I borrowed (and lost) a book from my college library, and now I need to replace it.
This is fair enough, but they want the exact same item ID and call number on the replacement…they won’t accept a paperback copy, since I lost a hardback edition, and paperback copies are all I can seem to find online.
This is the relevant information. Of course I’m willing to look it up myself if someone will tell me where to go and do that.
I just checked Amazon, and they only have the paperpack edition. I suggest you visit a book store, prefereably a large one like Barnes & Noble or B. Dalton. They might be able to special order it for you, if it’s still available.
Just to make sure the book that gotpasswords found is exactly the right edition, look in your library’s online catalog for the book you lost, and find the ISBN. This is a ten-digit number unique to that particular edition and format of the book. Then check the ISBN for the Amazon copy, and if they’re the same then you’re good to go. If they’re not, you can also search Amazon by ISBN.
The reason the ISBN is the best way to do this is that many books often appear in multiple editions, and sometimes the same book is even published by more than one publishing house. The ISBN is unique to a particular book, from a particular publishing house, in a particular edition, and in a particular format (i.e., paper or hard cover).
You can’t really “buy a book by call number”, as call numbers are not necessarily (or at all, really) standardized between libraries. Many modern books do have suggested call numbers on the copyright page, but they’re only suggested, your library may vary or truncate, and many, many books don’t have them anyway. Books that are originally catalogued are also originally numbered.
You have to buy the same edition so the library can put the same call number on the book. A book in a different binding or edition would get a different call number.
Libraries usually make it difficult for people to replace copies of lost books out of their own pockets because it’s usually easier for the library to just charge you and toss the money in to a big pot and buy whatever it needs.
Not true, especially if it had the same year of publication.
As Zsofia has already pointed out, call numbers are not strictly standardized, and if the OP’s library wanted to put the same call number on a paperback edition of the same book, they could do that without any trouble at all. In fact, my own university library has multiple copies under the same book under the same call number, and it’s often the case that some copies have cloth covers and other copies have paper covers, e.g., if the publisher released a cloth and a paper edition in the same year.
If the books are from the same year, they have exactly the same number, with a notation at the end saying which copy it is (so the library can keep track of the multiple copies). So, for example, my library has multiple copies of E.P. Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class. All the copies from 1964 have the reference number HD8388.T47 1964, and then they have c. 1, c. 2, c. 3, etc. to show which copy number it is.
If it’s the same book from a different year, it has the same number, but with a different year reference at the end. So, the 1980 edition of Thompson’s book has the call number HD8388.T47 1980.
The problem is, if they already own, say, Copy 2 of the same edition, and then the replacement is another edition, they’ll have to change the record. If it was the only copy they had, they could just assign the same call number. I think they’re hoping not to have to change the record at all.
Most libraries do not use separate call numbers for the same edition. A paperback with no significant changes will often receive the same call number, but your mileage on what “significant” changes are may vary. A paperback will have a different ISBN from a hardback. BobT, when you say your library uses different call numbers for paperbacks, do you just mean the year portion in Library of Congress call numbers, or an entirely different number?
Well we’re a DDC library, but a paperback edition of a book would get an additional year added to the end of the call number. Sometimes a lower case letter is added to the cutter.
If you can think of an example, I can check. I think that may be one instance when they don’t bother. Or that could be the time when one item is 2005 and the other is 2005a.