Different Names, Same Author

[Alien]

I edited the name of the author for one book by Andrew Loomis. It previously said it was by A. Loomis and, therefore, when you did a search to see all the books written by Andrew Loomis that book did not come up. The full name seemed a more accurate listing anyway for the author, instead of initials, but I'm curious if anyone else had resolved this type of concern in a similar way.

[Nicolás]

I did the same with H.P. Lovecraft. If you edit the author's name directly, every book with that author will change to the other one. The bad thing is that it will erase the author information. At the staff: could this be changed in any way?

[Alien]

And this is more of a same names, different authors concern...I will use the example of the ubiquitous Tao Lin, author of Bed, Eeeee Eee Eeee, and you are a little bit happier than i am. This Tao Lin may seem like he is everywhere but associated with the book Kung Fu(1): A Chinese Student Exercise Manual, he should not be. Although his name is Tao Lin, he is not the professor of Chinese as a Foreign Language who taught at Peking University from 1952 to 1994, the professor whose name in China is Lin Tao and in the West is referred to as Tao Lin, the professor who co-authored the book, Kung Fu (1). Obviously, there are often people who share the same name. We don't want them listed as the author of books they didn't write. However, on the author's page all you see is the search results for their name. This is misleading. What are we going to do about it? :-)

[Nicolás]

That's why I love our two-surname way of doing things in Spain... I would append some kind of explanation, like 'Tao Lin (poet)' or something like that. That way, people looking for 'Tao Lin' would still found him anyway and we wouldn't have problems. Not very beautiful, but I guess the only other option would be a big change in the way authors are managed, and that could create still more problems to resolve this one...

[Alien]

Hmmmm. That's an idea. I wonder how other sites like Librarything or Shelfari address this.

[Otis]

Here is what we wrote in the 'help' section:

One of our biggest unsolved challenges is to figure out how to separate authors with the same names. It would be great if all authors had a unique number like an ISBN! In the meantime, unraveling these messes is a manual process. The way to do it is give each author a unique name. A middle name or initial is best, but failing that we found a good trick: add an extra space in between the authors first and last names (it won't be displayed). You'll need to do this while editing one of the authors books, because if you edit the authors data directly you just change the author name for all his books. You'll also need librarian status.

[Erin]

The thing that is often done in the library world is to add the author's relevant dates after his/her name. So the library of congress has your first Tao Lin as "Lin, Tao, 1983-". That requires a little bit of extra research, and might not always be feasible, but it's a fairly standard way of dealing with the issue.

This will become a bigger and bigger headache with author names that are transliterated from non-Roman alphabets into Roman alphabets: y'all should try searching on a couple of different spellings of Dostoevsky (Dostoievski, Dostoyevsky...). You'll probably get results for whatever you try.

Otis, would extra spaces in names keep me from finding an author using the search engine if I didn't know about the extra spaces?

[Femmy]

And then there's the problem with authors who uses different names, and not necessarily pseudonyms. There is one Indonesian author who puts her full name in some of her books, and her nickname in other books! I don't know how to handle that one.

[Otis]

Hi All,

Our search engine strips out all punctuation and whitespace, so it won't be a problem.

Adding author pseudonyms, or 'also known as' is something we intend to add to the author profile. This way Librarians will be able to add all spellings of an author's name, and they will all be searchable. Hopefully we'll get to this in the new month sometime.

And, yes, we're aware that libraries have a way for dealing with this problem. The problem is that the source of our data is mostly Amazon, and all they give us is the authors name (eg "Tao Lin") - no birthdate, no list of major works, or anything else that would let us uniquely ID them. So for the time being, its up to those with Librarian Status to clean things up.

[Melissa]

You can use the Library of Congress Authorities Database to look up forms of name & titles. No need for us all to try and reinvent the wheel.

http://authorities.loc.gov/

[Carl]

Femmy wrote: "And then there's the problem with authors who uses different names, and not necessarily pseudonyms. There is one Indonesian author who puts her full name in some of her books, and her nickname in o..."

How to do you handle an author that uses their formal name, say Jackson Smith, for serious academic writing and their nickname, say Jack Smith, for informal humorous writing? Is there a way to link the two so that a person searching for one will find the other?

[Jessica]

Carl, in that case I think they should be both under Jackson Smith (not separate authors).

[Kasia]

Sigh, I'm trying to merge Laurie R King with Laurie R. King
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

But it won't let me because Laurie R. King is in the authors program on GR and manages her own account. What's the policy on that? Do I send her a PM?

And wouldn't it be easier if librarians could just take care of it authors program or not? Sigh.

[Joy]

Kasia, in this case, we would have to change the author on each misattributed book to the correct author's name. Thankfully, there are only three. I'm working on that now.

Edit: And I deleted 'n' merged one, but the other two need a superlibrarian.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64...
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64...

(last bit cross posted to "please delete this book" topic)

[Kasia]

Thanks Aughadan!

[Joy]

You're welcome!

[Jaga]

Hi!
I've just discovered quite a mess with a Nobel winning author Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. He has got FOUR profiles.

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...)
Björnstjerne Björnson (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...)
Bjornstjerne Bjornson (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...)
Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...)

I'm not sure whether to keep the first or the second. Is the spelling from the wikipedia entry one I should consider (most) correct?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjørnstj...

[Carolyn]

Even worse, LOC has the name listed as:
Björnstjerne Björnsson, 1886-1939
Bjørnson, Bjørnstjerne, 1832-1910
Bjornson, Bjornstjerne.

So, first thing would be to make sure that all the spellings you've identified are actually the same person (note the different dates in LOC).

Then, make sure to keep the author data already in the one author (cutNpaste), so that you don't lose it when merging into the correct name.

