Repository: internetarchive/openlibrary

Issue #684: Canonical Books Pages: Merging Works + Editions UI
Created: 2017-12-22T22:26:35Z
The average user goes to Open Library to find a "Book" -- the term work and edition can be confusing to their experience.
This is especially jarring when throughout the Open Library experience a user can either be dropped into either a Work page or an Edition page.
In 2018, we plan to release a new type of Canonical Book Page which simplifies the user's experience to a single page where users find information about a book, and about a specific edition at a time (from the same single page).
Similar to how good reads operates, this Canonical Book Page will show all the data you'd expect from a Work page and appear as if a specific Edition is selected. An option will be provided (described below) to show a list of all selectable editions, but this table will not be rendered as a Work page (as is currently the case).
These changes are especially important given that we're not just talking about work and edition pages. We're also talking about all the times a work only has one edition and then we render yet another type of page.
In addition to impacting the design (there will only be 1 books page, instead of edition + work), this change will also entail a change in url routing and how we generate sitemaps:
Axioms

a la #2644, all books pages should have a primary CTA button which reflects the availability of the book/work (read, borrow, sponsor, etc)

Proposal


Today a work page is accessed as /works/OL...W/slug.
Moving forward, accessing this work page will redirect to the Canonical Book Page with the "best" Edition selected. Best in this case means (1) the edition available for borrow, (2) a public domain readable version of the book, (3) or the edition with the least waitlist. The following url is an example of a Canonical Book Page after this redirect occurs:
/works/OL...W/:slug/OL...M


Today accessing a specific "edition" is doe via a url of the form /books/OL...M/:slug
In the future, this url will expand to /works/OL...W/:slug/OL...M -- which is the same as from point (1) except in this case we decide the Edition, whereas in (1) the "best" edition was selected for us


Currently, if you want to access a list of editions for a work, you go to the work page: /works/OL...W/:slug
Moving forward, /works/OL...W/:slug/editions will show a standalone table with other editions of this book which can be opened using the Canonical Book Page


These are big changes and we plan on getting feedback from the community to make sure we address any concerns which arise during this transition. Our goal is to preserve all existing functionality, not make the experience worse for people who want to use Open Library as a catalog, and to make the platform easy for the vast majority of users who simply want to find a book and will get confused if functions are split between multiple pages.
See more @ https://github.com/internetarchive/openlibrary/wiki/Canonical-Books-Page
Related: #685
cc: @tfmorris, @cdrini, @bfalling, @LeadSongDog, @hornc

Duplicate issue #2430: Show the language availability of a book when clicked on or have a translator
Created: 2019-09-29T04:01:33Z
If a book's written in multiple languages, when a person clicks on a book to read, a place that shows 'other translations' with other languages to bring a reader to a language translation they would like to read it in would help. Another idea is just to have a book, but to make it readable in any language. Like people could click a language at the top and the book converts to a translated version.

Closing comment (2019-12-13T07:03:05Z): @mekarpeles Sorry to bug, but it's a little ambiguous why it's closed related to #684. Is it because that's the priority being the infrastructure to set this up with, and this a secondary one to proceed that. Or, is the focus of the OL not on languages at this time altogether? The clarification will prevent future accidental potential raising of the issue again.
I'm really glad there's a method to carry it out and an understanding, so that's great.