Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

Or maybe this belongs in the Questions folder ...

1. If an author profile has no books, but does have quotes, what is the effect of merging such an author? Do the quotes automatically move to the merged author?

2. Is it preferable to add a book title to the book from which the quote comes? If so, how can you tell which in the list is the work with the most editions? Does it come up first in the list?

I haven't worked much with quotes (can you tell?). I might have other questions, but these are the two most recent.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "1. If an author profile has no books, but does have quotes, what is the effect of merging such an author? Do the quotes automatically move to the merged author?"

Yes.

I do not understand the second question.

The author I encountered this with today (and I've fixed) was

Upton Sinclair - The Jungle (The book title was part of the author profile)

So there was a quote from his book, The Jungle. But the Upton Sinclair profile needs a lot of combining so when I clicked to add The Jungle to the quote, a whole list of that title came up. (Not sure how many, but 7 or 8 or more, I think.) So if I had chosen to add the book to the quote, would the first in the list be the right one?

If and when I (or someone) gets around to combining, does it matter which is chosen that it would move to the combined work regardless?

Combining should be done first. That way the work will only show up once on the list of option.

Although it should show up on the combined work regardless if that is done later.

Thanks, I thought as much - the combining first. (Combining on that author could be a multi-day job. I wasn't up to it.)

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "1. If an author profile has no books, but does have quotes, what is the effect of merging such an author? Do the quotes automatically move to the merged author?"

The author name displayed on the quote will still be the incorrect version, even though the profile itself is merged.

Examples:
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/3199...
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9275...
Both have no period after the initial, even though that author profile no longer exists.

Some other remarks about quotes and linking them to a book.

- When there is a book attached to a quote, editing the quote might remove the book.

Example: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9320...
The quote is linked to Dragon's Teeth, but when you click edit, on the edit page the book is no longer selected. When you go back a page in your browser, or close the tab, nothing will happen and the book will still be attached. When you save, the book will be deleted from the quote.
[I think this happens when an edition that is not the most popular edition is linked to the quote.]

- As for the order of books in the drop down menu:
There is a difference in how the books are ordered. When adding a quote, or when picking the right author when editing a quote, the drop down menu is in alphabetical order*, making it very difficult to select the right book. If you correct the author on the quote, save, and edit the quote to add the book, the drop down menu is in order of popularity.

* ETA: and books where the author is the primary author are mixed with books where the author is not primary. So even when adaptations or editions like study guides or Cliff Notes editions are listed correctly with another author as primary author, they will all show up in alphabetical order, making it very hard to pick the right edition.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "So there was a quote from his book, The Jungle. But the Upton Sinclair profile needs a lot of combining so when I clicked to add The Jungle to the quote, a whole list of that title came up. "

I've combined all editions of The Jungle (and checked his other books and combined where needed).

You went the extra mile. :-)