Canonical Books Page

Community, please make suggestions to represent your values so we can design as Canonical Books Page everyone is proud of:

Principles

1. Our sitemap will index editions
   • Most recently added first [tfm - order doesn't matter ]
   • 1 edition per language per work, prioritizing books we have digitized? [tfm - all editions should be in the sitemap]
2. /works pages will become a redirect page to an edition (i.e. “canonical book” page). A user will not be able to get to a work page. An edition will always be selected / the destination for viewing book information. [lsd - The work metadata must be editable: if work page is inaccessible to users then where?]
   • redirect to the “best” edition, by default
     • E.g. Borrowable + available, readable, newest, highest rated
     • Can be done dynamically, at time of hitting url
   • Allow default setting to be overridden to accommodate language, or a request for a specific edition
     • A lang= parameter could be used to tell the search results /work which edition to redirect to, i.e. as a filter/facet for desired language
3. All editions will also incorporate work data into their display (i.e. an edition page is basically a work page with an edition selected)
4. To see other editions of a work, we may opt to shown the “best” subset of them (in one more many carousel(s)?) on the selected edition page. Where applicable (i.e. the edition has a work), a user may see a comprehensive listing of all editions (including those without ebooks) by going to: /works/OL...W/<title>/editions. In this case, we can guarantee there is a work by virtue of there being multiple editions.
   • “best” may mean the same thing as defined above (e.g. newest, available, languages)
5. For maintainability and clarity, there will be exactly 1 template (disregarding A/B testing) for the “canonical book page”
6. Not all editions need a work under this approach [tfm - I don't see how this follows. Work metadata is still needed]
7. The Canonical Book Page will be mobile responsive and have a mobile + desktop view
8. As a separate (integrally related) issue, solr search should be updated where possible to insert edition match info results to accommodate facet by language, year, etc
9. Separate but related issue: How should search results handle works/editions?

Changes Required

1. Redirecting /works/OL...W/<title> to the "best" edition page (definition of "best" to be discussed)
2. Adding work data (e.g. description, subject-tags, other editions) to the edition page
3. Overhauling the Canonical Books Page (i.e. edition page) to have a consistent, mobile friendly design.
4. Creating a new work's editions endpoint /works/OL...W/<title>/editions as the comprehensive listing of a work's editions.
5. Updating the sitemap to include "select" editions per works (spanning languages, availability, favoring recent date-added, etc -- again, to be discussed)
6. Users must be able to easily choose which edition they see of a work by identifiers, search result proximity, facets, etc. Getting five hundred editions of Ovid's Metamorphoses when searching for a specific ISBN is not helpful.

Research

• A superficial record of how other sites (GoodReads, LibraryThing, and Shelfari) handle their Work/edition interactions (interactive SVG; links/hovering work)

Related

https://internetarchive.slack.com/archives/C0ETZV72L/p1521771852000004 https://github.com/internetarchive/openlibrary/issues/844 https://github.com/internetarchive/openlibrary/issues/684