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Post your questions about Pick 'n' Mix here.

Hi Liz, M, would you accept Afrikaans as an African language or a Dutch language?






South Africa has eleven official languages: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu.

Hi Liz M, me again! What does BPL stand for please?

Shannon wrote: "Hi Liz, M, would you accept Afrikaans as an African language or a Dutch language?






South Africa has ..."


That is tricky. I am going to say neither. Not every language will fit into one of the six translation categories and I think this is one of them.

Shannon wrote: "Hi Liz M, me again! What does BPL stand for please?"


BPL =

I started using if for RwS, well, because I live in Brooklyn & was familiar with it. Luckily, it is a huge library system and it has mostly worked as a way to standardize book classification (although it does give our Australian, UK, & European members trouble, as it doesn't carry some of the books locally available to them).

Hi Liz, agree with your language decision, and I thought BPL was Brooklyn PL, but there was also a Boston PL, so wanted to make sure!
Many thanks :-)

Which setting category would Palestine and Lebanon fit under? I'd like to read this book Mornings in Jenin

Jenifer wrote: "Which setting category would Palestine and Lebanon fit under? I'd like to read this book Mornings in Jenin"

Asia.

Based on this list:

Thanks!

How can you tell if BPL considers something a romance?

It would say on the book's page.

Where on a page in BPL is the genre listed to see if something is a mystery or science fiction or romance or whatever? Is this based on shelf names under the Availability Details or is it based on subject headings or what?

Yes, it's on the shelf names under the Availability Details. They are usually on the left side, but might be anywhere in that lower section.

Great challenge! It looks so simple, but it's not that easy when you get to the last books.
I was trying to find the Genre for Robert A Heinlein's Double Star, but it seems BPL lists the books as "Central Literature Fiction Storage". Am I looking in the wrong place, or is the book not eligible as Sci-Fi?

Louise wrote: "Great challenge! It looks so simple, but it's not that easy when you get to the last books.
I was trying to find the Genre for Robert A Heinlein's Double Star, but it seems BPL lists the books as "..."

Yes, that is Sci-Fi. In the middle section, under "Call#" it is designated as SF/Fantasy.

I don't mean to be a pill, but on what I see under Call# is FIC H. Is there a different copy or different place to look?

Yes, it says FIC H (SF/Fantasy)

DANGHECK. BPL re-designed their website. On my home computer, I have a bookmark to a different catalog interface that does list genres of books that the new interface (Joanna's link) does not show.

It's really annoying that the new interface doesn't show "sci-fi" or "romance" because the books are in DIFFERENT physical locations when classified as such. I will have to find the old interface & edit the links in the first post above.

Note to self: re-think genres for future challenges. :-(

Liz M wrote: "DANGHECK. BPL re-designed their website & on my home computer, I have a bookmark to a different catelog interface that does list genres of books that the interface Joanna linked to does not show. ..."

Ah, yes. I forgot that too. The is still available.

Thank you for the help! And sorry it caused trouble...

On another note, would the "unnamed Middle Eastern state" in Alif the Unseen count as Asia in the setting, or is it too unspecific?

You did not cause any trouble - we should be reminded of these little idiosyncrasies. The "classic catalog" is a link at the bottom of the catalog page, but I don't know that any of you would have known to use it, so we apologize for your incovenience.

I don't know if this will help anyone but I made up a spreadsheet to help myself organize possible books for the challenge:

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "You did not cause any trouble - we should be reminded of these little idiosyncrasies. The "classic catalog" is a link at the bottom of the catalog page, but I don't know that any of you would have ..."

You all do an incredible amount of work for this group, so I don't think you have anything to apologize for.

Just to check with the page numbers, do we go by the most popular printed English edition as usual? Not the edition that we're reading?

Rosemary wrote: "Just to check with the page numbers, do we go by the most popular printed English edition as usual? Not the edition that we're reading?"

Yes please.

Sorry, but I have a couple of questions:

1) One of my books, When Knighthood Was in Flower, does not come up in the BPL at all. I did find another, Memoirs of a Geisha, but cannot find the Dewey Decimal code for it. How do I classify them for this challenge.

2) When you say to choose the "most popular printed English edition" do you mean to bring up all editions and sort by most ratings?

Thank you!

Theresa~OctoberLace wrote: "1) One of my books, When Knighthood Was in Flower, does not come up in the BPL at all. I did find another, Memoirs of a Geisha, but cannot find the Dewey..."

Both of these books are novels & do not have Dewey Decimal numbers (which is a classification system for non-fiction subjects).

Theresa~OctoberLace wrote: "2) When you say to choose the "most popular printed English edition" do you mean to bring up all editions and sort by most ratings?..."

Yes. From our Frequently Asked Questions thread:

How is the "most popular edition" determined?
It's the first book that comes up when you search for the title. Alternately, you can click on the "Other Editions" link on the book cover and sort by number of ratings. Make sure that the most popular edition is an English language print edition and not an ebook or audiobook.

