These authors could use work

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

The exercise Edmund Burke should actually be Edmund R. Burke. I changed the ones I could find.

[Cait]

Oh, ouch. Someone's got Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and her mother Mary Wollstonecraft all mixed up. Anyone want to tackle that?

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

I fixed a few of the Mary Wolstencraft/Shelley but I'm sure there are more.

[mlady_rebecca]

The Anne Bishops have been added to the master list.

Thank you, Michael.

[Elise]

C.S. Lewis could use a few translated editions being combined - and I think some are actually combined where they shouldn't be and need to be separated.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

I believe I have beaten the Hall/Coles/LILA crowd into submission.

Although as I mentioned, there is more than one Christine Hall, and someone might want to separate them out.

[Cera]

Thank you, Michael, for separating out the exercise Edmund Burke for the philosophical one!

[mlady_rebecca]

Another same name/ different author situation.

(1) Jonathon Green - slang dictionaries

(2) Jonathon Green - graphic novels

Specifically, this is Laurell K. Hamilton's husband. He has secondary writing credits on an original graphical novel she did in the "Anita Blake" series.

I added the librarian's note to both profiles.

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

Added them, thanks

[Melody]

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

This author is listed as _

[rivka, Former Moderator]

That's a new one! I'll add it to the list.

[Lisa]

Wow, that's something. How did you manage to find that one Melody?

[mlady_rebecca]

Thanks, Michael.

[Lisa]

Public Domain is another one I think where we can find some authors:

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

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Got 'em. There weren't very many, so it was exactly the kind of task I was in the mood for.

[Lisa]

Rivka, There were about 50. I'd gotten the rest. ;-) Thanks for getting the remainder of them!

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Ah! Many hands, light work, etc. ;)

[Ubik]

I just joined and started moderating yesterday. I know I probably should have come in here first, but....I didnt. Just wanted to report that I fixed all the variations on
Brian W. Aldiss, Philip K. Dick, and J.G. Ballard (Aldiss was the worst!), but if anyone is good with French, German, or Spanish that'd be awesome. I know their titles well enough so I figured out most of them, but some are far far off from what the English is so I need some help. Thanks

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

Unfortunately, some of the PKD collections you combined should not have been combined...actually, I take that back, a different librarian screwed this up about two weeks ago.

"The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick" vols. 1-5 have been released in multiple forms, under different titles, and (most importantly), containing somewhat different sets of stories! Thus Vol. 5 "Eye of Sybil" is not the same as Vol. 5 "We Can Remember it for your Wholesale", etc. Even worse, Vol. 2 (Second Variety) in one edition is completely different from Vol. 3 (Second Edition) in the other release, and Vol. 2 (We Can Remember it For You Wholesale) is different from Vol. 5 (We Can Remember it For You Wholesale).

It's very very irritating.

This makes me want to repeat my call for the ability to allow superlibrarians to LOCK certain editions so they cannot be combined/uncombined without special supervision. I just had to go in and decombine the stray versions of Quicksilver and System of the World (by Neal Stephenson) that are actually not the same as all of the other versions of Quicksilver and System of the World for about the 10th time (each of them only represents 1/3 of the original publication by the same name, with the other 2/3 being published under different titles...stupid publisher). If it happens again I'm adding "DO NOT COMBINE THIS WITH ANY OTHER EDITION" to the titles! I've already put it in the description, but apparently that's not good enough.

[Ubik]

Yeah, I can see how that would be very irritating indeed! When I was combining, I didnt mess with anything but the single novels and special editions only if they were both "XXX vol.1" or something that was obvious.

I also fixed Thomas M. Disch (there were only a few though...)[

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Unless he's quite the renaissance man, it's probably not the same Peter Kaye writing medical texts, law texts, and a few assorted other topics.

[Ubik]

Could someone try and step in and help out with all the various Robert "x." Metzgers in the system?

The only one Im familiar with is Robert A. Metzger (SF author with three novels to his credit).

Robert P./Paul Metzger appears to be a biographer, but then there is what appears to be a Russia history book in there as well as a book called Der Scutt Retrospective (whatever a scutt is) (of course P may or not stand for Paul/be the same guy)

Robert O. Metzger, Robert Charles Metzger, and Robert Metzger all seem to write about computers, consulting, programming, algorithms and that sort of thing, but Im too afraid to mess with them. Theyre at least two dudes, but I dont know where to split them.

And then there is a memoir-ish kinda book, a book on Wordsworth, a book about a painter (I think), and a book on photographers/photography

To top all that off, there are a handful of R. Metzgers floating around as well.

Does anyone know any of these guys? I'll do the work, but I dont want to mess anything up...

[Cait]

It looks like we've got an incoming problem from a publisher called "MobileReference" -- they seem to be listing themselves as the first author on a lot of books (see MobileReference) and they appear to have a stub author who's showing up as a third (mobi)....

[Lisa]

Cait, Yes, librarians will need to work on these, but I think the data is coming from Amazon.

[Cait]

Lisa, oh, phooey. :(

[Lisa]

Cait, yeah, they're all Kindle editions. Guess that's how they're going to show in the Goodreads database.

[Jon]

Here's another same name, different authors situation. The Kenneth Bailey who wrote "Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes" should be Kenneth E. Bailey.

Kenneth Bailey

[Heidi]

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

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

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

Are all the same author - I am fairly new to this, so not sure how to fix it? Thanks.

