Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

First of all, I have this book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4... which is a duplicate and needs to be deleted.

Secondly, there are books under Elizabeth Gaskell and Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. How should I go about combining these?

That's a valid edition. I have combined it with the others.

Looking into Cleghorn...

I have begun removing "Cleghorn" from editions that do NOT have it on the cover. For the ones that do, I believe the correct solution is to add "Elizabeth Cleghorn" as the primary so that they can be combined with editions already under that name, and keep the longer name as secondary.

Since there are many, many editions of her work this could be a project.

Scott wrote: "Since there are many, many editions of her work this could be a project."

The easiest way to see which books have the Cleghorn variety as primary is to go to the disamgibuate page. Only such editions will appear there.

Ah, I have never tried that. Thanks.

Scott wrote: "Ah, I have never tried that. Thanks."

Still a project, but not quite as daunting.

I've added Elizabeth Gaskell as primary author to all the books on the Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell profile (with that name as secondary author where needed).
Did some combining, but most books were already combined.

There are also books with Mrs. Gaskell as the primary author. I’m doing the same as above - adding Elizabeth Gaskell as the primary author with Mrs. Gaskell as the secondary author unless anyone tells me not to.

Chris wrote: "There are also books with Mrs. Gaskell as the primary author. I’m doing the same as above - adding Elizabeth Gaskell as the primary author with Mrs. Gaskell as the secondary author unless anyone te..."

I believe in this case, because Elizabeth Gaskell is already established as the primary profile, Mrs. Gaskell should not be added. We only use author names with titles if that is the only way they were known or if it could cause confusion (f.e. Mrs. Humphry Ward wrote all those books, not her husband Humphry Ward).

Thanks for this, I'll get rid of the Mrs. Gaskell author entries.