Theresa~OctoberLace wrote: "Sorry, but I have a couple of questions:

1) One of my books, When Knighthood Was in Flower, does not come up in the BPL at all. I did find another, Memoirs of a Geisha, but cannot find the Dewey..."

We're happy to answer questions - no need to apologize. Library catalogs differ, and we rely on BPL for many things. Feel free to ask about anything, and especially about BPL.

When BPL does not have a book shelved, we classify it as no YA listing.

Mohsin Hamid is a Pakistani writer who has been translated into 30 languages. However, I cannot find any indication that The Reluctant Fundamentalist was translated to English.

Also Pakistani is not a language listed in the F category. So...would it even be eligible for MIX?

Bea wrote: "Mohsin Hamid is a Pakistani writer who has been translated into 30 languags. However, I cannot find any indication that The Reluctant Fundamentalist was translated to English...."

This book was originally published in English. Also, not every language will fit into one of the six translation categories; Pakistani is one of the languages that is not included.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist fits the following categories:
A4. Asia (set in Lahore)
B1. 2001-2013 (pub. 2007)
C2. 100-200 pages (184 pages)
C3. 175-275 pages (184 pages)
D1. Male, under 40

Liz M wrote: "Bea wrote: "Mohsin Hamid is a Pakistani writer who has been translated into 30 languags. However, I cannot find any indication that The Reluctant Fundamentalist was translated to English...."

This..."

Thanks for the response, Liz. I found a different book for F.

Bea wrote: "Mohsin Hamid is a Pakistani writer who has been translated into 30 languages. However, I cannot find any indication that The Reluctant Fundamentalist was translated to English.

Also Pakistani is n..."

I don't think Pakistani is even a language. They mostly speak Urdu (also not on the list, but just for information) :)

Does it matter in which order we read the books in our mix?

I believe you can read them in any order

Tanya wrote: "Does it matter in which order we read the books in our mix?"

Jayme is correct - read them in any order.

Rosemary wrote: "Bea wrote: "Mohsin Hamid is a Pakistani writer who has been translated into 30 languages. However, I cannot find any indication that The Reluctant Fundamentalist was translated to English.

Also Pa..."

And Farsi for Iran and Hindi for India although they have dozens of other languages too, including Urdu in Old Delhi.
Amazing country!

Jenifer wrote: "I don't know if this will help anyone but I made up a spreadsheet to help myself organize possible books for the challenge:

..."

Thanks, Jenifer! I'm going to borrow it!

I'm trying to finalize my plan for this, but I am running into some issues. First, I need help on this one:

March by John Robert Lewis

This is Lewis' recently released graphic novel on the Civil Rights March. It is shelved in the 300s at BPL. Would I use E1 or E5?

Graphic novels belong in E1.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Graphic novels belong in E1."

I'm asking only because it shows on the task chart that it has to be the genre as listed at BPL. I can't find "graphic novel" anywhere on the page as a genre. It is listed as a subject, but there is no genre designation like there is on other books (Night Film by Pessl for example).

It shows as a graphic novel if you look at the last line under subject.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "It shows as a graphic novel if you look at the last line under subject."

Thanks and sorry I wasn't very clear about it. The Pessl listing actually had genre beside it, so I was unsure if it would count. I just didn't want my list to be wrong. I'll post it later on for more double checking;)

Graphic novels will be always be identified as graphic novels in our database.

ETA: Unless I fail to see what I'm looking at, which has been known to happen. ;-)

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Graphic novels will be always be identified as graphic novels in our database.

ETA: Unless I fail to see what I'm looking at, which has been known to happen. ;-)"

Well it definitely is a graphic novel, so it certainly seems that's where it should be put!:)

Quick question for the "translated from..." category: does the edition I read have to be a translation, or does it just have to be a book that, at some point, was translated to English? I hope that's not super confusing!

The book you read needs to be translated from the language of the category. But you do not have to read an English version. In other words, you cannot read a book in French, that has been at some time translated from French to English and have that count for E-5, but you could read a book in French that was originally written in Russian and translated to French for E-1.

Does that make sense?

Sam wrote: "Quick question for the "translated from..." category: does the edition I read have to be a translation..."

Yes, it has to be a translation. The language the book was originally written in will determine which F sub-category it fulfills, and it can be read in any language (other than the one in which it was originally written).

Thanks guys! I figured as much but I wanted to make sure :)

Quick question about the genres at BPL -- I've run across a number of books that are shelved as mysteries (in parentheses next to which library holds the book) but "mystery" is not listed as the genre; suspense is. Example .

Do books like this qualify as mysteries or do they not fall into a category?

Katy wrote: "Quick question about the genres at BPL -- I've run across a number of books that are shelved as mysteries (in parentheses next to which library holds the book) but "mystery" is not listed as the ge..."

Yes, you can use books that are shelved that way as mystery. I agree, BPL is not as consistent as we might want for this type of task, but it is better than using multiple sites - or guessing.