I've noticed that I've had books on my WL that didn't appear to be currently available to order, but when I was ordering another book from a member and went to their bookshelves to see if anything else caught my eye, I found a book from my WL in their bookshelves.  This has happened on 3 seperate occasions with three different member bookshelves, and the books in question are pretty old and obscure and probably wouldn't have just been added to the system.   I had not received an email from PBS that a book similar to my WL book has just been entered into the system.  I've looked at the title, the author name and the book type (i.e. paperback/hardcover) to see if it might be misspelled or changed in any way so that it doesn't  show up as available, but all appears to be correct.

 I'm just curious to know if it's possible that some books are actually available to order from members, but for whatever reason the PBS system doesn't show that they are?  It's not a big deal, but it does confuse me, I admit.

Apologizing in advance if this has been addressed previously.  Thanks for any clarification.

Especially with older books, they may be listed without an ISBN or otherwise not linked together in the database.  You should do a broad search on the author and/or title to see if any other bindings/listings are available.

The key here is older books -- they most likely have been listed with a unique ISBN #, meaning the listing member had to list it without an ISBN -- and there is no linking or "similar to" emails from PBS about those books. You just have to routinely search for those books by title or author. But to me, finding one of those is a little pot of gold here at PBS and it is worth the effort!

Yep, it's most likely as the others said, books entered without an ISBN because they are older. Sometimes you find books published in other countries also that have an ISBN but is not recognized by the PBS database so they are entered without an ISBN.

I go through my wishlist periodically and click on the author link to the books--have found quite a few 'different versions' of books that way over the years.

Cheryl

If books look like they should be linked (both have real ISBNs and author name spelled the same) and you aren't getting "similar" emails, double check your Settings that you haven't opted out of the e-mails and look in Club Communications for any e-mails that aren't getting through your provider. It can be very sporatic what some browser's decide to block so it may seem like you are getting all of the e-mails sent when your provider is blocking some as spam.

Also check your Wish List for the Expander button on any books. That would indicate that there are some other books in the system that are the same.

Thanks, everyone.  I appreciate the information!