Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

I am a little confused. What rules should be used for selecting the name fo a series?

I am looking at:

Celebration in Purple Sage by Barbara Burnett Smith. I just became a librarian so I could fix the edition I have, since it didn't show up as part of series. Turned out the author name was wrong, the series info was missing, and it wasn't linked to other versions. I've tried to fix all that (and someone is welcome to check that I didn't mess up if they know how).

But I am confused as to the selection of "Purple Sage" as the series name. The cover of the book clearly says "A Jolie Wyatt Mystery," which to me means the series name should be Jolie Wyatt not purple sage. Of course Purple Sage is included in the title of all versions, so that might make sense to some readers.

So far I have just followed the preexisting terminology so as not to make a mess, but I'd like to know what I should be doing and why.

Thanks for the help!

Looks like the series info may have been taken from:

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/s/b... since the author does not appear to have a website.

This is the guidance the manual gives:

When deciding on what series name to use, it is best to use what the author uses. This can often be found by checking the author's official website. If there doesn't appear to be an official series name, it can be helpful to check the GR database to see how the other books in the series are labeled. If no series name is found, think of a label that best names the series in a descriptive, concise way and use that label for all books in the series. It's important that books in a series be labeled with the same series name so other users will know what books go together.

Right. My research has turned up that the author is dead. The closest to an "official" website I have found is one belonging to the real town of Purple Sage, Texas, who would have a good reason to want the series named after them.

I seem to find many google hits on both "Julie Wyatt Mysteries" and "Purple Sage Mysteries".

I feel inclined to leave it as-is but that is mostly new-librarian jitters and a consideration of the work involved, since all editions and titles would need to be renamed if I insisted on changing it.

I don't have all the volumes of the series (at least not that I know of so far) and there seem to be multiple publishers involved. So although MY book says "A Jolie Wyatt Mystery," others in the series may say "A Purple Sage Mystery" or the series could be referred to as such by one of the other publishers. Worldwide only mentions "Other Books by Barbara Burnett Smith" when listing other titles--no series naming.

Her other series is done by the character name both on other sites and in Goodreads, which does make this use of Purple Sage even more inconsistent.

I am at the least relieved that linking this edition in to the others turned up lots more reviews and ratings. I was a little surprised that a book I liked so well had so little attention.

Rebecca wrote: "Right. My research has turned up that the author is dead. The closest to an "official" website I have found is one belonging to the real town of Purple Sage, Texas, who would have a good reason to ..."

I would leave the title as is and just write in the series description field "Also known as Jolie Wyatt series".

Thank you! I did not know that was possible. I have now done exactly that.

Not quite relevant, but no change log messages when editing series?

(I used to work in tech, so I'm used to leaving very clear changelog messages)

Some, but they're limited.

With some series, multiple "series names" are used. For example:
Dead Witch Walking (Rachel Morgan/The Hollows #1).