Although as I've said I'll be giving merging a miss, a couple of points.
Changing a name to a fuller one will conflict with the image of a book's cover.
If additional facts are not known, presumably as a temporary measure an extra
letter or some signal can be added to an author's name so as to be able to
make an exclusion while carrying out the complex merging procedure?
Afterwards the name needs to have the signal removed. Does that make sense?
----- Original Message -----
From: "George Oates" <[email protected]>
To: "Open Library -- general discussion" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, March 28, 2011 7:41 PM
Subject: Re: [ol-discuss] Merging authors
> Putting a fuller name in the main author field might also help people choose
> this particular James Smith over others...
>
> On 3/27/11 10:23 AM, Alan Millar wrote:
>> On Mar 25, 2011, at 4:07 PM, Alan Merryweather wrote:
>>> I want to be really sure about the style of name of an author.
>>>
>>> If a book is published, written by J Smith and that name is on the title
>>> page, how am I to signify that his full name is James Arthur Smith?
>>
>>
>> I agree that the author record should normally have the name most commonly
>> used by the author.
>>
>> As mentioned, you can put James Arthur Smith in the "alternate names" field
>> on the author record. You could also put a short statement in the author
>> description field.
>>
>> However, if most of the time he is known as James Arthur Smith, and this
>> book is an exception, I would put James Arthur Smith in the author record,
>> and edit the edition record to say J Smith in the "by statement" field (turn
>> on "librarian mode" to see this field).
>>
>> - Alan
>>
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