How to catalog audio books

I went over to the audio book forum, but it appears inactive. Is there any way to catalog Audible audio books? I am a bus rider, in the Northeast, so I've taken to audio books for my commute (between the rain, the snow, and the heat, dragging a book around was getting difficult). I read two or three books a month this way. But when I try to catalog audio books, all I get is a listing for the audio CDs.

For example, when I put in "The Passage" the only choice is an abridged CD set, but the Audible version was unabridged.

Any suggestions? I'd rather not have to manually enter each one, but maybe that is the only way.

thanks!

This is the active Audiobook group:
http://www.librarything.com/groups/audiobooks

Manually adding them might still be your best choice.

But I emphasize might.

Anyway : an unabridged audio book should be combined wit the main work, but not if it's an abridgment or an adaptation.

So unabridged audio should be listed as another edition of the original work?

What about other forms, such as Kindle? Do people keep copies of those things or are they only sent to their reader for a set amount of time and then sort of disappear?

So unabridged audio should be listed as another edition of the original work?

That's seems to be the consensus.

What about other forms, such as Kindle?

Clueless about Kindle specifics - I don't think they're even available here in continental Europe (yet).

But I would say the same general rule applies to ebooks of any kind. If the only difference is the format it should be combined into the main work.

Yep - ebooks are definetly part of the main work.

Your choice whether to catalogue them or not.

"Do people keep copies of those things or are they only sent to their reader for a set amount of time and then sort of disappear?
"

Not sure what you mean here? In general all ebooks (hey there's lots of other readers apart from the Kindle) do not disappear. You buy/download them and they are yours. Non-kindle ebooks can be borrowed from libraries, you do only get these for a limited amount of time (3weeks) before the DRM expires and you can't access them - although they aren't deleted as such. There have been two cases where Amazon recalled a Kindle ebook, deleting it from people's readers. In both cases it shouldn't have ever been offered for sale. The feedback was so horrendous they've promised not to do so again. If you backup your ebooks onto a PC then they can't do so.

Again your choice whether to catalogue loans or not. I do so in 'Borrowed' and 'Read but not owned' collections. (ie not in 'My Library'). I don't tend to catalogue ebooks until I've read them - ie I've downloaded/own a lot more ebooks than I've catalogued. Wheras I do catalogue pbooks as and when I buy them, even if I don't read them for a while. They seem slightly more real somehow.

Hope that helps. Feel free to ask more specific questiosn if I 've misunderstood you.

How to do so: I add the book normally using Overcat or Amazon to find a suitable paper edition. I then goto Edit book, and alter the Publication details (and ISBN sometimes) to suit the ebook/audio nature. This is quicker than creating an entire manual record from scratch, tends to preserve the combination and gives you a pretty cover.

I catalog my ebooks as I read them, in a separate collection (that is, they don't go into Your Library (I hate those pronouns!)). Not sure why...well, I guess because they don't precisely fit the criteria "I have this book physically in my possession" that's supposed to (for me! not a universal rule) indicate whether a book goes in Your Library.

I add ebooks much the same way reading_fox does, except that I always change or delete the ISBN (change it if the ebook has its own, or take it out entirely if it doesn't) and make a cover specifically for the ebook - I have an image that looks like a generic ereader and I paste in a cover for the book that I like. Like these -
http://www.librarything.com/work/51437/book/64947955
http://www.librarything.com/work/86862/book/64947944

And yes, I do combine ebooks into the main work. No more different than paperback vs hardback, as far as whether it's the same book, I think.

There are ways of lending out ebooks - Kindle and Nook both have a lending function, and library books - but mostly ebooks are downloaded either direct to the device or onto a computer and then copied to the device. Some people (my mother, for one) only put books they want to read on the device, and delete them from the device (not the computer) when they've been read. I keep mine on my device (which happens to be my smartphone rather than a dedicated ereader) unless I'm running low on room - hasn't happened yet with this. You certainly could delete all copies of a book, if you wanted to...I can't imagine doing it, particularly if I'd paid for it, unless the book was so awful I'd never want to reread it. But that's me.

Yes, I'd like every book I've read in my library regardless of whether I own a copy and am glad it's possible to note whether you own it or where you borrowed it if not.

I just posted a response to the "how did you get started w/audiobooks?" thread and included a "how do your manage audio books in Library Thing?" question in it. That was before I notice this earlier conversation. I have a particular perspective or purpose that not all of the earlier posters share. I am quite new to LT, and I am inclined to use it mostly to keep record of books that I possess, whether printed copies, audio books, or perhaps in the future e-books. I want my printed books and audiobooks in the same "My Library," because that is what they are to me. I own a significant number of audiobooks because I have had an audible.com membership for several years. If I were keeping track of books and recordings obtained from the library I would have a very different perspective. I started to seek out the existing bibliographic record of audio editions but grew impatient with that. Such records didn't always exist, and I wasn't sure that it was a very efficient means of sorting and grouping the formats anyway. I have experimented with two approaches. (1) I can create an "audio" tag, and assign it along with "fiction," "history," or whatever; or (2) or I can add a separate collection for Audio Books to parallel those for "My Library," "Books read but not owned," etc. Each is easily accomplished, and each allows me to see whether my collection included the title as paper-between-covers or as an audiobook, or occasionally both. The latter poses a bit of a problem, unless I define "my library" to mean only print editions, which I suppose I could.

9> Don't forget that a book may exist in more than one Collection at a time.

You can also use My Library for both, and have separate Audio and Print (and e) collections.

Thanks, jj and mj. I think I was making it harder than it needed to be. I think I'll go for maximum redundancy by creating separate Audio, Print, and e Collections in combination with My Library and "read/listened to but not owned," and probably use an Audio tag as well until I see what seems to work best for my purposes.

Note that if the audiobook is unabridged - if it contains all of the printed book - it can be "combined" and be treated as the same "work" as the print book for LT purposes. If it's abridged, it would be very helpful to put that in the title (M is for Murder [abridged], or use parentheses ()) so that it doesn't accidentally get combined. The same, by the way, should apply to abridged print books...they don't count as the same work as the full book.

ETA fix HTML for square brackets

Wouldn't all audiobooks be abridged? The norm is to not include front or back matter, table of contents, etc. Does this not make it abridged?

>14 Nichalia: Not for the purposes of LT. If the main text is all there, it is the same work - different or missing introductions and tables of contents and afterwords and so on do not make different works.

And not in the audiobooks industry and how the term is used and understood both by producers and users of audiobooks. :) If the novel is read completely, it is unabridged. If words and passages are skipped or changed, it is abridged.