Canonical Author Names

Rhetorical question?

Same goes for canonical titles.

I still after 7 years have no idea what this is.. Is there a Canonical for dummies?

Because it's an empty slot that MUST be filled! /Sarcasm

I understand the use for canonical tites, because sometimes a title will appear in the format of a sentence. The first letter of the first word is capitalized, then all following letters are upper case. That isn't what must people are used to seeing and I doubt it's how they want their titles to be listed. A canonical title changes the title to a more standard format.

Canonical author is another field which can correct for irregular entry of author names.

Both these fields help maintain consistency across the site.

I use it when someone (be it Amazon or an LT user) has given the author a crapped up name and that has somehow floated to the top. Same with canonical titles.

>6 barney67: It sounds like you're saying that that is how canonical title should be used? Because Tim has explicitly stated that converting sentence case to title case or the other way around is not how the feature is to be used.

Your title will show on the work pages the way you entered/edited it. Canonical title won't change that.

>6 barney67:

Changing title case to sentence case or vice versa is in fact one of the things for which Canonical Title very specifically should NOT be used; it can be used for titles in all caps, or for removing extraneous series information that gets appended to the title by Amazon, and so forth.

Whenever I see a canonical author name, I delete it and then recalculate author name. Many more times than not, the "rise to the top" name is the same as what had been set as canonical. If it isn't, I'll paste the correct name in canonical again.

But really, I have seen so many things get terribly confused because of needless canonical names, I don't set anything there unless it seems really, really necessary, such as: Jr. Joe Smith. I will change that!

>11 PhaedraB: Yep. And I do the same for title if it seems like a no-brainer; sometimes things like "a novel" winding up on it after all after recalculating, in which case I'll fix it back. But it's only sometimes.

>11 PhaedraB:

I always try recalculating first, but that doesn't work consistently.

>12 .Monkey.:

I would leave the "A Novel" if that is the only problem - I really use CN on both authors and books only when the title is unrecognizable or when another language version wins on the English site (for books; for authors it is still always getting the last set one so it is... funny)

Eh, it looks shitty, and if it was already done... Though I don't bother doing it myself for that, only putting it back in if someone else did it.

>14 AnnieMod:

I don't mind "A Novel", but I'll take out "A Foobar Series Book: Book 2 of the Foobar Series", which I've seen come through from Amazon.

>16 lorax:

:) Yeah, these are annoying. Absolutely agree. I'd mostly leave them alone though - someone more annoyed then me can fix them ;)

Now: "Foobar Series:Book Name: Book 2 from Foobar Series" is driving me up a wall.

>18 Collectorator:

What the . . .? Why on earth? (I notice that that is listed as an "other name" as well.)

And "State of Indiana" as an "organization"? Oy.

>18 Collectorator:

The user you name has previous form. They were the subject of this thread about deleting CK:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/179733

According to the other thread, that's a organizational account, so probably someone that doesn't understand the system trying to be helpful again.

My 2 cents. The comment in >5 gilroy: about empty slots was apparently made in jest, but I imagine it's true in many cases, whether it's genuinely "trying to be helpful" or because people are trying to earn CK badges or whatever. You might even find my username in some old CK history made with misguided intentions of trying to be as complete as possible or something.

The in-place description of what those fields are for ("'Lastname, Firstname' as in Tolkien, J.R.R or Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan" and "Authoritative title for a work in the language of the site you are on") don't really suggest to me reasons one shouldn't fill out those fields. I imagine that problematic aspect has already been RSIed somewhere?

Canonical Title has an additional factor to consider. I've seen in some of my old ULTBs that I actually put a canonical title on them. Apparently the recalculation feature didn't exist back then, so it was often the only way to make the title appear without Amazon-garbled diacritics on the author's page, despite my efforts to clean it up in my catalog first. For some people, it might be the only way they know how to make the title look they way the have/want it on the author page.

Haven't been around LT for a while, so sorry for reviving this dormant thread.

