[Krazykiwi]

Originally Posted by Tijntje

Is it possible to not let the Goodreads plugin overwrite the ISBN number?
currently I scrape my Dutch books with the Bol.com plugin and do a second scrape of Goodreads to import the tags, Rating, and Series information.
The problem is that Goodreads plugin often will retrieve a different ISBN number for that specific book and overwrite the value I originally got from Bol.com.

There are two GR plugins, one is the GR metadata download (this one) and it's not that smart. The other is the GR Sync one, and it's a bit brainier, and does have this option, you can tell it to never replace the ISBN or to only add one if none already exists.

Even if you don't actually use GR for anything else, I recommend in your case, grab the GR Sync one, because you can probably use it to fix your issue.

The most likely thing is that the specific edition for that ISBN does not exist on GR. So it's pulling the default edition from a search by title. If this is the problem, you probably don't want to actually pull GR metadata for that book. (Personally, I'd just go add the missing edition to GR, but you may not want the work. You can ask for it to be added in the librarian group though.)

You can specify a GR ID with the GR Sync plugin. Just select the book, press G, if it finds the ISBN it'll say "Goodreads matches for ISBN" at the top, and you can hit enter and it'll be the right edition. If it can't find the ISBN, it'll instead say "Goodreads matches for Title/Author". Then you can choose "Switch Edition" at the bottom, to pick another, or "Search Goodreads" to go find the right edition on the site, and then copy the URL (or drag and drop from your browser) right back into the plugin dialog. Now when you pull metadata from GR, it'll be the exact edition you specified.

I use it this way, I run through the books with the G key (you can multiselect), and only then pull metadata when I've got a GR ID assigned that I picked myself.

Just to be completionist, it may be pulling the right one from an ISBN search, but GR and many booksellers prefer to display the ISBN10, and Calibre prefers the ISBN13 - they are derived from each other. The ISBN10 is the middle 9 numbers from the 13, and a checksum at the end, and the ISBN13 is 978-first 9 digits of ISBN10, and another checksum (calculated a different way). E.G.
3499506777 = 9783499506772

It's pretty easy to eyeball once you get the hang of it, but if the correct ISBN editions are actually on GR, it might be simply that it's switching your ISBN10 for the ISBN13, without you realising it.