Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

As was recently discussed in the please-add thread, the master list of disambiguated authors is out of date for the simple reason that maintaining it is way too much for one volunteer.

So we are thinking of replacing it with a different way of dealing with these authors, instead of a list that someone has to maintain. The new feature/tool is still being tweaked, but you can already see it on author edit pages.

Under "librarian edits" and "disambiguate" you will now see a link to "similar names". Here's an example of what you'll see:
Authors named John Murray

So, what do y'all think?

I think I like it...so if we see someone who has a book incorrectly attributed to them, we click "similar names" and see this list...am I following? Then we find the *right* one, and click..."disambiguate?"

This is looking so much easier...I know one author on here (a friend) who is being credited with books that aren't hers, but I haven't had the oomph to try and find if there's more than two Laurie Whites, and don't want to hand a mess to someone else.

I like it. Boy, are there enough John Murrays!

Do we still need to post to the Disambiguate Thread if there is no list to update?

Looks great, off to find someone to work on :)

The "disambiguate" link has already existed (on all author edit pages) and is quite cool. The link goes to the disambig page for that author. There are radio buttons to select which books you want to move, and a spot to enter the new author (which cannot be one that already exists, so sometimes you have to create a temporary name and merge it with another).


Sandra wrote: "Boy, are there enough John Murrays!"

Yeah, I picked that one on purpose. ;)


Sandra wrote: "Do we still need to post to the Disambiguate Thread if there is no list to update?"

Nope. That's the beauty of this plan.

Whoot! When can we start?

The feature is live now. Please post here if you have any questions or suggestions.

Sweet!

(I see a bug, by the way -- all of the edit/disambig/log links are for the original author, not the author next to which they're listed. Should we report bugs here or in the feedback group?)

Here is fine. (And good catch! I totally missed that.)

Sweet! But I assume there will be a link on the author profile too somehow, to indicate (a) that other same names exist and (b) give access to the list/a list for non-librarian types?

That is still under discussion.

Hooray! I think this is about a thousand times better than the old way of accomplishing it.

It looks like the title that displays after "author of" is the most popular title for that author (which makes sense). Is that dynamic? (I.e. if the most popular book changes, does the display change, too?)

I think that access to the list for everyone would be wonderful for searching. It can be very hard to find anything by searching for an author's name (e.g. despite the huge number of authors named William Smith in the database, a search on "William Smith" turns up only one in the first two pages of results).

I haven't tried it yet but it looks great. Thanks!

I am liking this :) have been working on John Webster.

One thing that would may help make disambig easier is showing which author is which i.e. number of spaces.

There are four John Websters, and I have to keep looking at their books when I want to add another to their author profile.

We currently note name disambig in the librarian note field. That could be displayed, although other things are written there or have it display problematically?

Paula wrote: "One thing that would may help make disambig easier is showing which author is which i.e. number of spaces."

Otis said that will be added soon.

To add to Cait's message 8, the photo's that display are all for the first profile

http://www.goodreads.com/author/simil...

The tool is cool and it speeds things up but... I may be wrong but when I get to the list of books on offer to disambiguate I only see those where the author is the primary author. If the author is a contributor, the book isn't listed in there. Not possible to add those too? Thanks

Paula wrote: "To add to Cait's message 8, the photo's that display are all for the first profile

http://www.goodreads.com/author/simil... "

If you look at that example, the author links are different, but both use the more popular Christine Feehan's picture.

Cool tool. I don't have anything to change at the moment, but it looks a lot easier to handle.

Oh, how do you get to that page with a Goodreads author, since their profile isn't editable?

Once again, how do we handle Goodreads authors?

Here's an example: http://www.goodreads.com/author/simil...

At least one of the books currently listed with the non-Goodreads author, belongs to the Goodreads author.

If we are no longer maintaining the disambiguation list, how do we know how many spaces a Goodread's author uses?

Once #-spaces are added (which as I mentioned above, Otis already said will be happening), you will be able to see them on the non-GR author's similar-authors page.

Okay. Just my luck that the first one I stumble upon to try is the more complicated type.

I am wanting some confirmation on whether the use of spaces in author names is still acceptable?

rivka wrote: " There are radio buttons to select which books you want to move, and a spot to enter the new author (which cannot be one that already exists, so sometimes you have to create a temporary name and merge it with another)."

I just encountered the "if it already exists" situation when I was disambiguating author "David Booth" and wondered if best practice was still to use the spaces between characters method to distinguish between authors who have all the same characters in their names?

I found myself doing that because the conventional "David^Booth" spelling was used & already populated for most of the unique authors that I had to separate.

The most prolific David Booth was Canadian author David W. Booth I just read his Even Hockey Players Read)and I wanted to refer some people to his work, that's what got me started on this project!

He had over a dozen titles under the author name -"David^Booth" and over a dozen as "David W. Booth".


