Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

What is the procedure for handling non-author profiles?

For example this profile isn't an author it's a work:

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

Táin Bó Cúailnge= "the driving-off of cows of Cooley" = title of works.

Usually the case would be to find the original author and replace in the work. For works where authors are non-existent (For example some catalogues may contain information that has been collected by group of people) we will keep the publisher/company/creator as primary author.

In this case this seem to be a folk tale.

#1 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9... = This implies it is "an old Irish prose-epic". I think folk tales should go to either Unknown or Anonymous, However there is an edition with exactly the same titles attributed to L. Winifred Faraday. I think there is a high chance that this is an electronic version of an old text. I think it would be it is safe to change to that author for this edition.
Note : I would wait for a second opinion. It may be that author should be Unknown as I am doing a guess work here.

#2 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... -= this book is on amazon and has preview. Take author from there. (I think Dunn is just translator. See here)
Note : Again this one may be Unknown. Not sure if translation can or should be used as primary. Lets get a second opinion.


#3 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... - The last book has an author so remove the reference to this profile


Once the profile is empty a script will delete it. If there any followers should be merged with the profile that is assigned to the editions they have shelved (If possible)

I would use Unknown for both, adding translator into secondary position

I have consolidated a number but these need Unknown as the primary author still

https://www.goodreads.com/work/editio...

https://www.goodreads.com/work/editio...

Did the Joseph Dunn ones.

Re the Anonymous ones, I'm wondering if that's what we should be using, considering the author description includes "They are traditional stories not attributed to a specific author" --?

(Ducking out of the way of the worms coming out of that can ...)

#6 I was wondering as well. What is the general difference between Unknown and Anonymous. Does the latter implies the writer chose not to make his name known?

That would be the case for modern books, but really old ones would be quite a different situation I'm thinking. And this story was around long before it was ever printed. (The whole Unknown/Anonymous thing is a bit confusing.)

I agree. The "author" will differ from whoever first recorded it in writing.

I found this older topic where Rivka confirmed folk stories should be Unknown (I assume various would be for collections of stories)

Which makes the description sentence from Anon. even more confusing, as folk stories would be traditional stories not attributed to a specific author.

Just to add to the can of worms: Adaptations... If a work by, say, Dickens, is adapted, then we put the adaptor first, but with fairy tales I often see the "Anonymous" first and the adaptor second. I think we might need to revisit the policy here to clarify it.

Thanks Ellie and the rest. I'll look over the manual tonight.