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Why are authors with "Jr." as part of their name being filed under "Jr."?
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Sarah (is clearing her shelves)
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Jan 10, 2014 12:28AM
Hi all, I have a number of authors on my shelves who are being filed under J for "Jr.". Is there any way I can fix this myself? Or is it already on the list of things to fix by staff?
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It's the same old problem for author sorting: when the name is composed of 3 parts, Goodreads assumes it's first name - middle name - last name.No, there's no way to fix it at the moment. I hate that too. A "sort by" for authors, or some way to deal with these cases, has already been requested.
As an aside, since this is not something Librarians have any control over, this is better raised in the
Feedback forum
Emy wrote: "As an aside, since this is not something Librarians have any control over, this is better raised in the Feedback forum
"
Sorry, I thought it might be something I, as a librarian, could do something about. I won't bother re-raising it in the feedback forum as I'm sure it's been talked to death already and me putting my two cents in won't make the issue move any faster. Thanks for your help, I suppose I'll just have to ignore the problem for now.
Moloch wrote: "It's the same old problem for author sorting: when the name is composed of 3 parts, Goodreads assumes it's first name - middle name - last name.No, there's no way to fix it at the moment. I hate..."
A script that identifies Jr & Sr and puts them at the end?
Sarah (wants some answers from GR) wrote: "Emy wrote: "As an aside, since this is not something Librarians have any control over, this is better raised in the Feedback forum
"
Sorry, I thought it might be something I, as a librarian, cou..."
I cleaned up all the Jr (and Sr) in October and again in November, so the ones you are seeing are new since then. Am currently up to about Jr. E.
Paw3pals wrote: "I cleaned up all the Jr (and Sr) in October and again in November, so the ones you are seeing are new since then. Am currently up to about Jr. E. "
The names that are showing up on my shelves are, in order listed on the shelf: Smith, Blair, West, Gilbreth, Patton, Selby, Tiptree, White and Miller. Is there any way I can 'clean them up' the way you have previously? Thanks for your help.
The problem is not the suffixes per se, that should remain when they're necessary, it's that in "My books" the authors are sorted badly:Jr, John Smith
Sr, Jones Charles
III, John Doe
etc
I don't know what do you mean by cleaning them up
Moloch wrote: "The problem is not the suffixes per se, that should remain when they're necessary, it's that in "My books" the authors are sorted badly:Jr, John Smith
Sr, Jones Charles
III, John Doe
etc
I don't..."
Sorry, I obviously didn't pay enough attention to the original post. I did not realize that authors were sorted that way on shelves.
By "clean up" I meant fixing the actual author profiles. Such as Jr Arthur Smith, Jr. Carl Wright, Sr Steven Jones, etc. In October & again in November all these were fixed. The current wrong ones have been entered into the database since then.
Sarah (wants some answers from GR) wrote: "Emy wrote: "As an aside, since this is not something Librarians have any control over, this is better raised in the Feedback forum
"
Sorry, I thought it might be something I, as a librarian, cou..."
If sufficient people raise it as an issue, it may increase the priority of a fix being introduced. If everyone shrugs and ignores, then the status quo will probably continue...
I'm sure they'll get to it once the AKA feature is implemented.
While not a perfect solution, could you use a dash? (i.e. John Smith-Jr.) That would sort them properly while still allowing for easy search.
No, because, to fix a minor problem, you would cause a major one: incorrect author pages
