Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
Policies & Practices
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Clarifying policy on some unknown authors
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Never seen policy around et.al but.........I don't think et. al. is valid as an author and should be deleted on editions where it is.
I personally don't favour merging in to various if there are known authors then they should be specified rather than various, if there are no known authors then I think Various is better than et. al.
Paula wrote: "Never seen policy around et.al but.........I don't think et. al. is valid as an author and should be deleted on editions where it is.
I personally don't favour merging in to various if there are..."
Thank you. That is what I was thinking. I wanted to ask a second opinion before removing et.al.
What is the policy when all authors are known and listed but there is no editor to take first position?https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
In this case, only the illustrator is mentioned on the title page. The book was added with Various as primary author and I left it for now, but I'm wondering if it's correct. Should the Illustrator be the primary author instead?
ETA re #1 Arenda, where did you find that policy? I couldn't find it in the manual (I found this thread searching through the discussions).
Should never be et.al. anyway, correctly it's et al. since et is a whole word. https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...There are authors with et al at the beginning of their names also, if anyone runs out of work. (rofl)
Abcdarian wrote: "if anyone runs out of work. (rofl) "Hahaha, You're funny!
lethe wrote: "ETA re #1 Arenda, where did you find that policy? I couldn't find it in the manual (I found this thread searching through the discussions). "It is in the description of the "author" Various:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Various Author profile
Various is the correct author for any book with multiple unknown authors, and is acceptable for books with multiple known authors, especially if not all are known or the list is very long (over 50).
If an editor is known, however, Various is not necessary. List the name of the editor as the primary author (with role "editor"). Contributing authors' names follow it.
Note: WorldCat is an excellent resource for finding author information and contents of anthologies.
Both "Unknown" and "Anonymous" also have a description when these should be used as author.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Maybe the librarian manual should link to these descriptions.
lethe wrote: "What is the policy when all authors are known and listed but there is no editor to take first position? "
From the Librarian Manual:
Books with multiple authors
Goodreads currently allows up to 50 authors per book. Authors should be listed in the order they appear on the book cover. If there is no cover or covers of various editions differ, use alphabetical order.
Arenda wrote: "lethe wrote: "Goodreads currently allows up to 50 authors per book. Authors should be listed in the order they appear on the book cover. If there is no cover or covers of various editions differ, use alphabetical order. "
For big anthologies I use the order from the content. I hope that is correct?
What Ellie said.Or to clarify:
If editor, editor first.
Editor or not, if cover credits, in that order.
If neither, alphabetical order (but note that GR sometimes rearranges them for reasons unknown).
I particularly hate when Various is the only author listed at all, so I try really hard to find a proper contributor list if I can.
There's quite a few books floating around with an editor name in first position and "Various" for all the other contributors. The policy makes that seem ok, but it annoys the heck out of me tbh, so I try to fix them when I see them.
Ellie [The Empress] wrote: " ...I use the order from the content. I hope that is correct? ..."I think that could be interpreted as "...the order in which they appear..." (admittedly, that rule was for book covers but I think it could apply to the front/info pages of books as well) if only a handful. If a really long list of authors -- I can also see that being re-ordered alphabetically for the sake of readers trying to spot author name.
Sometimes odd orders happen, like Krazykiwi said, just because GR does something inexplicably. Sometimes odd order happens because a contributor or member requests librarians to please add to list of authors and that contributor just gets added to end of authors without re-ordering.
I take it that means Various can be deleted in this case. Made the illustrator the primary author (see #4). I had already rearranged the authors in alphabetical order.@Arenda - thanks, I hadn't thought to check the author profile. A link in the manual would indeed be a good idea.
lethe wrote: "A link in the manual would indeed be a good idea. "Added the suggestion to this topic:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
It's a bit of a tangent, but since it got mentioned here, and then just happened to me, here's why it's probably not worth stressing too much over the order past the primary (first) author position, as long as they're all in there:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
I just added this cover and in the same edit added all the contributors, in the exact order given on the cover. Then I hit save, and as you can see, they were immediately re-ordered into whatever this is. It's not alphabetical, it's not GR authors first, it's not, as far as I can tell, any particular order at all.
I've noticed it tends not to do this as much where the authors have roles, but it still does it sometimes. No idea what triggers it, or how to make it stop, but tbh it doesn't bother me too much as long as the primary author is correct.
Krazykiwi wrote: "I just added this cover and in the same edit added all the contributors, in the exact order given on the cover. Then I hit save, and as you can see, they were immediately re-ordered into whatever this is. It's not alphabetical, it's not GR authors first, it's not, as far as I can tell, any particular order at all.I've noticed it tends not to do this as much where the authors have roles, but it still does it sometimes."
Yeah, I just added this book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... , and I'm very glad I didn't waste time trying to add the contributors in alphabetical order, because they were all rearranged (even though they had roles).
BTW, there were also several uncredited contributions (folktales, traditionals from unknown sources), should I add a contributor 'Unknown' for those, or should 'Unknown' only be added if no other authors are known?
lethe wrote: "BTW, there were also several uncredited contributions (folktales, traditionals from unknown sources), should I add a contributor 'Unknown' for those, or should 'Unknown' only be added if no other authors are known? "I wouldn't add unknown if there are already that many contributors to the book. Only if there is no author or editor known, author "Unknown" should be used. With a book with multiple contributors, it would rather be Various than Unknown, I think.
Arenda wrote: "I wouldn't add unknown if there are already that many contributors to the book. Only if there is no author or editor known, author "Unknown" should be used. With a book with multiple contributors, it would rather be Various than Unknown, I think. "So, should I leave it as it is? From the description of 'Various' I get the impression that it's an alternative to adding any contributors at all, if not all of them are known, not that it should be added to the list of contributors. Personally I think it would be a shame to leave out the known contributors and replace them with 'Various'.
lethe wrote: "So, should I leave it as it is? From the description of 'Various' I get the impression that it's an alternative to adding any contributors at all, if not all of them are known, not that it should be added to the list of contributors. Personally I think it would be a shame to leave out the known contributors and replace them with 'Various'."Yes, please leave it as it is. The more specific information, the better.
When some contributors are known, they should be listed.
Various should indeed not be added to a list of contributors, nor should "and others" or a variation be added when not all contributors are known.
What I meant to say was, when there is a book written by more contributors, all unnamed, "Various" might be better than "Unknown".
I know the policy for "Various":
Various is the correct author for any book with multiple unknown authors, and is acceptable for books with multiple known authors, especially if not all are known or the list is very long (over 50).
I ran into several books with more than one author added, and as the last author "et. al." or a variation. For the books I checked, Worldcat had one or more known authors, followed by et. al.
- is "et. al." valid in the author field?
- if not valid, should it be deleted from the book page?
- if not valid, should it be merged into various and kept on the book page?
- according to the "Various" description, the known authors and et. al. could all be replaced just by Various >> Note: this is an option I think is unpreferable; I'd rather have the authors that are known than just Various.