I see that Collectorator posted a link to this thread on my comments wall on 5 June. I am guilty of adding a canonical title to every work I add to my library. As well, I try to remember to assign a canonical name to every author associated with works in my library. I do this for two reasons. Firstly, to correct/standardize titles and names; and secondly, to prevent garbage coming from search sources (e.g., Amazon) from messing up the work or author later.

Although these habits have helped earn badges, badges are not my motive.

This sounds consistent with what barney67 is saying, but if I should discontinue this practice, please let me know.

>24 arjaygee: Please stop. Canonical titles usually only make sense if the work title has information in it which is not part of the title. You will see your form of the title on work pages if you have entered the book. If you don't like what you see, edit that. CK won't change it anyway.

Canonical names for authors are almost always a bad idea.

Correcting title case is not a reason to add a Canonical title.
The titles should show the way they are in your catalog for you when you are logged in, so the first place to correct/standardize them would be in your own catalog.

I have found that many titles from Amazon do, in fact, have information that is not part of the title. The titles from Amazon frequently contain series information and search words. The titles of the vast majority of non-English books contain, e.g. "(French edition)."

I find this situation so frequently that I add the canonical title out of habit.

I have also found that, at least for older titles, many author names from Amazon are received as (for example) "Aflalo, F. G. (Frederick George)."

Would someone kindly point me to a thread that identifies the problem caused by the practice of routinely entering canonical names? It actually seems like it would have a tendency to reduce the need for combining works and authors.

>27 arjaygee: You might do better to use another source to add your books where possible, besides Amazon.

It doesn't reduce the need to combine. It just makes it harder.

MarthaJeanne, please explain.

>27 arjaygee: Try correcting on your book first. The information on the work page comes from the books in individual catalogs so correcting the title on your book just might fix the title on the work page without you having to enter a canonical title. You may need to click the recalculate title button on the work page first though.

Work titles and author names on author pages are supposed to reflect the most common way the work has been entered on LT. As has been said, if you own a copy of the book, that is not what you will see, anyway, you will see the title and the author exactly as you have entered and edited them in your own catalog. Setting a canonical title or name affects the site as a whole, not just your catalog and the way you see things, so caution should be used.

Tim has repeatedly said that canonical fields are not to be used to set your preferences, only to fix obvious errors. If the work title that rises to the top has extraneous Amazon info in it, yes, that is a situation where it is appropriate to set a canonical title. If an author name is displaying as "Jr. John Smith" or "ed. John Smith" or "Joan Smith ed." or the like, yes, set a canonical name.

However, canonical fields -- according to Tim over many years of discussion -- should not be used to change titles to your personal title case preferences, nor to the variant subtitle on your copy which you prefer, or to John Ronald Reuel Tolkien if you prefer that to J.R.R. Tolkien.

If I find a canonical name or title set where it is not obvious why, I cut the canonical and use recalculate author/title. If the name that rises to the top is the same as what was set as the canonical, I leave that field blank. If the name/title has obvious errors, I paste the canonical back in.

In short, if the field is used as it was designed to be used, it shouldn't provoke edit wars. If it is, one or the other party is probably not using it correctly.

>32 PhaedraB: And just to clarify PhaedraB's note: "Work title that rises to the top" is not the same as "Work title as it appears in your catalog." Rather, it's the title as it appears on the "Work-Only Work Page"

For me, I think the main reason not to do so is that it can obscure what things actually represent. I'll give an example from the other day when I was doing some author splitting. The pages for Dick Schneider and Richard H. Schneider had been combined, but Dick Schneider (schneiderdick) had "won out", so somebody put a canonical name of "Schneider, Richard H." on schneiderdick, even though there are actually two Richard H. Schneiders and it's unlikely that the other one publishes as Dick (not to mention that Dick ≠ Richard H.). So not only was a separation needed before any splitting could be done, but also an undoing of the canonical name on schneiderdick, because it can represent more than RHS. Another user might not have understood all of this and erroneously split schneiderdick instead, because the page appeared to represent just Richard H.