There were at least five more David Booths with works in the GR catalog, none disambiguated so I disambiguated w/known middle initials or spaces in their names as:
"David A.^ Booth" David A. Booth, A nutritionist
"David^^^Booth" David Booth, A englishman born January 01, 1766
"David R. Booth" David R. Booth, An adjunct professor in the MFA in Writing Program at the University of San Francisco
"David^^ Booth" David Booth An author of books on presentation skills
"David A.^^Booth" David A. Booth, The author of a report on Offshore Technology/bouys.

To disambiguate I changed the author names in the titles by the other five David Booths as above, then merged David Booth and David W. Booth together.

That left me w/no "David^Booth" which seems a little weird? Did I do "the right thing"? Seemed like even using the radio buttons in the disambiguate feature it was correct to create some author names with spaces between characters so there would be a unique/new value to point at when disambiguating these guys?

Natalie wrote: "I am wanting some confirmation on whether the use of spaces in author names is still acceptable?"

Oh yes, absolutely! Sorry if that was unclear. It's only what happens after that which is changing, not the actual disambiguation process.

As to having no David-one-space-Booth, I'd suggest determining (i.e. guessing) which of the multi-space ones seems most likely to have more books added to GR later, and edit that one to have just one space. My guess would be two-space.

Very interesting, this should make life much easier. Looks pretty good too. A few minor points that jump out at me (some of these are replicates from comments of other people, but I'm just going to relist what strikes me):

* Currently the photo being shown is only from the primary author

* To be truly useful to the GR user (as opposed to the GR librarian) there will need to be a link on the profile page: I'd put it in the box at the top, in between the "data" (e.g., born, died, gender, and genre) and the "about this author" section. At that point we could remove the warning from all of the profiles.

* It now lists the number of spaces but in a somewhat problematic way. It simply counts the spaces in the name, so someone with a middle name/initial will have "2 spaces" as will someone without a middle name/initial but who happens to have the double space, thus "Alice^^Adams" and "Alice^A.^Adams" are both listed as having 2 spaces, which is technically correct but potentially confusing. Maybe this isn't a big deal; I'm not sure what the best solution would be anyway. Would it be worth listing the name a second time (in the small text) with the spaces replaced by another symbol for clarity? This would also help with the cases where there were mistakes made, just in case you end up with both "Alice^.A.^^Adams" and "Alice^^A.^Adams" (since both would be listed as 3 spaces and otherwise undistinguishable).

* FYI, GoodReads authors have access to the "similar names" link in their own personal editing of profile and they are also listed on the similar names page if entered from a non-GR author with a similar name.

* Minor bug: at the top of the similar names page is the text: "Authors named John Doe" This is fine if you entered through a "John Doe" and you also get "John A. Doe", "John B. Doe", etc., but it's a little odd if you enter through "John A. Doe" and get a page titled "Authors named John A. Doe" since it lists all of the John Doe's, regardless of middle name/initial. Thus while the title of this page makes sense, this one is sort of incorrect. Instead, the header at the top of the page should read something like "Authors with names similar to John Doe" or the middle/name initial (if it exists) should be stripped out of the header for the page.

This Is Not The Michael You're Looking For wrote: "FYI, GoodReads authors have access to the "similar names" link in their own personal editing of profile"

I had assumed as much, as I can see them there. ;)

Hi, I found out that probably under this author

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

who is an historian with interests in the field of nazi Germany history, there are books listed relating to music.

I don't know how to handle that, I hope this is the right thread.

Here's what I found, I'll start working them.
(Eric A. Johnson) data sheet (b. 7/27/13)
Gardening
Johnson, Eric A., 1956-
biotechnology

Johnson, Eric A., 1965-
(date of birth is Feb. 20, 1965)
Rockford 1900-World War I

Johnson, Eric A., 1979-
A comparison of multiple imputation methods in widely used software packages


Johnson, Eric A. (Eric Arthur), 1948-
crime/Germany

Johnson, Eric Aaron
Knowledge and society, c1994

Ok, I was trying to fix a couple of books assigned to E.E. "Doc" Smith and ended up looking at the similar names in Edward Smith.
http://www.goodreads.com/author/simil...

There are multiple entries in the similar names for "Doc" Smith
Edward Elmer Doc Smith, author of Spacehounds of IPC (Illustrated Version)
and
Edward Elmer Smith, author of The Skylark of Space
Edward E. ("Doc") Smith, author of Getaway World (The Family d'Alembert Series, #4)

But No entry for E.E. "Doc" Smith
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

What is the right was to correct this?

I also added some notes to the "Edward Smith" author due to Multiple "Edward Smiths" but I did not want to make the problem worse by addressing them yet.

If no one else is addressing E.E. "Doc" Smith, I would be willing to do so after later as there are only 4 entries right now in the similar names all of which should be E.E. "Doc" Smith and no entries for all of the other Edwards that keep getting assigned there.

