Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

This is just a list of various "authors" I've bookmarked over the years to come back to when I had time. I never have time, so I'm sharing here! :) I'll add to this as I come across more. If someone wants to "take" an author as a project I'll try to edit the post so it's clear you're working on it. Feel free to add your own to this, please!

Moved corporate authors and publishers here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Needing work:

Books for Paul Féval père and fils keep getting mixed up, and an extra Paul Féval record adding.

Eternal project:
Dean_Koontz and Dean_R_Koontz, plus pseudonyms listed on the Dean Koontz profile (Leigh Nichols, Brian Coffey, David Axton, Owen West, Deanna Dwyer and Aaron Wolfe).
"This author writes under the name Dean R. Koontz and Dean Koontz. As both names appear on his works, both should be kept." See this discussion .
Thankless task: Make sure that all editions of a title have the correct primary author. Be aware that some translations will not necessarily follow Mr Koontz's preferred version of the name, so may differ from the English editions. Works initially published under a pseudonym need that as the primary author on all editions. Also need to keep track of quotes to stay on the correct profile with the book title.

Need forenames / surnames:

These authors are only listed as surnames. Sometimes there are valid single-word name authors mixed in.

Swan
Baumol
Helena
Joseph
Read
Roemer
Romer
Romer/Macchi
Figures, Figures Tables, Figures Du Passe
Kent
Porter
Schultz
Scott
Coleman
Martinez
Defer
Xu
SHETH
Mass
Huysmans Huysmans
Huysman
Church (seems to have both surname and subject)
Gabriel

Postnominals:

These are some searches I run to try and catch imports of author with postnominals (other than the obvious PhD, MA, Dr. which others keep track of). :

SJ - Society of Jesuits.
MD
OSB

Also:
Search to catch From Old Catalog in author names - usually just needs the words removing and then the sort fields tidying, but sometimes more work.

Emy wrote: "Needing a real author (if possible):
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

But none of these are books. This is a list of journals (periodicals, magazines) that have been digitized by JSTOR.

Roberta wrote: "But none of these are books. This is a list of journals (periodicals, magazines) ..."

Then they need flagging.

Need removing:

Editors of single-author works, cover illustrators & other non-policy additions to records:

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

Emy wrote: "Need removing:

Editors of single-author works, cover illustrators & other non-policy additions to records:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
https://www.goodreads.co..."

I got those. (Well, they're pending.) FYI, for secondary authors who should be removed from ALL books, staff can delete them.

rivka wrote: FYI, for secondary authors who should be removed from ALL books, staff can delete them.

That is GREAT news! If I find more I'll start a separate thread in the correct folder then :)

It's ok to just put those in the author merging thread.

Needing disambiguation work (mostly Initial + Surname)

J Nelson & J. Nelson

Took care of everything I could figure out in #4. Question: Does author field accept characters with diacritical marks? I thought it did, but when I tried to correct a "Helena" to "Hélèna", it wouldn't stick.

Scott wrote: "Took care of everything I could figure out in #4. Question: Does author field accept characters with diacritical marks? I thought it did, but when I tried to correct a "Helena" to "Hélèna", it woul..."

It will accept diacritics if it is put into the Author record (not book record) but not as a means of disambiguating authors. It will default to using whichever form is in the main Author record.

Ah, nothing for it in that case then.

Re #5: Emy wrote: "Also:
Search to catch From Old Catalog in author names - usually just needs the words removing and then the sort fields tidying, but sometimes more work."

Don't forget to fix the name in all 3 places on the Editing Author page (name, sort by name, and shelf display name) or it keeps coming up in the search.

If you correct the first field and just clear the other 2, they will auto-populate when you save.

Mixed up Pliny

Think this is another that may be a neverending task for Classicists...

Many records are on the Pliny Author record that need to be moved as appropriate.

Pliny the Elder OR Pliny the Younger

There are also a number of 19th century gentlemen with the forename Pliny, so there may be books belonging to them as well...