These authors could use work

[Cait]

Here's an "author" that might benefit from a librarian: none listed!

[rivka, Former Moderator]

I'll put it on the list, although it has many fewer books than et al and N/A (both of which I and others have been working on intermittently).

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Just a reminder to any bored librarians: lots of "authors" in the stickied thread needing work. Almost all of them had higher numbers than the last time I checked!

Sisyphus, I swear.

[Slayermel]

I started tackling the authors needing work. I have another name you can add to the list of
Authors who appear to be multiple authors with the same name:

Dennis Smith

Thanks
Mel

[This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For]

Added Dennis Smith to the lists

[Nia]

I worked on the German editions of Ellis Peters a while ago. The remaining German editions can't be combined, because they are 2-in-1-editions.

[This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For]

Rivka, when you get back, you might add the following to the generic/publisher list of authors:

Staff

While "staff" might be correct for many multi-person collaborations, each book should probably at least specify the staff of what...

[JG (Introverted Reader)]

Shel Silverstein needs help from someone who understands--Persian? That's what Google said it was. I don't even know which language it is! There are probably only about 20 titles in there.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

While "staff" might be correct for many multi-person collaborations, each book should probably at least specify the staff of what.

Agreed. I added it.

[Barbara]

What do you do if an author sometimes puts his middle initial and other times doesn't on his books? I'm specifically thinking of Clair Poulson and Clair M. Poulson.

[This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For]

It varies a bit, depending on how well the author is known by each variant of their name. I lean towards using the initial over not using it because it will help distinguish the author better if there are other authors with the same name.

[Cait]

Rumiko Takahashi could use quite a bit of work! I sorted out most of the Ranma 1/2 except for this lump of Spanish editions for which I cannot figure out volume information (ah-hah, got it: putting the dashes in the ISBNs opened up a search on several bookstores with volume numbers), but it looks like InuYasha dearly needs help from someone who loves it enough to wrestle its volumes into shape....

[Melissa]

Clair M. Poulson is what he started using on his most recent publications, so I'd think that should be the "official" version.

[Monissa]

Twain is something of a mess
http://www.goodreads.com/book/combine...

I have no idea if "sometitle and other stories" is the same as "sometitle and other essays", or if Best Short Works is the same as Best Short Stories is the same as the Best Short Stories (example titles, there's lots of variations on this), or if "Letters from Hawaii, Roughing it in the Sandwich Islands" is one work or two, and, if one, is it the same as "Roughing It" and so on.

There were 5 works under the title "Mark Twain". One is an autobiography, one a selection of works in French, one a selection of works in English but as far as I can tell a different selection, one a selection of works in Spanish but not list of titles and one an audio recording but no details. As there were as least 3 different books combined in here, I separated them all. Although I'm sure some helpful person will come along and recombine them eventually.

Finally, some of the titles are listed under Samuel Langhorne Clemens & Clemens Samuel L. & probably other variations, and they're not always combined with the 'Twain' copies. Add both names? Change SLC to the psuedonym?

[Monissa]

"Hutchinson"

The book I just entered is derived from "Hutchinson Encyclopedia', hence the name. Not the author's name though (various contributors, with an editor).

Not sure about the others under this "author" though. Most seem to be textbooks (some with messed up titles) with no reviews etc. so no hurry.

[Elise]

Author "E. L. Konigsburg" is also listed under these names: E.L. Konigsburg (with no space between E. and L.) and E.L Konigsberg.

[Lisa]

Elise,

It is supposed to be E.L. Konigsburg with no space between the E. and the L. I found the E. L. and merged that author profile with the correct one. I'll now look for the E.L and merge that.

Thanks for finding this.

I'm still not finding the E.L
If you find it, could you please send a link? Thanks.

[Elise]

Here.

And thank you!

[Lisa]

Elise, Got it. Thanks.

[Brandy]

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

I'm working my way through RH Value Publishing--maybe by the end of the week, I'll get it back down to the number that the thread says there are!--but there are some I'm just flagging as Outlet Book Company Staff. There's not much there now, but it's worth keeping an eye on, since I've already pulled two titles back out and assigned them real authors.

Hint for anyone else joining me in the RH Value Publishing glee (I don't want to hog all the fun for myself!): WorldCat can find a lot of these by title, when you can't turn it up anywhere else.

[Melody]

None

[This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For]

Melody, that's very interesting. Here is another case of one author's profile information (in this case a fake author = None) having been given the description and photo of another author (Elizabeth Massie). And once again, the mistaken information has a link to booktour.com.

I think GoodReads needs to cancel or alter their relationship with that website; somehow they keep feeding incorrect information into the GR database.

[Lisa]

Oh, am I blind?! Good catch Michael. I started working a bit on the NONE authored books and didn't even see that. I do agree with you abou the booktour.com site. It's too bad, but too strange.

[vicki_girl]

Ok, I have been working on some of the 'Staff' items, and have a few questions... related to RPG game books and modules.

1) For the RPG game books, I listed the publisher as the Author (e.g., West End Games), since in nearly all cases there was no author of record I could find, and other RPG books were listed similarly. In the ~2 cases where I could find an author I put them as author 2. Was this correct?

2) For some of the RPG publishers, I changed similar names to be the same (i.e., West End Games Staff was changed to West End Games) to have all the books under one author. However, I didn't do any merging. Will the empty ones disappear on their own?

3) A significant portion (~30%) of the remaining 'Staff' items appear to be board games or RPG modules, with instruction manuals, not books. Should I change these to NOT A BOOK?

(A previous thread on games indicated that these should be left alone, but...)

