1. Getting Access
Both librarian tools use your standard Annotate login. However, an admin must enable the librarian permissions on your account first. If you see a permission error when trying to log in, message an admin to flip the switch for you.
Note: The tools have separate sessions, so you will need to log into each one individually.
Every edit you make is logged. This isn't to police you; it just allows us to revert mistakes if something goes wrong. Don't be afraid to make changes.
2. The Tools
You will primarily use two interfaces for this job:
- Librarian Tickets: A kanban board (To Do, In Progress, Done) where reader requests arrive.
- Librarian Portal: The direct database interface where you can search, edit, add, and merge books and editions.
Usually, you will read a request in the Tickets tool and fulfill it in the Portal.
3. Books vs. Editions
Understanding the difference between a book and an edition is the most important part of this job.
- Book (Work): The canonical story itself (e.g., Dune by Frank Herbert). This is what shows up in search.
- Edition: A specific physical or digital release (e.g., the 1990 Ace paperback with 412 pages). One book has many editions.
| Book Record (General) | Edition Records (Specific) |
|---|---|
| Dune by Frank Herbert | Ace, 1990 (ISBN 0441172717) - 412 pages |
| Gollancz, 2015 (ISBN 9781473224469) - 608 pages |
Rule of thumb: If you are fixing details that apply to the story universally, edit the Book. If you are fixing a specific cover, ISBN, or page count, edit the Edition.
Translations are editions, not new books. A book and its translations are the same work. Orgueil et Préjugés is not a separate book, it is the French edition of Pride and Prejudice. It belongs under the existing book with its Language set to French, never as a new Book row.
How to title the Book: if a work has an English translation, the Book title is the English title (Pride and Prejudice), and every other language lives underneath it as an edition. A work that has no English translation yet is titled in its original language and added as its own Book. That second case is the kind of non-English book Section 10 asks you to help catalog.
What is the ISBN on Book: If a book is just the work, then why is an ISBN mandatory when adding a book? This is the default edition for a book. Pick the most popular edition when entering a book and enter that ISBN here.
4. Editing a Book
To edit general book metadata, search for the title, author, or ISBN in the portal and click Edit. You can change:
- Title, Author, ISBN, and Synopsis
- Cover (paste an image URL or upload directly)
- Publisher and Publication Date
- Book Type (book, audiobook, or non-isbn)
- Series details, Language, Original Publication Year, Genres, and Pages
Important: Always use the autocomplete dropdown for Authors, Series, and Languages. Typing them manually often creates duplicates.
5. Managing Editions
Click the Editions button on a book's row to manage its specific versions. There are two types:
- Open Library Editions: Pulled directly from Open Library. These are read-only.
- Custom Editions: Editions created by us. You can edit all fields freely.
If an Open Library edition has incorrect data (like a missing cover), click Add corrected version next to it. This copies the data into a new Custom Edition so you can fix the error without retyping everything.
Adding a translation: a different-language version of a book is a Custom Edition on the existing book. Create it there and set its Language (e.g. French), along with that edition's own title, cover, ISBN, and page count. Do not create a second book for it.
6. Merging Duplicates
Use the Merge Names and Merge Books buttons in the toolbar to clean up duplicates. Merges are permanent, so proceed carefully.
- Merge Names: Fixes duplicate authors or series (e.g., merging "C. Lispector" and "Clarice Lispector"). Type the incorrect name, then merge it into the correct autocomplete suggestion.
- Merge Books: Select one "winner" (the record to keep) and one or more "losers" (the duplicates). The losers will be converted into editions of the winner.
Always use the "Preview merge" feature first. It will show you exactly what data will move and how many reviews will be deleted. Reviews on losing books do not survive the merge.
7. Adding a Book
Always search the portal first to make sure the work isn't already there. Search by the English title (or the original title, for a work that has no English translation) and the author, not by the copy in your hand. A French or Spanish version will not show up under its translated title, and it will not be caught as a duplicate if you add it, so this search is the only thing standing between us and two records for the same story.
If the work already exists, you are not adding a book. Add your version as an edition instead (see Section 5). Only click Add Book when the work genuinely isn't in the database yet.
When you do add one, you must include a Title, Author, Cover, and Synopsis. Regular books require an ISBN, while audiobooks require a run-time. Again, rely heavily on the autocomplete for authors and languages.
Which ISBN goes on a new book?
The book record doubles as its default edition, the version a reader sees before they pick a specific one. So the ISBN you enter should be the main, most widely available edition of the work (for an English-titled book, the common English paperback), not the barcode of whatever specific or foreign-language copy you happen to be holding.
Do not scan the barcode of a French paperback and add it as a new book. That creates a duplicate work. The French copy is an edition of the existing English-titled book, added with its Language set to French.
8. The Ticket Board
The ticket board tracks reader submissions. You can open a ticket to copy its data, "Pick up" a ticket to assign it to yourself, or drag it between columns.
| Ticket Type | What it means |
|---|---|
report_info |
Correction to a book's fields. |
add_book |
New book submission. |
add_series |
Adding a book to a series. |
add_edition |
New edition submission. |
Some tickets are "flag only" (meaning the reader reported an error but didn't provide the fix) or scoped to a specific edition.
9. Where to Find Correct Information
When you need to verify a reader's report or fill in missing details, here is the best order of operations:
- Goodreads: Always look here first. Because it's an older, more developed database, it usually has the most accurate records for publication history, page counts, and weird alternate editions.
- TheStoryGraph: This is a great secondary check. It's particularly useful for fixing series data because they use a similar series-linking functionality to Annotate, making it super easy to cross-reference how books should be grouped.
- Google: If you still can't find the info on Goodreads or TheStoryGraph, it's Google time. Publisher websites, author pages, and library catalogs are often your best bet for tracking down obscure metadata.
10. Proactive Cataloging
Don't just wait for tickets. We need help expanding the database, particularly for books originally published in or popular in other languages, especially ones that don't have an English translation yet. Those are the works most likely to be missing from us entirely.
A good workflow is to pull up a popular Goodreads list (especially in a language you speak natively), search our Portal for the top titles, and manually add any that we are missing. Ensure they have good covers and accurate synopses.
Before adding, check whether the work is already here under its English title. If it is, the version you found is an edition of that book, not a new one. Only genuinely absent works get added as new books, and if a work does have an English translation, title it in English even when you found it on a foreign-language list.