OCR'd editions author name hijinks

[Alex]

Hey everyone,

So, I've encountered these OCR'd editions that are really challenging my commitment to the name-as-on-the-cover policy.

One such edition has only the author's first name on the cover, even though she published under her full name. Must I add that as secondary author?

A more troubling situation is where they have added the middle initial, whereas no one else has. This of course means that a change would lead to less data --> catastrophe. Should I add both variations with the one with the initial as secondary? Is there an option to merge these profiles?

[Krazykiwi]

We tend to ignore the "name as on cover" rule to add that as a secondary author for the republished books that have fallen out of copyright, in favour of merging all the profiles into the name the books were published under during the authors lifetime.

The public domain publishers generally use all kinds of variants otherwise, with dates stuck in them, names in sort order, or with various extra middle and maiden names all added on. So find the original editions if you can, and use that author name. Add a librarian note if you feel the need, or if the names are very different.

[Hannah]

Yes...for name on the cover, I use the name used while the book was in copyright. For example, Louis Tracy wrote mysteries under the name Gordon Holmes. Holmes is the primary author if the book was published under that name, while Tracy is the secondary. Other variants (currently I see there is one ending with a ) that I need to clean up...yes, seriously) I simply ignore and combine.

The variants are literally "unauthorized" and as such I feel no conscience in ignoring/editing them. You will see some crazy stuff around here.

Feel free to PM me with public domain questions, too...most of my librarian experience is with public domain, and I own a couple thousand old volumes in my home library.

[Alex]

Krazykiwi wrote: "We tend to ignore the "name as on cover" rule to add that as a secondary author for the republished books that have fallen out of copyright, in favour of merging..."

Perfect! Thank you for the response!

Hannah wrote: "Feel free to PM me with public domain questions, too...most of my librarian experience is with public domain, and I own a couple thousand old volumes in my home library."

Firstly, thank you for the offer, I may very well take you up on it if I encounter anything gnarly in that section. Secondly can I live in your library, haha jk (not joking)