An Observation - Take It for What It Is

Just because you know an author has a middle name or initial or goes by another name, if it's not on the cover of his/her book, it shouldn't be there. I keep finding books that don't alphabetize correctly because whoever originally entered the book decided the author didn't really know what he wanted on his/her book and corrected it in LIBRARYTHING. Another pet peeve that causes alpha problems is a person who decides multiple authors should be listed alphabetically instead of how the authors decided to list them on the book. If Author Z is listed first before Author P, A, and D, then that's the way it should be listed in LIBRARYTHING. Not changed to Author A, D, P, and then Z. I figure these people made the decision and it's not my right to change it. For example some people figure that Jerry Jenkins should be listed before Tim LaHaye although Tim is always listed first when they write together.
Sorry for the rant - just spent a while trying to figure why an author's book wasn't showing up with the rest of his books and finally noticed it had a middle initial added. And yesterday I had to figure out why a LaHaye/Jenkins book wasn't listed with the rest of them. Wasted my time.
And don't tell me I should fix these when we pull the books into our inventory. I am not always the one making the entry and others don't always notice. I'm usually the one fixing them on the back end.
Thanks.

It may not be the various members doing it, it may be the way the source had it entered. In fact if your catalogue is affected, it is from the source you used, and has to be fixed in your entry.

Entering older books from Amazon is a good way to end up with a lot of garbage data.

>2 MarthaJeanne: I understand. My gripe was toward the source who entered the info. If it was entered correctly to begin with all of us who use that entry later wouldn't have to correct it when we pulled it into our inventory. But my point was people should not decide the author and publisher didn't know what they were doing and "correct" their entries with a full name or re-alphabeting multiple authors, etc. I've even seen somebody put an author's real name on a book written under a pseudonym. They use pseudonyms for a reason. Oh well, I'm just in a gripey mood today.

Excuse me, but I'll enter my authors the way that's useful to me not you, which mostly aligns with how libraries enter them (and they often use the middle initial regardless whether it's on your particular cover or not). For one thing, author names on covers are not always consistent across titles or even different editions of the same book.

For your own data, choose the source that uses the one you want or edit it afterwards. Problem solved.

>4 SandraArdnas: I keep forgetting LIBRARYTHING has no rules and lets everybody do whatever. My apology for expecting otherwise. I'll keep fixing things and keep my gripes to myself.

>1 NAPUBLIB: Careful what you wish for. I've seen a book with the cover stating that it was Jules Verne: Kidnapped (rather than Stevenson). I.e. the cover is not always right. How about character sets and different translitterations of say the same Russian author. Just saying that it isn't simple.

>5 NAPUBLIB: You're not fixing things. You're imposing your own opinion/preference, which is not shared by me or the libraries

If you use Amazon data, you get Amazon data. If you use library data (Overcat), you get library data. Your catalogue has the data you chose to import. It is not usually something somebody else in LT has decided to impose. That can sometimes happen at work level, but never at book level.

>3 NAPUBLIB:

My gripe was toward the source who entered the info.

Looking at the first few pages of your catalog, it appears that your primary source is Amazon.com. So they are the people to complain to if the data you pull from them is bad.

"Source Books
Amazon.com 6,656
Amazon.co.uk 257"

out of 7520 total.

BTW, one of your covers https://www.librarything.com/work/324299/book/232870232 shows Jerry B Jenkins before Tim LaHaye. Using other authors correctly will show books on both pages.

Do you have multiple authors appended together in the author field. You should definitely fix that

>1 NAPUBLIB: I find that having a bit of understanding or compassion while on this site is a really good thing.

Yes, there are a lot of users who want very good and accurate data. But, there are also those who simply want a simple list so that they don't rebuy or reread books by accident. If the author is slightly wrong in someway it's not a big deal to them.

Neither is the "right way" to use the site.

>10 MarthaJeanne: I've already fixed it. That's what I'm actively doing. It's one of the reasons for my complaint. Had more than one book with Jenkins listed before LaHaye altho the book cover and title page clearly indicates LaHaye as the first listed. Thanks.

>11 jjwilson61: No. We use the additional author fields as designed.

Just checking; if we combine authors eg Arthur Clarke and Arthur C. Clarke, doesn't that resolve the middle initial issue?

It is usually not a good idea to combine an author name with and without the initial. It gets messy if they habe to be separated because of another author with a different initial.

Besides, no, it doesn't really resolve the issue because the different forms still exist in your catalogue and don't alphabetize together. And if I click on the bit that says I have 29 books by him, it takes me to a list of 19 books.

You could use MarcEdit and edit your source data in batch before loading into librarything. Works for me, amazon data is terrible.

>17 zetetic23: I agree that Amazon data isn't good. But I'm not sure how to use MarcEdit to fix it. So I'd like to know in details what you do and which fields you import.

>17 zetetic23: Actually, recent Amazon data by Amazon isn't usually bad, and may be available before libraries have entered a book. Amazon data that is on older books is usually from one of their marketplace partners, and is often very bad.

>18 bnielsen: It is not a quick or easy thing to teach. You first need to familiarise yourself with MARC records, then use MarcEdit with a free z39.50 source. I usually import nearly all fields from the records I get and the ones I don't are for various boring and/or complicated reasons. You can get the same or similar data quality from Overcat but for some time it seemed to be not working well so I turned to MarcEdit because I know it well from work. It lets me do batch edits before import.

I agree sometime Amazon data is okay, and they would definitely beat libraries often because they have a selling incentive and have way more resources than any library.

>20 zetetic23: Thanks. I know MARC records fairly well, but mostly from writing scripts that read them. I was curious as to how you came from book data from say amazon and then to something that would be worthwhile to import. Thanks. (I use yaz-client to get data.)

>21 bnielsen: If you already understand MARC records them just download MarcEdit and go for it, and if you are writing scripts I asum,e you have more than enough knowledge to self teach as I did. The mailing list is great for help when you get past the basics.

Mentioned above, we always use the authors details as on the title page and not the cover - way back in library school we were told the title page belongs to the author and publisher, the cover to the marketing department!

>22 zetetic23: I guess I just wanted to know if it was worth the hazzle to download a marc record, edit it, and import it, rather than import into LT and edit it there. I'm still not sure what the benefits are, but I can see it a possible way of importing data and it's always good to have more than one way to do things.

>18 bnielsen: & >24 bnielsen: Just briefly reading what the OP has mentioned, they could pull a MARC record that "works" but maybe has author data in the order they don't want or using initials, etc. They could use MARCEdit to correct those elements and then load the records to LT. I think it's a matter of how much data is in the MARC record. If all you have is 245abc (title, remainder of title, statement of responsibility), that's pretty much a crap record. Barely even a stub record. Or if you grab a sort of similar (maybe a different edition?) MARC record, edit the record to the correct edition...that makes sense.

More about MARC and LT: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/LibraryThing_and_MARC -- including what fields are imported and exported.

>25 lesmel: Thanks. My personal conclusion is that it is not worth the hazzle. But that's probably because the library sources work fine for me.