Canonical titles on works can also obscure a lot of what's really behind the scenes in all of the "editions".

I've also seen cases where a book has been autocombined into the wrong work, and the owner has put that title into canonical title instead of separating the book out. Luckily, we see the editions when combining books, so it is less likely that someone will combine on the basis of that title, but it can happen.

Only a few days ago I saw a case where combining had resulted in a work having three (different) canonical titles in English!

I've seen lots of cases like the one in >34 omargosh: that were very confusing until a canonical name was removed, and then everything was easy to sort out.

If you care about things being accurate, your best bet is to avoid Amazon on older books. Then make sure your title and author are as accurate as you can make them.

If you feel that in a particular case a canonical title is needed:
1 Click on recalculate title/author first.
2 Check the editions page to see what sort of variety of titles are there.
3 Remember that just because your copy has a long subtitle doesn't mean that every copy does. Different editions often have at least different subtitles. (Often enough there will even be different subtitles on the cover and title page of the same copy.) Sometimes publishers use different titles in different countries. Your copy is not authoritative! If you must add a canonical title, use a shorter form that will be acceptable to all owners of the book.

It does not make sense to put in a canonical title or author unless you have first changed your title or author to match what you want LT to show.

Collectorator ---

I was hoping to be provided some examples of why this practice should change before actually starting to do things differently. I added those canonical names between 18.00 and 19.00 on 12 June. No examples were provided until 12.16 the following morning. (Thank you, omargosh.)

I'm thinking there ought to be more information available on the CK help page. What's there may serve to encourage users to enter canonical data (as it did me), rather than discouraging them from it. When I read the help page shortly after joining LT, I certainly got the impression that entering canonical data would add value.

>37 arjaygee:
I'm thinking there ought to be more information available on the CK help page.


We've been asking that for years.

MarthaJeanne ---

Thank you for the three step program. That is helpful.

FYI, when I was focused on entering physical books, I avoided Amazon like the plague. I am now trying to catalog e-books. In many cases, there are no other decent sources for those.

>39 arjaygee: OhioLINK has an amazing number of the e-books I have looked for.

>37 arjaygee:

Regarding authors (just authors, not books):
When you add a Canonical name of an author on the English side, it becomes canonical for ALL sites (last set wins). Than includes Cyrillic languages, Chinese and so on. Titles do not work this way but authors do. That is why adding CN to an author should really be last resort - it messes up the views of a lot of people. (sometimes you need to add it because someone on the non-English side set it and you need to redo it but that is a different story)

The other, slightly more technical problem is that when you add CN to an author, it can hide a combination issue that is underlying.

As for canonical titles - I would rather not put one unless if the one coming on top is really bad - ":A Novel" at the end will not make me do it; "Book 2 from Series 1:Title: The Second book from Series" will make me change it if it is the one winning :) Junk at the end of the title? I'd probably just leave it there - it is annoying but it is not blocking sorting or recognizing the book....

Because I have a lot of time on my hands. Does this create a problem?

Yes.

Just because someone misuses it (or uses it weirdly), does not mean it does not have legitimate applications. Just saying...

>48 Collectorator: That canonical name was added more than 6 years ago, while the 2 books on the author page were added well after that. So the author page was certainly different at that time and we can't possibly know now whether adding the canonical name was the right thing to do at that point.

>51 Collectorator: Those works were added to LibraryThing in 2012 and 2017, while the canonical name was set in 2011, so their existence is irrelevant to the state of that author page when the canonical name was set. Also neither of the owners of those books are the person who set the canonical name. We don't know if the author page was empty when the canonical name was set. We don't know if it was combined with another author for which setting the canonical name was the right thing to do (or not)

I'm not saying that setting canonical name is always (or even often) a good idea, I'm just saying this example is not evidence in either direction.

>53 Collectorator: Maybe there were works in 2011, but they have since been removed or combined with other works. We don't know.