HTH!

[Jaga]

Thank you, it did help :).
I was really puzzled by the fact that Ø seems to be used interchangeably with ö. I checked in wikipedia and Norwegian doesn't even have ö in the alphabet, yet on my edition of his book ö is used instead of Ø.

All the authors I listed are the same person - I checked the books. Unless there are some books by "the other" Bjørnson accidentally put into Nobel-Bjørnson. OH, gosh!

[Jenny T]

I just noticed that some books by P.C. Cast are listed under P. Cast. As far as I know, she only writes under the name P.C. Cast (and checking book covers confirms this), but I'm not sure if it's okay to merge them (though I don't believe there's any real author data under "P. Cast.") Please advise how I should proceed. Thanks!

[Paula]

I had a quick look a round at PC Casts website and google to double check her name when writing with some one else and could not find any thing.

We normally go by the name on the book cover so I would merge P Cast in to P.C. Cast

[Jenny T]

Will do -- thanks a lot, Paula :)

[Marisa]

I have a problem with author Linda Robertson. She's a Goodreads author and the Mass Market Paperback editions of her books are associated to her, but I don't know how to associate the ebook versions. The books are "Vicious Circle" and "Hallowed Circle. How can I combine the ebook and paperbak editions?

[Marisa]

I answer myself, I've already done it editing the author.

[Kathryn]

I'm a bit confused with the author Malcolm Ross because he's also listed under Malcolm Ross-MacDonald and Malcolm MacDonald
I'm not sure what should be done with him because from what I can see he sometimes uses Ross and sometimes MacDonald. Any suggestions?

[Paula]

Until we get pseudonym functions, I would add a note to each author description and a link to the other author profiles indicating the pseudonyms used.

We normally go by the name on the cover or used on the author website but his website documents his pseudonyms

http://www.malcolmmacdonald.org/

[Kathryn]

Paula wrote: "Until we get pseudonym functions, I would add a note to each author description and a link to the other author profiles indicating the pseudonyms used.

We normally go by the name on the cover or u..."

Thanks, I've done that now.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

NO, they should no be merged.

They should all have the English name as primary author; leave the Russian one as secondary on all books written in Russian.

[Aleta]

Is there any idea when we might get pseudonym capability? It would really be useful!

[Banjomike]

Hi, this is my first librarian-type post.

Just looking at "Ian Fleming" books and noticed there is a misspelled version as "Ian Flemming" which has 15 books (all the James Bond books) all with ratings and many/most of them on shelves.

Can someone point me at the relevant page in the "what to do" book, or does a real live expert librarian want to sort out this issue.

EDIT: OK, Found it in the manual. I've merged the Flemming into Fleming.

[Liam]

This appears to be the appropriate place for this issue: Francis J. West Jr., who has written at least 5 or 6 books to date, has for several years now been using his nickname, Bing West, on both his recent books and I believe also on at least one new edition of an earlier work. Until the author data pages are tweaked, what is the policy? Two separate author listings? Two author names per book listing? I would like to rectify this, and my personal inclination would be to go with the proper name, but since Mr. West is a fairly popular author I don't feel that I should make a unilateral decision as I would for perhaps a more obscure writer. Anyone have any guidance on this issue?

[Liam]

Nevermind... I just read the last few messages above mine. I am going to leave it alone for now, maybe someone with better computer skills than mine (meaning just about anyone) can add links, etc.


Liam wrote: "This appears to be the appropriate place for this issue: Francis J. West Jr., who has written at least 5 or 6 books to date, has for several years now been using his nickname, Bing West, on both h..."

[[deleted user]]

I hope this is the right place for this post. There are three anthologies listed under 'Shermain Williams', which have somehow been entered incorrectly. The stories were contributed by me, Shermaine Williams, so there is an incorrect author profile to be removed. Can the three titles please be added to my profile? ThanksShermaine Williams

[Sandra]

Fixed Shermaine :)

[[deleted user]]

Thank you so much, Sandra

[Rosenkavalier]

Hi, I found a double.

"Alexander Lernet-Holenia" is also present as "Alexander Lernet Holenia".

Generally, all references to this author are to "Lernet-Holenia", so I would merge the two keeping this one.

[Melody]

Got it

[Misfit]

Elizabeth Darrell
Emma Drummond

I'm not sure how to combine them, and sometimes books with the same title have been published under both names i.e.,

[rivka, Former Moderator]

The two should NOT be simply combined. For any booked published under both names, see which one it was primarily published under, and add that name to the other edition(s) as well. Shift it to primary (leaving the other name as secondary) and you can combine the editions.

For example.

[Mostly on Storygraph]

These two are the same:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

Thanks!

[rivka, Former Moderator]

As it looks like individual books were published under one name or the other, I don't think anything needs to be done.

[Carolyn]

Possibly, then, just add a note and a link to the other author page in the description, if they are both the same person?

[rivka, Former Moderator]

They already have links.

[Nina]

Hey, I have a problem,
there is this japanese author, who is called Risa Wataya in German and French and Wataya Risa in Italian. According to the LoC Wataya Risa is correct, so what do I do? Merging them might cause confusion, since it clearly says Risa Wataya on the German and French editions.

[Klaudia]

Two pages for the same author. Thanks for connecting!

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

[Paula]

Got them thanks Klaudia

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Re #44: Since a search for either should bring up the other, I'd suggest merging to the one listed on LoC, and then noting in the description (something like "aka Risa Wataya") the other version.

[Nina]

Did that. Thanks!

[muflena]

Again two pages for Mikhail Bulgakov:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

[Banjomike]

muflena wrote: "Again two pages for Mikhail Bulgakov:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/..."

done