I had wishlisted the hardcover version of one of my daughter's favourite board books. When it arrived, it's another copy of the board book. My wishlisted hardcover has a different ISBN than the board book that arrived. I'm just wondering if the system counts board books as hardcovers, because otherwise I can't see how whoever posted it could have input the wrong ISBN...

I don't really want to mark this as rec'd with a problem, because the board book is in mint condition. However, it's not the hardback I thought I was getting. What would you do?

Alex, you should definitely mark it Received With a Problem, not only because of the binding type (which I admit does seem a bit close, but I believe it still to be a legitimate difference), but because the ISBN doesn't match. When posting, books must match the listing in four areas, Author, Title, Binding Type, and ISBN. Whenever the book you receive differs from the listing requested in just one of those areas, it's an RWAP. In your case, it should be marked Received With a Problem - Wrong Book. - Wrong Binding/Version.

As stated in the Help Center doc titled "There is a problem with the book I received!":

Wrong Book - Wrong Binding/Version

• this means that title/author DO match but the book does not match the listing's ISBN and/or binding type and/or it was listed as Large Print and the book is not Large Print. Note that cover image does NOT have to match the listing.

The document cited also explains: "marking a problem book "received with a problem" is very important: if a sender's account shows a pattern of problems, the sender's membership will be jeopardized.  One problem swap will not do this - a pattern of problem sending will; thus it is critical for problems to be recorded in order for poor senders not to be able to "fly under the radar" and keep sending problem books."

If the ISBN of the book you requested does not match the book you received, then you should mark it RWAP. The binding is irrelevant to that issue.

If the ISBNs are the same, then the question becomes ... is a board book the same binding type as a hardcover? My opinion on that is ...To most people the answer would be yes. Most people only know about two kinds of bindings,  "paperback" and "hardcover" ... so if one was to list a board book on PBS, a binding type of hardcover would certainly seem like it was correct. 

I am not even sure that PBS has a binding type called "board book" ... if they do I have never seen it used.

People post books incorrectly by searching for the book by title, and then looking in the search results for the book cover that matches their copy, and then clicking "post book".

At least, that's my opinion.

Yes, if people would only type in the ISBN every time, it would be hard to mis-post a book, indeed.

Thanks for your replies. I will mark it rec'd  with a problem though I have never had to do this before!

Sara, yes, PBS does have a 'board book' category. I know because I searched on the ISBN of the book I rec'd and it came up as Book Type: Board Book. Otherwise I was still thinking that board books and hardcovers were potentially the same thing!

PBS does have a boardbook category, but just because a subset of a binding is available doesn't mean they can't be listed in the more broad category. Mass market paperback is available, yet they are are prefectly fine to post under the *paperback* listing. A board book is a hard cover, its not pliable. So it would be fine to post a board book to a hard cover listing (if a member were to add the book to the system, they would not get board book as an option so they would HAVE to enter it as a hard cover), but since your ISBN didn't match, then you definitely did not get the book you ordered. Had the ISBN matched, then you would have gotten a book that met the listing. I would venture to guess that a good chunk of the membership has no idea that a board book is anything other than a hard cover book.

I think hard cover and paperback are the broadest of categories and all books fit into one of the two categories.