[Cait]

Heidi, I'll let you have the fixing of this one, since you caught it! It looks like the third one is the correct name, so here's what you do:

1. Go to the third author, the one that's correct, and copy the name.
2. Go to the first author, one of the incorrect ones, and click the "edit data" link under the profile.
3. In the name field, delete the incorrect name and paste in the correct name that you copied in step 1, then scroll down and click save.
4. You'll be prompted to merge the incorrect author into the correct one; click Yes.
5. Repeat these steps for the second incorrect author.
6. All books should be under the third (correct) author now! You'll probably want to combine some editions.

[JG (Introverted Reader)]

Karl Marx is a big mess. Someone sort of pointed it out in the feedback group. All kinds of volumes are combined together.

[Heidi]

Thanks, Cait. I've now sorted this one out, and combined editions. Thanks for the instructions!

[Cait]

JG, I've had a go at Das Kapital, but I would definitely appreciate another librarian looking this over -- the problem is three volumes each split into several volumes for publication, so it's hard to tell from the limited information on the older editions what's what....

[Debbie]

Yeah, I broke PKD at least once, but in my defence I was using an external source that claimed the volumes of collected stories were the same, apart from the titles!

I listed the stories that are in the earlier volumes of collected stories while actually holding the books in my lap :)--can anyone do the same for the later ones?

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

I've got three of them at home; I'll try to remember to add the story list for those three volumes tonight, assuming they are different from the ones you have.

Out of curiosity, when you changed the titles, er...today, why did you drop the word "Vol." from them?

[Debbie]

I was looking for consistency with the other titles, which don't have Vol in them. If they should have Vol in them, I apologise!

edited to add: ah, on Amazon.com they actually have a cover I can read. Hmm, yeah, I see that word Volume there.

meh

[Debbie]

Okay, I fixed the ones I broke. I fix more than I break, honest!

[Lisa]

Squirrel, Oh we know. Thanks for fixing. We've all made mistakes, obviously.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

I fix more than I break, honest!

I think this may be my new motto. Especially after the "oops! help!" email I had to send Otis earlier . . .

>_<

[Cait]

Kind of the motto for the whole librarians' group, I think!

[Lisa]

Yes, especially because there are all those errors we've made with no awareness that we've done so AND we've also made vast improvements to the database AND Goodreads is set up to allow us to do the work, which is terrific.

[Sara]

Haha I agree but if that was to be made our motto it might turn people off...

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

Squirrel, I added the contents for the three volumes of collected PKD which I have. Turns out, the volume 1's are the same. Volumes 2 and 3 are different, though, which I'd already determined earlier.

[Debbie]

Thanks, Michael :).

Interestingly enough, I just discovered today that "Cantata-140" and "The Crack in Space" are the same book. So I've combined them. Pity I'd already bought a copy of each! lol

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Michael, for the disambig list:
Alice Adams - novelist
Alice Adams - trucker

[rivka, Former Moderator]

There's a David Pearson, a P. David Pearson, a David E. Pearson, and a David L. Pearson. And a few others. . .

Looks like some books may have misassigned, and I saw a couple with more than one of the above listed as an author (not likely accurately).

Someone more awake than I am should mess with these.

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

Well, David L. Pearson's office is about 75 feet down the hall from mine, so perhaps I'll take a look at these.

[Cait]

Hah, Michael! Very convenient. :)

[Slumbering Rose]

Hey, I'm kind of new, so forgive me (and correct me) if I'm doing something wrong by posting here.

I fixed an entry under "AUTHOR NOT FOUND", which is what "NO AUTHOR" took me to, from Sisyphus' list. The thing is, the book is a cookbook composed of several different recipes and cooks, so there is no actual author but an editor, who is the person I listed. But I noticed there was another book by the same editor, and in the title was [Editor:] followed by the editor's name. So I'm wondering if it's correct and I should do the same, or should I edit this other entry and remove that?

Also, there is no way to mark the first, primary author as an editor, illustrator, etc., correct? Should it be noted somewhere?

Oh, and the "NO AUTHOR" search turned up a calendar. Is this acceptable?

[Cait]

Hi, Rose, and welcome!

To answer some of your questions:

A book with an editor and no authors such as the cookbook you describe should indeed be listed under the editor's name.

The editor should not be in the title, just in the author field, unless that's an actual part of the book's title (for example, I've got a cookbook titled "James Beard's Casserole Book" by James Beard, which should obviously keep the "James Beard" in the title); you can definitely edit that other book you found to fix that.

Alas, there is not yet a way to mark the role of the primary author.

Calendars are not, unless they include a significant amount of text along with the calendar, considered books. What we do with things that aren't books is this:
* Edit the primary author to "NOT A BOOK" (without quotes)
* Remove any secondary authors
* Add "NOT A BOOK" to the beginning of the title
We usually called this NOT-A-BOOKing a record. :) We get things like calendars, banners, floor displays, shrinkwrap packages, etc., mostly via Amazon miscategorizing something with an ISBN.

(If the record to be NOT-A-BOOKed has reviews on it that are clearly meant for an actual book, there's a more complicated procedure for shifting the reviews onto the actual book, but you can look through the group posts for information on that if you find such a thing.)

Clear as mud? :)

[Slumbering Rose]

Yep, clear as mud. :P

No, but seriously, I'm unsure about the calendar . It's based on a book. :\ Perhaps you'd like to handle it (or someone else)? XD