Author Name question - Guy Boothby

[Shawn]

So, in doing some research on Australian author Guy Boothby, I glanced at his Goodreads record/s and was wondering if and how we could fix a problem.

Essentially, he has two entries "Guy Boothby" And "Guy Newell Boothby". Now, in my entire history of hearing this author's name I have never heard him referred to with his full - including middle - name and he is rarely (if ever) listed on table of contents as "Guy Newell Boothby" (or even "Guy N. Boothby"). Normally, I would just edit the entire "Guy Newell Boothby" record into "Guy Boothby" and merge them, BUT the "Guy Newell Boothby" record is much nicer - has a picture, bio detail, etc.

What, if anything, should we do in a case like this?

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Quite a lot of the editions actually have Guy Newell Boothby on the cover, so that should indeed be the merge target.

However, to answer the general question. If you have a John Quincy Public profile with lots of details that you want to keep, but all the books actually have John Q. Public on the covers, and the John Q. Public profile is empty. Merge John Q. Public into John Quincy Public first, and then edit the remaining profile to be John Q. Public. (But as I said, that would not be appropriate in this case.)