I did some digging on one of my WL items, an audio version of a favorite book. I was thinking I should probably just go and buy it as it's a bit old and the line isn't moving.

What I discovered after long searches of google, audible, bookstore sites, etc. was that this book was never made into an audio book at all.

So the people waiting in line for it are never going to get it as it doesn't exist.

I'm sure this isn't the only item like this in the database.

www.paperbackswap.com/book/details/62733-The+Walking+Drum

So what is the process for getting a bad listing like this one deleted?

You can try using the "contact us" link at the bottom right corner of this page to send the PBS team a message about it.  It must have been planned to be released as an audio book or else it wouldn't have gotten an ISBN assigned to it.  It'd be easy for someone to add the ISBN back to the system though since it's out there.

You can always add a review of the book and say it wasn't made into an audio book at all.  That way anyone looking at the item's page would see that.

I encountered something similar with my DAW collection.  The Golden Key by Melanie Rawn was scheduled for release as #1100 in the series.  There is a listing for it here on PBS, and on Amazon.com, complete with a page count and ISBN.  However, independent research showed that the book was never published, and I own the replacement #1100.  The author's own site confirms this, and in fact still shows the book as forthcoming.  Good luck proving it, though.  The Amazon listings seem to be given more faith than members' observations. 

I've seen a few books that never went to print Wish Listed too. What you can maybe try is to Tag the item as"never produced" or something so the other wishers can see it.

I agree - tagging them is the best thing to do to alert members sooner than anything else can be done.

Ruth

I think a review would be better.  Some of us keep tags turned off.  :)

The listing for "The Walking Drum" has a 5-digit ISBN. That means that it was created by a member when he or she posted the book using the Post a Book Without an ISBN page. So, how sure are you that it actually doesn't exist? I guess it's always possible that somebody posted an imaginary book, but why?

It doesn't really make any sense to wish list those books with system generated ISBNs, because those listings are only good for the exact copy of the book that was originally posted with them. If you do happen to find another book that is decribed by that listing, you're still not supposed to use it. You should post your own book using your own description. The only thing this particular listing is good for now is so the person who received this book in a request can repost it.

PBS doesn't bother to delete these old records, so the best thing to do is just ignore them if they turn up in searches without an Order This Book button.

I'm thinking somebody made a mistake when posting it originally - they meant to post a paperback and selected "audio" or something. In the description it has a page count but it was tagged as an audio book. When I did a search by author and book type I got it in the results.

This particular item never existed according to every place I searched, including the author's own page. Live and learn :)

The bit about the 5-digit listings never getting deleted seems, well, messy. Why allow these one-shot items to remain in the system forever and clutter up the search results? Or, for that matter, the database itself?

In any case, thank you for the replies. I'm still learning my way around here.

I'm off to check my wish list for other 5-digit entries to delete...

Thanks for the reminder about the 5 digit entries. I just checked my wish-list and found 4 or 5 books that were the 5 digit ones--2 of them were series books and I didn't think there was any other copy in the system. I looked them  up on Amazon, put in the ISBN from there and lo and behold, up they popped. The best thing? The one book I was 25th out of 25th, now I'm 3 of 3. The other one also had a much shorter list than the 5 digit one did.