And whatever works may or may not have been on the page for grothschmachtenberge it seems unlikely that "Mayer-Krausz, Franz" would have been a sensible Canonical Name for that page.

Not a question on canonical names, per se; what is the standard way to record suffixes on LT?

Facemire Jr., Glen ?

It's the comma between last name and suffix that confuses me.

Enter the name as "Lastname, Firstname, Jr." and it will be displayed as "Firstname Lastname, Jr."

>59 r.orrison: Thank you!

Hello. I know this is not appropriate for this discussion but I just joined and have a couple of questions . Is there a place to contact other members?

Also, I requested some books to read. I see them listed but I don't know how to access them. Can I read them on my tablet

Thanks for your help.

>61 Annettelillyruss:

For future reference, the appropriate thing would be to start a thread in Talk About LibraryThing: http://www.librarything.com/groups/sitetalk

Is there a place to contact other members?

You can leave a message on the person's profile, assuming that she allows comments.

I requested some books to read. I see them listed but I don't know how to access them. Can I read them on my tablet

You cannot read books on this site. This is a site for cataloguing books.

You might want to Take the Tour: http://www.librarything.com/tour/

>61 Annettelillyruss: https://www.librarything.com/groups/welcometolibrarythin is also a good place to post questions that you have as a newcomer to the site.

Hey, quick poll: Specifically, if the author is from a non-English speaking country that uses accent marks on Roman letters (which English speakers typically leave off due to either the extra steps required by an English keyboard or because they don't recognize/understand the difference), is it appropriate to set the canonical name with the correct spelling in its native orthography?

Personally, I think the accented spelling should prevail. The accent marks don't materially affect the way non-$LANGUAGE speakers read the name, while the lack of them can be like nails on a chalkboard for the people who do. At the very least, they should be used when the English version of the name is completely different from the original name (e.g. María can be Maria, but François should stay François)

I think it also matters how the author name is printed in the English language books.

I think it's fine to use Canonical Name to include accent marks and other variations of letters that don't exist in the English alphabet when appropriate.

I'd add that another case where I deviate from the "official" definition of Canonical Name is for trans author who published extensively under their dead ("original") names. I'll use "Other names" and the disambiguation notice to refer to the names they published under, but I regard that as a discarded pseudonym where placing it front and center could be painful for the author.

(I am not going to link to any examples. I don't want to draw the attention of the transphobes to these authors.)

>65 MarthaJeanne: Yeah, that makes sense too, though the reason why this even came up has to do with the accented name not being part of the author's actual penname. See, the name Voltaire is actually used by two authors, so that page is split into "voltaire-1" and "voltaire-2" as you'd expect, but then voltaire-1 is also aliased into François Voltaire, which is a weird kind of compromise name between the penname and his real name, François-Marie Arouet. Apparently enough people have attributed their Voltaire books to "Francois Voltaire" to make that the default name. The compromise name is fine by me, but oof that c sans cédille spelling. Like I said, nails on chalkboard. FYI to anyone who doesn't speak French, those are pronounced significantly differently.

Anyway, the point is the name is so rarely used on English publications of his works, so we can't exactly point to those to arbitrate. OTOH, English Wikipedia uses "François" when it has to, which I think should be good enough.

>66 lorax: I do that with trans authors too, it just too bad we can't select what the URL should be.

Someone has now changed that to Voltaire which should not happen, seeing as there is a Voltaire disambiguation page.

Francois Voltaire 'winning' in the various more complete names is the result of people having entered Zadig & L'Ingenu through Amazon. They have since switched to Voltaire, but there are over 100 members with the bad data.

I rather like Voltaire (François Marie Arouet ) which is one of the other names combined in there. I am removing Voltaire.

>68 MarthaJeanne: I am definitely against letting Amazon's data dictate what counts as canonical, lol.

Amazon data on older books is one major reason why we need canonical names and titles. Anyway, fill the canonical name in as you see fit, with something that is not just Voltaire.