internetarchive / internetarchive/openlibrary
Misclassification in new books
- Dominant language
- Python
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Description
Several times while working on the author [Roderick Hunt](https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL964797A/Roderick_Hunt) I've had to create new books to host editions that were imported in clusters under the wrong title. While creating a book, on occasion it would be automatically made into the edition of an already-existing book that had a similar title. The worst example was when I tried to make "Blaze" and it ended up under "Blazing Burgers". Here is one that happened more recently:

https://openlibrary.org/books/OL50982425M/Dogs_in_the_Mud
Especially for authors of children's books who write on history, science or geography and may have multiple books with similar titles (ie: [electricity](https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL19896A/Chris_Oxlade?q=electricity)) this could be a major problem.
Contributor guide
Research direction
No source file or test is identified. Start by reproducing the book-creation flow with the linked “Dogs in the Mud” case and inspect where a new book is matched to an existing title; done means similar titles no longer cause the new book to be assigned to the wrong existing book.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- backend
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100