Adding Books - Search Where?

These days the only place I'm getting results for adding books - Search Where? is Amazon. I've tried searching by author, title, ISBN, but none of the other sources (including Overcat) are giving me any results. This has been going on for a while, for many different books. I prefer not to use Amazon. It's a mystery to me why this has changed. Suggestions welcome. Thanks!

Nobody can really help you unless you give us examples.

Okay, Thanks!

You Are Light (Aaron Becker) 9781536201154
In the Woods (Ermanno Christini) 0590436333
Creepy Crawlies (Cathy Kilpatrick) 9780881100761

I got multiple Overcat results for an ISBN search of the first and third.

ETA: You may have more luck searching for Cristini than Christini.

>3 H.C.P.:

You won't get a result from Overcat unless members have added it from a library. I just did a random check of about a dozen of the members who have In the Woods, and they all used Amazon.

ETA: Just found it using CARLI

>3 H.C.P.:

You are obviously right that those didn't come up. I tried some older books and titles, and those seemed strange too.

Search term: James Buchanan
Overcat: NOTHING
LoC: 504 results, but the first page is of really strange stuff that I would never have guessed for the first things on this search
(Amazon has a thousand result starting with various biographies.)

Search term: Grant, Memoirs
Overcat: NOTHING
LoC: NOTHING
(Amazon's list starts with a bunch of editions of Grant's Personal Memoirs, as it should.)

Search term: Sir Orfeo
Overcat: NOTHING
LoC: 32 results, mostly valid, but it put some pretty stupid ones at the top
(Amazon doesn't have A. J. Bliss's version at the top, where it should be -- it puts the Tolkien translation first -- but at least Bliss is the third one)

Search term: Eddy, Ballads, Ohio
Overcat: NOTHING
LoC: NOTHING
(Amazon finds Mary O. Eddy's Ballads and Songs from Ohio, though it gives it a bollixed title)

Given that LoC is finding things -- just not very relevant things -- I would guess that that is just something funny about how they're doing searches. Overcat truly seems bollixed.

FWIW: Arm Mac, MacOS 13.6.3; FireFox 122.0

Thanks for all this.

Yes, I did spell Cristini wrong.

I'm having the same issue. More and more often, when I try to add books using a library search, I get no search results.

Today I tried looking for "Rebecca Zanetti You Can Die". It is in LT . . . several other members have it in their collections. But I could not "add" it from the works page (LT tells me to use the Add Books page) and I got "no search results" from Overdrive, LOC or Seattle Public Library.

Try separating the title and author with a comma?

>8 klandring:

Touchstones: You Can Die, by Rebecca Zanetti

>9 davidgn: Looks like Seattle isn't working period. Worth researching. (ETA: Appears to be an internal server error on their side -- index needs re-synced?)
Overdrive = Overcat, I assume? There was an issue recently with title searches, but maybe other people have been adding from Amazon.

Makes me wonder whether it would make sense for LT to systematically seek out library records for Amazon-only catalog entries...

In any case, I researched the ISBN using WorldCat and used it to get the record from Evergreen Indiana. (Searching "You can die, zanetti" also worked.) Ditto for searching via COOL in Ohio.
Maybe Overcat will work going forward.
(ETA: Overcat works with ISBN now, but still not with title, author)

>11 davidgn:

Overdrive = Overcat, I assume? There was an issue recently with title searches

The Overcat bug was theoretically fixed: https://www.librarything.com/topic/357482#n8402254

If there's still an issue, the bug should be re-opened and reported in that thread.

>12 lilithcat: Done, thanks.

>10 lilithcat: bad touchstone.

You can Die

It's always better to use the ISBN, as the data will match your copy.

>8 klandring: For the book in this addition, I think the + for a space glitch might be a culprit.
Because when I first try to add it from the add button on the page, there are + throughout the URL when you switch to the add page and when it searches. But when I fix the URL to not have the +, I start getting results from Amazon and Overcat.

I thought that a plus can be used as a space in a url, at least I've seen it used that way in a lot of places

Another example this morning. Tried searching ISBN 9780062334671 cut and pasted from the LOC.GOV record.
An LOC search on the Add Books page returned "no results found". This book is in LT and the "Add to your library" button worked to get it in my library but it is an Amazon.com record.

I use a Windows computer with Edge as my browser. Is that the problem? Please don't tell me I need to use Chrome to use LT . . .

>17 klandring: I just found that one in University of Oxford.

Better choice ofsources is an advantage to not using the shortcut button.

>17 klandring: I've noticed LoC searches failing too. Probably worth opening a bug report on it. But yes, branching out a bit in which sources you use can be very helpful in the event of failures.

Thank you all for the advice. FYI, I generally search multiple libraries (3 or 4?) before settling for an Amazon record. I start with LOC, and then move on to national libraries in other countries and then public systems in the US, including Seattle Public and San Francisco Public.

I'll post something over at bug reports.