Common Knowledge: Names, Relationships and Events
Chris and I have introduced four new Common Knowledge fields, for authors and works.
Author Names. LibraryThing's author system is personally libertarian and globally democratic. You can change your own author names to your heart's delight. On the global level author names are combined and separated by members, with the most common name ending up on top.
That system has two main problems. First, Library has no good method for separatin out homonymous authors. (It's a big problem; it's on our list.) And most-common logic has its limitations, particularly in picking the best name for an author and in laying out what the many variants mean.
To improve things we've added a number of optional name fields. "Canonical name" was already there, as a foolproof way to set the "most common" form. To this we've added "Legal name" and "Other names."
"Legal Name" is provided for users who want to record the most accurate, most fiddly form of a name, eg., "George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron." It can hold multiple names, to capture given names, and so forth.* "Other names" is for pen names, aliases, stage names, etc.
Two examples should illustrate the differences nicely:
Relationships. We've also added a "Relationships" field, intended to capture when an author's spouse, son or other relative is also an author (eg., Martin Amis). So far at least, it's only intended to capture author-to-author relations, creating author-page links. LibraryThing can't be a all-out genealogy site!*
The result can be rather fun. Starting from Isabel Fonseca, author of Attachment you can now go to well-known British novelist Martin Amis, to his well-known father Kingsley Amis, to his second wife, the British novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard, to her first huband Peter Scott, a popular naturalist whose father was Robert Falcon Scott (Scott of the Antarctic) and godfather Peter Pan author J. M. Barrie, great grandfather of Kevin Bacon (not true).
Events. We've also added an "Important Events" field to works. "Important Events" now follows "Persons" and "Important Places." It was designed for events like the Great Fire of London, World War II or the 2000 Election.
As with Important Places, it is useful to agree on terms. CK's autocomplete function helps there. When in doubt, however, I'd go with the Wikipedia form for both fields.
*Porn names not allowed.
**I'm not so sure about "friend" relationships, although that's currently allowed. I found it difficult enough to reach an end from Isabel Fonseca. With friends, I don't think I could have ever stopped.
Author Names. LibraryThing's author system is personally libertarian and globally democratic. You can change your own author names to your heart's delight. On the global level author names are combined and separated by members, with the most common name ending up on top.
That system has two main problems. First, Library has no good method for separatin out homonymous authors. (It's a big problem; it's on our list.) And most-common logic has its limitations, particularly in picking the best name for an author and in laying out what the many variants mean.
To improve things we've added a number of optional name fields. "Canonical name" was already there, as a foolproof way to set the "most common" form. To this we've added "Legal name" and "Other names."
"Legal Name" is provided for users who want to record the most accurate, most fiddly form of a name, eg., "George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron." It can hold multiple names, to capture given names, and so forth.* "Other names" is for pen names, aliases, stage names, etc.
Two examples should illustrate the differences nicely:
| Canonical Name: | Twain, Mark |
| Legal Name: | Clemens, Samuel Langhorne |
| Other Names: | Snodgrass, Quintus Curtius |
| Canonical Name: | Rice, Anne |
| Legal Name: | Rice, Howard Allan Frances O’Brien O'Brien, Howard Allen (given) |
| Other Names: | Rampling, Anne Roquelaure, A. N. |
Relationships. We've also added a "Relationships" field, intended to capture when an author's spouse, son or other relative is also an author (eg., Martin Amis). So far at least, it's only intended to capture author-to-author relations, creating author-page links. LibraryThing can't be a all-out genealogy site!*
The result can be rather fun. Starting from Isabel Fonseca, author of Attachment you can now go to well-known British novelist Martin Amis, to his well-known father Kingsley Amis, to his second wife, the British novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard, to her first huband Peter Scott, a popular naturalist whose father was Robert Falcon Scott (Scott of the Antarctic) and godfather Peter Pan author J. M. Barrie, great grandfather of Kevin Bacon (not true).
Events. We've also added an "Important Events" field to works. "Important Events" now follows "Persons" and "Important Places." It was designed for events like the Great Fire of London, World War II or the 2000 Election.
As with Important Places, it is useful to agree on terms. CK's autocomplete function helps there. When in doubt, however, I'd go with the Wikipedia form for both fields.
*Porn names not allowed.
**I'm not so sure about "friend" relationships, although that's currently allowed. I found it difficult enough to reach an end from Isabel Fonseca. With friends, I don't think I could have ever stopped.
Labels: authors, common knowledge, new features
posted by Tim at 12:21 AM
10 Comments:
Re Legal Name - What goes in as legal name when there are known to be several homonymous authors?
Nowhere in the CK prompt for relationships does it say that the relationship needs to be of that of another author. I think that hint needs to be included in the prompt or we will, indeed, turn into a genealogy site (not that I mind). I made that mistake of not knowing (and am correcting it now). I think others might make the same mistake without a prompt.
Okay, just did Mary Shelley and that was fun.
For asymmetric relations, there probably needs to be some note about which relation status goes where. You seem to be using the convention that John Doe having a CK field that says "Richard Roe (father)" means that Richard is John's father; my initial instinct was the other way around.
Now that I think about it, just including an example like Mary Shelley (wife) would probably be enough to make it clear.
What about relationships to authors who do not have a LibraryThing page? (Because, for instance, they are listed as a co- author and therefore don't have their own page?)
I am still relatively new to Library Thing but I'm liking it and appreciate all of the work you put into it
What about a field to point to the external official website of the author if any?
Thanks for working so hard on -- and being creative with tools for -- author authorities. It really is interesting the information that accrues.
I had no idea Anne Rice's name was Howard. Had to look that up myself. No look up was necessary re:J M Barrie's relationship with Kevin Bacon, however. I trust you.
Test.
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