Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

Hello, I am a new Librarian with a question about anthologies that I'm sure has been answered somewhere, but I haven't been able to find a thread on it...

For anthologies, do contributing authors need to be given the Contributor role? Or is it enough to simply list their names, since Author is the default? For Chicks Kick Butt, I updated the record to show Rachel Caine as an Editor ("Editor, Contributor" actually, as she's both) but the other authors are not listed as Contributors. Only the second editor has a "role."

Thank you for your help/advice on this topic!

It's optional. Some people add Contributor to each author and some don't.

Okay, thank you Vicki! I will go ahead and add the Contributor role to all the authors who contributed to this anthology, as I find that having their roles defined helps me as a reader. :)

As a note of consideration - I find that it gets really messy to add the role to everyone in an anthology. Especially when there are many Goodreads Authors involved it makes for a lot of extra text.

Singling out the editors as such and considering everyone else as just an author seems a much more eloquent way to do it, but that's just my preference. ;)

Definitely add role to all or to none. Not just for consistency but also to not make one with or without author entry seem more important.

Don't start adding role then stop when tired or bored, LOL, commit!

I don't care at all for co-authored or multi-author works where one author shows no role and the others a role of "contributor" or "with" (I heartily dislike "with" when there are only two authors and no where on bookcover, title page, or copyright page does it say "with"; makes it seems one part of writing team is the more important.)

I agree it should be consistent across the contributors; I do sometimes leave them if just the editors are marked. Personally I find the long lists of anthology contributors easier to read when they're broken up by the role text instead of just a comma between names, especially if some are GR authors and others are not, which leads to some names being back to back and others having text between (consistency again!).

If I have book in hand to see table of contents (or if TOC in book description already), other than editor at first of author list, I try to list authors in order of appearance. Not always known of course. At least listing does credit the book on their goodreads author page even if not in perfect order.

Cait wrote: "I agree it should be consistent across the contributors; I do sometimes leave them if just the editors are marked. Personally I find the long lists of anthology contributors easier to read when the..."

All the authors for Chicks Kick Butt have already had roles updated to show they are Contributors. I did it a few hours ago. :)

I too find that anthology contributors are easier to delineate when they're listed as Contributors: this makes the names pop for me (and presumably also for anyone else who sometimes - or always - has trouble with his/her eyesight).

Debbie wrote: "If I have book in hand to see table of contents (or if TOC in book description already), other than editor at first of author list, I try to list authors in order of appearance. Not always known o..."

I did verify that the two Editors of this book were listed in the order the anthology listed them in, and then I also made sure to order the Contributors in the order of their contributions, too. :)