was thinking would work for me would be to add multiple types of media to one entry but again a cataloging system as this is would think of that as needing two different editions or entries.

If I need to duplicate an existing work, I use the TamperMonkey/GreaseMonkey 'LT Copy Book LibraryThing' script for Chrome/Firefox. I found it a godsend when I was entering individual comic-book issues; do a full entry once, and copy it multiple times, updating for any issue-specific details as I went along rather than tediously filling in the complete manual entry form a few hundred times...

There's a thread in Talk discussing this: https://www.librarything.com/topic/115928#8027455 looking at the later posts.

You may not use either the Chrome or the Firefox browers, though. Edge (the current Microsoft default) is Chromium-based so theoretically TamperMonkey should work (or be available - we're a Mac shop so I can't check - the only copies of Edge we have are on corporate machines). I don't know what options there are for other browsers like Opera or Safari.

Also, you may not be comfortable with installing this sort of add-on.

To my mind, having the ability to 'clone' an existing entry in your catalogue would be very useful, especially for different editions of the same work. Even more so, where the work has been translated multiple times - the translator makes a huge difference to the flavour of the edition. A public domain translation of, say, Beowulf (usually Victorian), is very different from a modern translation e.g. Seamus Heaney's translation or even Maria Dahvana Headley's modern retelling.