Reference:General Overview

This page was originally a static HTML page from ISFDB ver 1 located at http://www.isfdb.org/biblios.html

ISFDB Bibliographic Sources

Overview
The ISFDB is fortunate in that readers directly enter data from primary sources, usually from their own libraries. However, a reader's library may be incomplete, or typographic errors may have been introduced when submitting data to the ISFDB. For this reason, it is important to consult other bibliographic resources for both completeness and accuracy.

Bibliographic sources are used here in two distinct ways. The first way in which a source might be used is to bring a book to our attention. For instance, a book review in a magazine, or an award nomination may put a spotlight on a book that had not previously been entered into the database. The second way that a source would be used to to verify or expand details on a specific book. For instance, a review source might bring to light a specific anthology, but another bibliographic source might be used to detail the stories contained within that anthology.

After using a variety of sources, it becomes clear that each source has it own particular strengths and weaknesses. What follows is an annotated list of resources used by the ISFDB, how each resource is used, and what the strengths and weaknesses of that particular resource are (from the perspective of the ISFDB). It should be noted that almost all of the "weaknesses" are deliberate on the part of the resource - after all, in order to fit the data into some finite page space, something had to go. They shouldn't be considered failings of the resource.