Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

Howdy!

I recently requested a name change for a book, and through the ensuing discussion was informed that every book's primary author ought to be the name the book originally was published under (regardless of the name used on the cover of that edition of the book).

There has been confusion on my part because of a discrepancy in the librarians' manual, so it seems that the wording of the manual and help topic ought to be changed so as to conform to the actual practice of Goodreads librarians.

Here is a link to the conversation: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Here is a link to the help topic: https://www.goodreads.com/help/show/4...

The first paragraph of the help topic (dealing with authors of "multiple names") clearly states that a book's primary author should be set as the name appearing on the cover of that particular edition.

The second paragraph (dealing with authors of "pen names") clearly states that a book's primary author should be set as the name the book originally was published under (regardless of the name appearing on the cover of that edition).

If Goodreads treats "multiple names" and pen names as the same thing, updating the manual to avoid this inconsistency would cut down on confusion over which name to set as the primary author.

Thank you!

I actually think rivkas answer was quite clear https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
And as every librarian understand that that way... no need to make wording more complicated than necessary.

Don't have time to elaborate right now, but I too have always found those two paragraphs seemingly contradictory and they would benefit from a clearer wording.

oh really lethe? what would you choose? just something like "differing names" (to get all the "but it's not a different name it's only the initials now but still same name" guys) instead of pen and multiple names?

I remember I once thought swapping them around could be beneficial because changing pen names seem to happen more often and is the more important thing (just my feeling)
But I wondered why that first paragraph even exists because "going by name on cover" was something absolutly obvious to me so didn't see the need to clarify that in such a long paragraph at all (but that's maybe just me)

The only thing I could think of to make it clearer is the following (some of it just formatting options). It still needs tweaking, but it might be a jumping off point for anyone to suggest changes to make the wording clearer for them. Bold just to show changes/additions I made:

Some authors write or have written under multiple names.

For books only published under a single version of the author's name: When editing or adding information for a book written by an author with multiple names, enter the author's name as on the front cover as the primary author. The author's other names may be added in the other author fields. Additional author profiles may be linked directly from the About Me section on the author profile.

For books published under multiple versions of the author's name or published under multiple pseudonyms: The first author listed for any and all editions should be the author name the book was originally published under - so the reissued edition would need its primary author name changed to the originally published pen name, with the additional name added as secondary for all editions with it on the cover. Doing this will allow the various editions to be combined.

Miriam, I must say you cleaned up the confusion quite nicely! It still will be difficult to know if a book has previously been published under a different name, but at least it clears up the multiple name vs pen name confusion. Well done there!

I always interpreted "multiple names" as meaning an author using alternate names but not trying to hide their identity (as opposed to a pen name where they are trying to hide their identity). Your wording in bold makes things far more clear as it specifically defines the groups.

We will see if any changes come of this, but your efforts seem to make the whole issue far more clear. Thank you, Miriam!

Sorry, didn't have time to come back to this yesterday.

I must say Miriam's suggestion is a big improvement, but she (as I did, in my earlier comment) omitted another important group, namely the non-Anglophone authors publishing in multiple languages (dealt with in the paragraph following the author pseudonyms/pen names):

Authors published in multiple languages
Authors with books published in multiple languages should have their names dealt with similarly to those with pen names. All editions should have the primary author name as the standard or most common Roman (that is, English-language) version of the author's name. Editions published under another spelling of the name or the name in another language should have that name listed as the secondary author. Additional author profiles may be linked directly from the About Me section on the author profile.

I think this part of the manual could be made clearer by starting off with a sentence such as:
"In general, the author's name should be entered as it appears on the cover.", followed by:
"Exceptions:"*
Then Miriam's rewritten paragraphs, and another exception to the last paragraph, explaining that for non-Anglophone authors who have been translated into English (or other languages using the Roman alphabet), the English/international version of the name should be the first name on all editions of all their works, and the name as it appears on the cover second (and to leave out the first sentence of the current paragraph, because it is quite the opposite of how authors with pen names are treated).

(This means that English editions of books by Tatyana Tolstaya should have that name as the author, and Russian editions of her books should have Tatyana Tolstaya first and Татьяна Толстая second. Dutch editions should have Tatyana Tolstaya first and Tatjana Tolstaja second, etc.
And György Konrád should have George Konrád as primary author name on all his works, because for some idiotic reason that is how he is known in English :P)

* ETA "Exceptions" is not really the right word, because the name should always be entered as it appears on the cover, just not always in primary position.

Explicitly stating "This rule supersedes/overrides all other rules" or something of that nature in the multiple names rule, would help too.

I'd have a go at rewriting the rules, but you know I'd just make it 3x longer and 5x as confusing as it already is :)

Definitely room in the manual for more clarity! Thank you for your contributions lethe and Krazykiwi. Hopefully this conversation leads to some improvements.

bump

Have to say I like the suggested wording change to the rules. It does make it more clear and definitive.

So is there a way to make an official request for a change in the manual, or do we just hope someone higher up feels the need to change?

Barry wrote: "So is there a way to make an official request for a change in the manual, or do we just hope someone higher up feels the need to change?"

I would email support AT goodreads DOT com.

Will do!

You can also post in the Additions to Manual folder:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...

I emailed the GR support desk and received this email back:

"Thanks for bringing this to our attention! I've forwarded it for review by our Librarian team. We are committed to making sure that our Librarian Manual always stays up to date and relevant, so we appreciate the time you took to let us know about this. Unfortunately, I can't make any promises that we will make any changes, but we'll give this our full consideration."

So there we have it - the proposal is being considered. And now we wait and see. :)

Additions to the Manual folder is probably a better place.

Barry, could you change the folder in the topic header to "Additions to the Manual"? I just spent half an hour trying to locate this thread :)

Thanks in advance!

Thank you for this topic, it is helpful and I would like to bump it up.

Hi everyone!

We wanted to let you know that we've reviewed your requests for changes to this section of the manual and we went ahead and updated the topic with the wording you provided in this thread. Thanks so much for the excellent suggestions!

You can see the updated topic here.

Thank you so much for listening to suggestions and making some changes for clarity' sake! Hopefully everyone benefits from these changes.