Ancient (and not so ancient) authors names in different languages

[Luan]

Hey, guys!

This might already have an answer, but I couldn't find it. I'm having some trouble in tagging the author's name in some editions by old authors. In Portuguese, e. g., we say "Agostinho de Hipona", for the saint and author know in English as "Augustine of Hippo". There are two different authors pages for him and I'd like some help to know how to merge these and to get a single page for him. Same for popes and other authors with similar issues.

Also, for the book Sobre o sermão do Senhor na montanha, the index card reeds "Agostinho, Santo, Bispo de Hipona, 354-430". So, by writing just "Agostinho de Hipona" I would be doing wrong? Or it is for the best to use the most common name even though it wouldn't be the same as the index?


Many thanks!

[lethe]

Author names in different languages should never be merged. People must be able to find the author as written on the cover in the database.

The English/international name should always be primary, i.e. Augustine of Hippo in the case you mention.

The name as written on the cover, if different from the English version, should be added as secondary, i.e. Agostinho de Hipona. Titles (and dates) should not be added (except in very specific cases).

See also the Librarian Manual in the Help pages.

[Luan]

Thank you very much for your response.

[Mikey]

lethe wrote: "The name as written on the cover, if different from the English version, should be added as secondary, i.e. Agostinho de Hipona. Titles (and dates) should not be added (except in very specific cases)...."

I was thinking of trying to make books and writings by St. John of the Cross Standardized according to Goodreads policy. It came up because I wanted to add a new audio version of Dark Night of the Soul I found it grouped as Juan de la Cruz St. John of the Cross and I changed the one I found with St without the period. It is unclear in the Manuel what specific cases "titles" are acceptable. In this case the whole name is a title. St. is a "honorific" that this writer is primarily known by.

What should the primary author be?
What should the sort by author be?
what should the shelf view author be?

[Mikey]

St. doesn't seem necessary as "John of the Cross" is already a disambiguated name. (And there would have to be a page each for "Saint John.." and for "St. John.." anyway.) ..."

links? It doesn't answer the specific question. I don't care if it is necessary it just has to be consistent. Someone went through a lot of effort to combine most of them under Juan de la Cruz which doesn't match what the manuel says.

Authors with books published in multiple languages should have their names dealt with similarly to those with pen names. All editions should have the primary author name as the standard or most common Roman (that is, English-language) version of the author's name.

The most common English version of this name is by far St. John of the Cross. Yet most of the books are combined with Juan de la Cruz as the primary or only Author even when it appears nowhere on the cover. All New English editions that may happen to be imported will be added most certainly to St. John of the cross. So simply removing it as you have done will have to be done repeatedly. As I said the section regarding honorific doesn't exclude St. automatically because he is known primarily by the "name" that includes the honorific. I don't think it is too much to ask to get some Clarity on this exception.

[lethe]

In case of author names in different languages, the primary author should always be the most common English version without titles (except in a very few specific cases).

John of the Cross should be primary (analogous to the name in the original comment, Augustine of Hippo).

The Manual doesn't give specific sorting examples for saints, but analogous to the kings/queens/popes rule (and international cataloguing/sorting rules), the sort by name should be:
john of the cross
Shelf view:
John of the Cross

[Mikey]

"The Manual doesn't give specific sorting examples for saints, but analogous to the kings/queens/popes rule (and international cataloguing/sorting rules), the sort by name should be:
john of the cross
Shelf view:
John of the Cross "

Thanks lethe. Looks like Andrew took over on this one so when it is done I will add my new edition in like fashion. I know it is a site function question not a librarian issue but do you know if anyone asked goodreads why they don't have an algorithm to auto strip these honorifics on import? So once someone have them combined under the correct author it wouldn't keep recreating the same author profiles that include them .

Anyway also unrelated but curious when I tried to set the date of birth on the author profile for John of the cross it would save it 10 days earlier then I put in. I tried it like 10 times. Then when Andrew went in and removed "St." and saved it. it saved it another 10 days earlier. (he keeps getting older 10 days at a time) I set it for the 24 of June. Have you ever heard of this being an issue?

[lethe]

I think they haven't implemented an algorithm because there are always exceptions to the rule, even if they are few.

F.e.:
Lord Byron (after some discussion in this group)
Mrs. Humphry Ward (without Mrs. it would seem that her husband was the author)
Dr. Seuss (pseudonym)

Not to mention the titles/honorifics and their variations in different languages (Saint, St., St, San, Santo, Sint, etc.). Plus some of them may be actual names: St. John Greene

Also, anyone can add books to the database, they are not just imported.

The birthdate issue was reported long ago to Goodreads. It is probably not on their current roadmap, but perhaps you can report it again and make clear that it would be nice to have it resolved.

https://www.goodreads.com/about/conta...

[Mikey]

I thought only librarians could add books manually? If that was the case they should do it according to policy. This is what brought this up because I was going to add a new version of the book and noticed the manual as currently written was not followed. I found the thread where someone asked them to all be changed to Juan de la Cruz.
see this thread

[lethe]

Mikey wrote: "I thought only librarians could add books manually? If that was the case they should do it according to policy. This is what brought this up because I was going to add a new version of the book and..."

No, anybody can add books (alas).

Please do not link to users and their edits. This is considered "calling out" and is not allowed in this group. Please also remove your remarks about a particular user from the other thread.

That said, I am surprised about what you found. It is obviously not according to policy and I can't believe nobody noticed it before.

[lethe]

From the rules in the group info on the group's homepage:

Please do not link to specific users' profiles, reviews, edit logs, etc. in this group. The only exception is when linking to an author's profile when requesting edits/merges.

You can reply to a person's comment and say that in your understanding, the policy is such and such. As long as you don't attack them, that is OK.

The policy hasn't changed, but even the most experienced librarians can get confused sometimes.

[Mikey]

Please do not link to users and their edits. This is considered as "calling out" and is not allowed in this group. Please also remove your remarks about a particular user from the other thread.

That is ridiculous accusation. I didn't link to anyone's profile, reviews, edit logs, and I don't know what etc. is. Why would specific posts be set up as links if one is not allowed to link to specific posts? The easiest way to find something is with a link. Can I link to the general thread and then expect everyone to read every post to find the one I am referring to? I didn't say anything about the person that asked for the project. If they didn't know they didn't know. What I complained about was that the project was apparently done and either the policy has changed since then or the policy wasn't consulted. I didn't know which was the case. I also didn't even look up who actually did the edits. I certainly didn't attack the person for asking. I merely pointed to the post and used the reply function to show it was requested and apparently the request was fulfilled . *(I even included the date of the request to show that it was 21 months ago)
Again, I linked to a specific post in this group relevant to the discussion. Regardless, I modified the posts hopefully to your satisfaction.

[lethe]

Nobody is accusing you of anything. To me, your original post (before modifying) came across as critiquing specific edits, and since that is not allowed I asked you to change it. I think the way it is now is OK, but I don't make the rules so it's not up to me to say.

[Mikey]

Fair enough but I think you are wrong as I said. I didn't link to any edits. I didn't even know who did the edits. I used the reply feature which automatically puts in the "so and so said..." and I linked to a post in this group. If linking to a post was against the rules why do they have the feature to link to a specific post? It was merely pointing out the confusion which brought me here in the first place on this particular issue.