I think I answered my own question. The similar names is just a lookup on the author data base so correcting the author's name addresses the issues I raised, mostly.

It might be nice if it also tracked Disambiguates as Ever Smith with an E seems to get assigned to E.E. "Doc" Smith and that "Similar Names"
http://www.goodreads.com/author/simil...
does not show any other smiths as similar.

Similar names looks at first and last. Asking it to do more than that may be asking too much.

Is there a way to have the list sorted in a meaningful way? The John Murray list shows that this would be really useful. If there are only two names, the need is not so flagrant.

I would suggest to sort by name and then by number of spaces.

Oh, good. The link fixes and change to the pages' titles went live.

As far as sorting, it is using some kind of sorting (it's not actually random), but I confess I don't really understand the criteria.

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post such a request, but when someone has a chance to look at it The Blue Light Project should be attributed to Timothy L. Taylor, not Timothy Taylor. There are a few other books on the Timothy Taylor profile that I suspect should be moved to Timothy L. Taylor, such as the Canadian short story anthologies, but I doubt that he also authored economics and archaeology textbooks. Thanks!

I think I've sorted out the Timothy L. Taylor books, though there's a legal book that might possibly involve a different Timothy L.
There look to be more than one Timothy Taylors left though, and I haven't dealt with that. Anyone working on Timothy might also have to check Tim: http://www.goodreads.com/author/list/... who may also be more than one author. Endless, innit?

Hi, I am confused with that disambiguate feature, as I still cannot figure out how to combine following names:
G. E. Mitton (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...)
Mitton G. E. (Geraldine Edith) (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...)
G. Mitton
(http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...)
into single one author name that already exists:
Geraldine Edith Mitton (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...)
I got lost with these four aliases, maybe there are even more...
There's also an issue, should those names be combined, if the books were published under all those different names even if the author is the same.
Thanks for any clarification. If possible ;-)

Zeljka wrote: "Hi, I am confused with that disambiguate feature, as I still cannot figure out how to combine following names:
G. E. Mitton (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...)
Mitton G. E. (G..."

The disambiguate feature is about separating profiles when two or more authors have the same name, not about combining profiles.

Deborah wrote: "Zeljka wrote: "Hi, I am confused with that disambiguate feature, as I still cannot figure out how to combine following names:
G. E. Mitton (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...)
..."

Ah, sorry, I knocked on the wrong door, then. Thanks for the reply, though! I'll try somewhere else, another time. It's pretty late for me, I still should get up fresh and ready for work tomorrow :-)

Zeljka wrote: "Hi, I am confused with that disambiguate feature, as I still cannot figure out how to combine following names:...

To combine several versions of the same author you go to the ones you want to change, "edit data" and simply change the author's name. It'll affect all the books under that profile. If the new name doesn't exist already you are done fast and nice. If the new name already exist it'll ask you which profile you want to keep.
And think twice ;) Once I made the mistake of combining a father and son authors with the same name. (aaaarg) lol

the_cat wrote: "Zeljka wrote: "Hi, I am confused with that disambiguate feature, as I still cannot figure out how to combine following names:...

To combine several versions of the same author you go to the ones y..."

Now I understand how it should be done, thank you for advice. Of course, I'll check twice before trying anything, on WorldCat and else.

What happens to comment/discussion links for the Author that you do not select when merging?

Looks like nothing to me, they will point to a now non-existent author. Just trying to confirm.

Thanks.

They get moved over to the combined author.

Edit: Ah, correction. No, those cannot be moved. They point based on an invalid author number.

This is great! Perhaps I'm slow, but how do we add a that isn't there yet? For instance, I just came across a bunch of authors who are lumped together as Chris Ryan. The most prolific fellow writes thrillers for adults and juveniles, then there are at others writing on legal, travel, and religious/spiritual topics, numerous teacher's guides, a poet and a narrator.

Cynthia, you still add the extra spaces as before, but no need to list them anywhere specific.

Thanks!

So catching up on the new system...In order to determine the number of spaces to use, we do the following?:
1. go to the author's page (who has books we need to disambiguate author for)
2. click edit profile
3. click similar names
4. find the name we want to change TO and click edit
5. see the number of spaces in the name field
6. (or just copy to clipboard)

Then when we want to update a book's author, we go to the book's page, edit details and paste in the author name?

I'm not missing a cool way to move a book from one similar name to another? It looks like on the disambiguate page our only option is to transfer a book from an existing author to a /new/ author (I got an error if I tried to enter an existing author's name (with appropriate spaces)).

Brian, I usually create a temporary new author, and then merge them with the one with the correct number of spaces. (Unless there are only one or two books, in which case editing them individually is faster.)

Yeah, makes sense. I was sure to combine editions before trying this process out so I could just go straight to the individual book to edit.

But then I found the full list of books under David Mitchell (http://www.goodreads.com/author/list/...) and have decided to put this project aside for a while.... ;)

Some authors are more daunting than others.