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For anyone who wishes Open Library was even better, please join one of our weekly community calls @ 11:30am Pacific. For an invite, please send me an email at

For anyone who wishes Open Library was even better, please join one of our weekly community calls @ 11:30am Pacific. For an invite, please send me an email at mek@archive.org or go to: https://openlibrary.org/volunteer https://openlibrary.org/volunteer # APIs & Data Dumps - https://openlibrary.org/developers/api https://openlibrary.org/developers/api - https://openlibrary.org/dev/docs/api/books https://openlibrary.org/dev/docs/api/books - https://openlibrary.org/developers/dumps https://openlibrary.org/developers/dumps monthly data dumps for if you need bulk access and the APIs are not enough. # Spread the word Also, if you want to help raise awareness of this resource, please help us get the word out on twitter! 1. https://twitter.com/openlibrary/status/1338185940469051392 https://twitter.com/openlibrary/status/1338185940469051392 2. https://twitter.com/openlibrary/status/1338186553915367425 https://twitter.com/openlibrary/status/1338186553915367425 # Issues Thank you all for helping us discover some issues with our goodreads importer and search (recently migrated to Python3 + thanks @cdrini et al for these fast bug fixes! If you notice an problem, please help open an issue here: https://github.com/internetarchive/openlibrary/issues/new/choose https://github.com/internetarchive/openlibrary/issues/new/ch... # Learn More - https://archive.org/details/openlibrary-tour-2020/openlibrary.ogv https://archive.org/details/openlibrary-tour-2020/openlibrar... if you want to learn more about Open Library, here's a short intro vid. - https://github.com/internetarchive/openlibrary https://github.com/internetarchive/openlibrary if you want to follow on github.

rikroots 6y ago
Hi, Mek. Awesome project! How do I go about claiming my author page? The current book listed there has been officially "retired" for over a decade now, and I have plenty of other books that I'd be happy to add. https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL2965893A/Rik_Roots https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL2965893A/Rik_Roots
- mekarpeles 6y ago
  Howdy rikroots! Thanks for this kind message, we're really excited about designing a way to help authors claim their pages. It's not a feature our current author pages have yet. As a project of the non-profit Internet Archive, having a trusted catalog is pretty paramount to what we're trying to accomplish and Aaron Swartz's original dream for an Open Library. I've created an issue for this feature (as it's something we've discussed doing for a while). I'll also be adding this to our upcoming Tuesday 2021 roadmap discussion. https://github.com/internetarchive/openlibrary/issues/4263 https://github.com/internetarchive/openlibrary/issues/4263 Thanks for raising this
  - rikroots 6y ago
    Many thanks for the response. I look forward to seeing the outcome of your deliberations in the new year.
bloak 6y ago
I noticed that two authors with the same name are conflated. But if I try to edit any of the editions involved, the interface won't let me either modify or delete an existing author nor even add a new author using the author ID rather than the author's name. What should I do to sort this out?
- mekarpeles 6y ago
  Howdy bloak, Many of our librarian processes & FAQs are detailed here: https://openlibrary.org/librarians https://openlibrary.org/librarians Most data on Open Library is publicly editable by members. In this case, author merging is a capability that only folks who have been added to our Librarians usergroup can access because the process of reverting an accidental merge is quite time consuming (and so we have some training in place). If you tweet @ our lead community librarian (http://twitter.com/seabelis http://twitter.com/seabelis) she can likely help you make this fix! Also, if you're interested in helping us make changes like this, we can invite you to our slack channel :)
  - bloak 6y ago
    Thanks, but what I'm trying to do is split authors ... and I think I've worked out how to do it. The trick is to make sure you're looking at the "work" rather than the "edition", because when you're looking at the "edition" the author is immutable.
joppy 6y ago
It just struck me how dubious the term “Pacific time” is - a timezone named after the largest ocean on Earth. I’m in Australia on the side which is also on the Pacific, but my time is 6 or more hours away from “Pacific time” :P
- SOLAR_FIELDS 6y ago
  Using the three letter acronym usually removes the ambiguity. For instance my European friends and I both live in “Central time” - but when you say CET or CST everyone immediately knows which time zone you mean.

rikroots 6y ago

Hi, Mek. Awesome project! How do I go about claiming my author page? The current book listed there has been officially "retired" for over a decade now, and I have plenty of other books that I'd be happy to add. https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL2965893A/Rik_Roots https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL2965893A/Rik_Roots

mekarpeles 6y ago
Howdy rikroots! Thanks for this kind message, we're really excited about designing a way to help authors claim their pages. It's not a feature our current author pages have yet. As a project of the non-profit Internet Archive, having a trusted catalog is pretty paramount to what we're trying to accomplish and Aaron Swartz's original dream for an Open Library. I've created an issue for this feature (as it's something we've discussed doing for a while). I'll also be adding this to our upcoming Tuesday 2021 roadmap discussion. https://github.com/internetarchive/openlibrary/issues/4263 https://github.com/internetarchive/openlibrary/issues/4263 Thanks for raising this
- rikroots 6y ago
  Many thanks for the response. I look forward to seeing the outcome of your deliberations in the new year.

bloak 6y ago

I noticed that two authors with the same name are conflated. But if I try to edit any of the editions involved, the interface won't let me either modify or delete an existing author nor even add a new author using the author ID rather than the author's name. What should I do to sort this out?

mekarpeles 6y ago
Howdy bloak, Many of our librarian processes & FAQs are detailed here: https://openlibrary.org/librarians https://openlibrary.org/librarians Most data on Open Library is publicly editable by members. In this case, author merging is a capability that only folks who have been added to our Librarians usergroup can access because the process of reverting an accidental merge is quite time consuming (and so we have some training in place). If you tweet @ our lead community librarian (http://twitter.com/seabelis http://twitter.com/seabelis) she can likely help you make this fix! Also, if you're interested in helping us make changes like this, we can invite you to our slack channel :)
- bloak 6y ago
  Thanks, but what I'm trying to do is split authors ... and I think I've worked out how to do it. The trick is to make sure you're looking at the "work" rather than the "edition", because when you're looking at the "edition" the author is immutable.

joppy 6y ago

It just struck me how dubious the term “Pacific time” is - a timezone named after the largest ocean on Earth. I’m in Australia on the side which is also on the Pacific, but my time is 6 or more hours away from “Pacific time” :P

SOLAR_FIELDS 6y ago
Using the three letter acronym usually removes the ambiguity. For instance my European friends and I both live in “Central time” - but when you say CET or CST everyone immediately knows which time zone you mean.