Talk:Feature:90091 Edition label for publications

From ISFDB

A little background. This is a idea that has popped up every now and then. Basically, the ISFDB's current book cataloging system has two "tiers": books and editions, which map onto Titles and Publications. In the publishing world, there are three tiers: books, editions and printings. Currently, we flatten this model by converting all printings to editions. This is done -- if I remember the last round of discussions correctly -- because we thought there would be too many permutations and distinguishing between editions and printings would be non-trivial, what with potentially different ISBNs, prices, cover art, etc. The current scheme works reasonably well for books that have been reprinted infrequently, but admittedly becomes unwieldly when you have multiple chronologically overlapping editions, each one with multiple printings.

If we had unlimited resources, we would definitely want the database to reflect the real world as closely as possible. Given our resource constraints, the current proposal as I understand it, i.e. addressing the issue within the "presentation layer" as opposed to within the database structure, may well be the most cost-effective solution. Ahasuerus 12:13, 31 Dec 2006 (CST)