Size of books imported from LoC now incorrect

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Size of books imported from LoC now incorrect

1newcrossbooks
Mar 11, 2020, 10:40 am

For the last few days it appears that LibraryThing has been treating book heights imported from the Library of Congress as though they are in inches, rather than centimetres.

2timspalding
Mar 11, 2020, 10:50 am

Hi. Have you got a more specific example of the problem? Give me a particular ISBN that is wrong?

3gilroy
Mar 11, 2020, 1:12 pm

Wouldn't the data coming from the LoC be based on what was input AT the LoC? So if they entered it in inches, it comes across as inches. If they entered it as centimeters, it comes across as centimeters.

It doesn't change until you go in and change it.

4newcrossbooks
Editado: Mar 11, 2020, 6:04 pm

>2 timspalding: Today I entered 9781874209416 which came with a height of 20 inches, rather than 20cm.
Yesterday it was a copy of the New Internationalist , LCCN 73645471, which came in with a height of 30 inches
Also 9780471948216 which came in with a height of 24 inches.

These are all incorrect, LoC stores its dimensions in cm, not inches. This is a new problem - dimensions used to be imported correctly in centimetres.

I've checked - any and every book imported from LoC is currently being pulled in with it's height listed as being in inches, rather than centimetres:

0888301499
0831111038
0723217610
090031916X
0812006593
0273252305

>3 gilroy: I wasn't being very clear - the problem is that a 20cm high book is being imported as a 20inch high book.

5newcrossbooks
Mar 12, 2020, 10:27 am

I'm finding the same problem occurs with entries from the British Library - 20cm high books are being imported as 20 inch high books. This never used to happen, previously the correct units were imported and displayed.

Is all height data now being treated as being in inches, regardless of the units used by the source? I've checked book imports from a few other libraries and all have the same problem with book heights.

Amazon is unaffected because it stores its data in inches, but many libraries worldwide store book lengths in centimetres.

6CtrSacredSciences
Mar 13, 2020, 9:16 pm

Here it started March 9th. One book came in cm. and everything I've added after is in inches: LC, Boston U, Oregon State, Univ Oregon, Oxford University. Right number (20, 24...) but states inches rather than cm.

this was the last one that come in correctly for me
https://www.librarything.com/work/70766/details/179675120

and this is the first incorrect one
https://www.librarything.com/work/1170773/details/179682975

7bientrey
Mar 13, 2020, 10:43 pm

Here is another example of LT not changing height info from inches to centimeters when importing records from LC:
https://www.librarything.com/work/23081550/book/179806523, Title: Blood sugar, Author: Daniel Kraus. The LC record has the height info as being 20 cm. I imported the LC record this afternoon and the height info was incorrectly displayed in LT as 20 inches. The isbn for this book is 9781789091939.

8shmjay
Mar 19, 2020, 4:33 pm

This also happened with: https://www.librarything.com/work/24020775/180044683 Bagels bumf & buses : a day in the life of the English language / by Simon Horobin, ISBN 9780198832270 , from Texas A&M University.

9rodneyvc
Editado: Mar 29, 2020, 7:33 pm

I'm seeing this too - I added 9781743219775 from overcat and the height came in at 21 inches not 21 cm.

Also 9781743219492 from National Library of Australia and the height came in at 18 inches not 18 cm.

Steps:
Search in Add books for 9781743219492 on National Library of Australia
Click on "?" to see details
See "Physical Description 887 pages : colour illustrations ; 18 cm"
Add to Library
Click "Edit your book"
Pagination is correct, but Dimensions shows height 18, units set to inches.

ETA Same with 9781787014299 from British Library - 25cm showing in information from source, but adding to library as 25 inches. It seems as though the source doesn't matter, just that the units don't get updated when the book is added.

10Mark.Verschell
Maio 4, 2020, 9:46 am

This is just one of a number of errors that come when adding from sources (LoC and Amazon most commonly). I can bulk fix these easily by export to Excel. For example, if height>12 newcrossbooks: then height=height/2.54 or when the dimensions get mixed during an Amazon source, just make height > length > thickness. But this doesn’t help, since I can’t reimport. Sure, this is only a real issue when starting off with LT.

11SandraArdnas
Maio 4, 2020, 7:24 pm

It's not just LoC. Whatever source I've used lately, data is imported as inches, though library record as usual is in centimeters.

12newcrossbooks
Maio 4, 2020, 11:11 pm

It's been like this for nearly two months now. And what makes it worse is that if any calculated dimensions have been automatically added (green text) then they're given in real inches so you can't simply switch the measurement units from in to cm to correct the problem.

At least with dimensions it appears that you can delete the green text, so leaving the dimension blank, and it stays blank (unlike weight where the calculated text keeps coming back if you leave it blank - and in lbs, even though you've set your units to kg).

13bnielsen
Maio 5, 2020, 12:47 am

>12 newcrossbooks: And on top of that some of the library information or even from Amazon :-) may be just plain wrong, so you should always check the information anyway. Plotting some of the data might be a help. I noticed that I had a lot of 200, 300 and 500 g books and most of them is more like 150 g paperbacks. But maybe the library has them bound in a way so they always come in 200 / 300 / 500 g weight ? :-)

14lipi
Jul 6, 2020, 8:41 pm

Any update on this? Do you need more examples, Tim? Anything we can do to help you narrow this down?

15newcrossbooks
Jul 6, 2020, 9:35 pm

To summarize:

Problem was first reported on 11 March 2020 as occuring 'for the last few days'.

According to >6 CtrSacredSciences: the problem definitely started on 9 March 2020.

There can be secondary effects, particularly if the title has been entered before using an Amazon source. For instance if I add 9780521786423 using a library source such as the LoC, then the dimensions of the book are catalogued as:
Height - 24 in (should be cm)
Width - 5.98 in (green predicted text)
Height - 0.71 in (green predicted text)
In cases like this you can't just switch the units from in to cm.

16Anneli
Nov 26, 2020, 8:46 am

Same inches vs. centimetres problem when importing from The Royal Library of Sweden (LIBRIS) and Helsinki Metropolitan Libraries.

Today I imported ISBN 9789100185596 from Libris and 9789511255420 from Helsinki Metropolitan Libraries.

17ccatalfo
Nov 30, 2020, 9:30 am

I believe I have fixed this - it was due to a change made in dimensions recording for Amazon which inadvertently broke the cm detection for Z3950 (MARC) sources such as LoC etc.

Please let me know if you still see problems. I tested using LoC and ISBN:0831111038 along with a few others, plus searching on Amazon and getting the usual results.

18elenchus
Nov 30, 2020, 1:20 pm

>17 ccatalfo:

Does that mean any books affected between March and today now correctly displays measurements, or only that imports from today will be correct, but a legacy of incorrect data exists?

19newcrossbooks
Nov 30, 2020, 8:59 pm

>17 ccatalfo: It seems to be working OK now from the few library sources that I've tried.

Any green text predicted dimensions are also being added in the correct units.

20ccatalfo
Dez 1, 2020, 7:46 am

>18 elenchus: Items added or imported going forward will have the correct dimensions. Items added or imported earlier than the fix will need to be corrected manually, alas.

>19 newcrossbooks: Thanks for reporting back.

21CtrSacredSciences
Fev 27, 2021, 10:22 pm

>20 ccatalfo:
All good, thanks!