[This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For]

IMO, RPG module are books, but board games (with their associate manuals) are not.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

I agree with Michael.

Re #1: Sounds exactly right. Re #2: I think so, but you can always just merge the empty authors to be sure.

[vicki_girl]

Ok, by RPG modules, I was referring to items like the following:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22...

The description states that the "box" contains 'Psi Corps Empire Control Sheet 13 Playing Cards 6 Map Pieces 1 Rulebook (Version 1.1) 21 Tokens '

I think these should be NOT A BOOK.

There are several RPG books that I collected under the publisher such as:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27...

Since it contained "Three Hardcover books"

[rivka, Former Moderator]

I think I agree with those decisions, but someone with more gaming experience than I have (none, although I like to heckle ;) ) might want to weigh in.

[This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For]

Ahhh...I wouldn't have called that a module, although I suppose it is a modular component of a game. I was thinking of the more "traditional" D&D type of module, which was usually a thin paperbook back with a self-contained pre-built adventure. I agree with you assessment of the NOT-A-BOOKitude of the mentioned item.

[vicki_girl]

Ok, since we appear to have concensus, here is how I plan to proceed:

1) An RPG book with a "self-contained pre-built adventure" or is part of an 'adventure' type series, I will update with publisher/author info etc., if needed.

2) Generally things with "starter kit" or "contains game pieces, playing board, game tokens, etc." in the description I will make NOT A BOOK.

I have run across things called "Storytellers Screen" (or similar). Does anyone know if these are 'books'? The descriptions say they are used to hide your gameboard from other players. I would think these are NOT A BOOK as well.

[Melody]

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

Various suddenly has the information about Zoe Sharp and her book tour.

[This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For]

Screens like that are sort of on the border. Essentially, they are usually thick cardboard fold outs, with maybe three or four parts which the person running the game can stand in front of them to block the view of the players from various information (maps, text, dice rolls, etc.). Usually, the inside of these (the side facing the storyteller) contains tables, charts, rules summaries, etc., for quick reference. In that sense it is almost as much of a book as a child's board book, although with very different purpose.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Oh, yeesh. BookTour.com strikes again! And what's even worse, they leave no trace in the librarian log when they do so. :P

I fixed it.

[This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For]

Has anyone managed to flag Otis or Michael about the BookTour issue yet? I checked and at least one of the threads/posts was in the "Otis we need your help folder?" but perhaps they missed it?

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Well, I put my post of a couple minutes ago on my feed, which sometimes gets Otis or Jessica's attention. ;)

I think I emailed Otis about BookTour a while back . . .

[Melody]

here's another one - various contributors

[Lisa]

Oh and various contributers has an author profile for Shirley W. Mitchell. More weirdness from that site?

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Well, I merged that with Various and took out all the stuff BookTour put in, but I'll email Otis.

[vicki_girl]

I have been doing some work on the Rh Value Publishing as well, and ran across the following author(s):

Jane Resnick
Jane P. Resnick
Jane Parker Resnick

These appear to be the same person based on a search of the Library of Congress. That is, LOC has 'Jane Parker Resnick' with specific titles that GR has attributed to each of the three authors above.

Should these be merged? If so, under which one? While LOC collects them all under 'Jane Parker Resnick', the title listings imply that she uses all three on books she edits.

And this author (J P Resnick) may be the same as well:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

[Cait]

vicki_girl, when I run into that sort of situation, I usually merge into the author with the most name information (here Jane Parker Resnick) unless there's a strong case somewhere for using an initial.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

I agree, especially if that's how she's listed on LoC.

[Cait]

Here's a project I'm not going to have time to tackle:

Martin Coles and Christine Hall (also M Coles and C Hall) appear to be editors of a childrens'-literacy publishing group called "LILA" or "Literacy Land"; they're credited as the authors of books that they didn't write and they're credited as sole authors of books they abridged. (Also, not all of M Coles is Martin and not all of C Hall is Christine, so each one needs to be individually checked. And the M Coles and C Hall authors chain via co-authors to other first-initial-only authors....)

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Yikes.

[vicki_girl]

Here's another one:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

There are at least two different Alan Campbell authors. One wrote the first three books listed (all fiction). At least one other "Alan Campbell" wrote some of the non-fiction works according to LOC.

I already combined some editions of the fiction books, but I haven't separated the authors yet.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

I got Martin Coles cleaned up; I believe he is a legit author/editor/co-author on the 21 he has left. I am working on the other three, but it looks like there are at least two Christine Halls, one of whom specializes in things British.

[Cait]

Awesome, rivka!

[This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For]

I separated the Alan Campbell's

[mlady_rebecca]

I have another multiple author/ same name situation with Anne Bishop.

(1) Anne Bishop - http://www.annebishop.com/ - SF/Fantasy author - Black Jewels, Ephemera, and Tir Alainn Series

(2) Anne Bishop - non-fiction, social work

(3) Anne Bishop - cookbook

There are also two similar names:

Anne H. Bishop - nursing books

Ann Bishop (no "e" on the end) - children's books

Hopefully all the "other Anne Bishops" are correct. I'm mostly familiar with the SF/Fantasy author.

[This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For]

The Anne Bishops have been added to the master list.

[Cera]

Hi there!

I'm new here, so pardon me if I'm not mentioning this in the right place -- but I was looking at Edmund Burke, and along with the books I expect an 18th century philospher to have authored, he also seems to have sidelining in books about bodybuilding. So perhaps disambiguation is in order?

I'm a mostly-amateur Victorianist, so am hoping to help out both by adding a lot of novels no longer in print (but which I adore), and tidying up such authors as appropriate.