I'm going to start up another thread since I can no longer stand to wait for the old one.

My Susan Reynolds the historian is probably different from the Susan Reynolds that wrote the structural engineering books.

I can find no record that the Mark Salter who wrote Why Courage Matters is the same person that wrote Poland : the rough guide.

John Quincy Adams The baptist is not the same as the president. (The president was a congregationalist.) I own Baptists, Thorough Religious Reformers the author was British.

Nancy White is both a singer/song-writer and a writer of children's books.

Charles Williams is both a prolific UK writer of the early 1900's and someone who wrote at least one computer book. I believe the Charles Williams who wrote Dead Calm is someone else as well.

There are at least two authors named Anne Chambers, one is an expert in paper marbling and the other appears to write romance novels.

And I don't think that the Anthony Davis who wrote the opera, Amistad is the same man who writes books on public relations.

My favorite author page, though, must be that of John Preston. The existence of multiple authors of the same name writing on wildly differing subjects leads to this curious conjunction of "related tags": "porn prayer Puritan"!

Message edited by its author, Feb 23, 2007, 4:38pm.

Winston Churchill there is both Sir Winston Spencer Churchill and the American novelist by the same name.

Michael Hahn was a German preacher who never teached the Tibetan language.

The Wallace Brown who wrote Angels on the Walls and Walking on the Moon is my father-in-law. He is no expert on the American Civil War ;-)

Message edited by its author, Feb 24, 2007, 9:57am.

Jeff Cox: Author of wine and garden books (www.jeffcox.net)

Jeff Cox: Author of business novels (www.jeffcox.com)

Thomas Christopher, author of rose and garden books, is probably not the same person as the author of The Archaeology of Medieval London.

Two authors write as Michael A. Kahn.

Michael A. Kahn (b. 1949) wrote: May It Amuse the Court: Editorial Cartoons of the Supreme Court and Constitution

Michael A. Kahn (b. 1952) writes the Rachel Gold legal mystery series, e.g. The Canaan legacy. He has also written a legal mystery/suspense The Mourning Sexton under the name of Michael Baron.

To the best of my knowledge and belief, supported by the Wikipedia article, the Lee Hoffman who wrote science fiction, westerns, and (as Georgia York) romance novels, is not the same person who wrote Salon Dialogue for Successful Results.

Michael Turner - probably 3 or 4 different people listed here, one being the comic book artist (Fathom, Witchblade, etc), one being a writer on the computer program Linux, and the third being a writer on motorcycles. The possible fourth is a novelist.

Message edited by its author, Feb 26, 2007, 6:00pm.

Fran Lebowitz, author of Tales from a broad : an unreliable memoir is not the same individual as ...
Fran Lebowitz, author of Social Studies, Metropolitan Life, etc.

Andrew Harper This is apparently a pen name of a horror writer named Douglas Clegg and has been combined with him. However, there is another Andrew Harper who wrote a guide book to hiking around Mont Blanc -- I own this book and find when I click on it I am led to Douglas Clegg. I hesitated to uncombine Harper from Clegg, since only two of us have the Mont Blanc book, but the Andrew Harpers should be distinguished eventually so I can separate hiking from horror.

I would separate Andrew Harper from Douglas Clegg now. The same goes for any identically named author on this list. None should be combined with any other author name variant, let alone a completely different name all together unless you are sure it will do no harm.

See msg 15, Michael A. Kahn has been combined with the pen name Michael Baron -- no problem so far. (1) If you click on the book title The Mourning Sexton you are not taken to the other author page, in this case, unlike Andrew Harper, the identically named author is dominant, and (2) currently, there are no books entered in LT written by any other real author named Michael Baron. A google search brought up at least two real Michael Baron writers when I checked the other day.

two for Ken Jennings: the Jeopardy! mega-winner and a health care author

I just noticed something new on the author pages. Look at the last question in the green section, bottom right : ))

{quote} Q: What if this author is really two authors?

A: We're working on a solution, but if you want you can post a brief disambiguation notice. {unquote}

And there is place where you can do just that.

Thanks Tim!

Yes, you can now put this info on the author page. So this thread is now obsolete.

I don't think this thread is obsolete. When a solution comes, do you want the team to scroll through 10s of 1,000s of individual author pages looking for possible dupes, or would it not be better still to have a "Master List" to consult, at least to get things started.

I thought that when the new author system comes Tim might provide a way to get a list of just those author pages with disambiguation notices.

On Toni Morrison's page, there's an Organic chemistry textbook and The Montana Energy Saving Handbook for Homeowners...

26> the single author name Morrison was combined withToni Morrison, and that brought the books in by other authors.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention LolaWalser. Now that Morrison is set to never combine, this will not happen again. I wonder how many more single name authors are still to be done?

27> probably lots.

There are still people combining single name authors with full name authors. I just scrolled quickly through today's Author Combination log and saw a few.

The list of books for J.I.M. Stewart (who used the pen name Michael Innes) includes at least one book by another writer named Jim Stewart. It seems that LT ignores the periods after the initials.

Message edited by its author, Mar 3, 2007, 11:52pm.

LT ignores spaces too, Robert A. Wilson includes the author Roberta Wilson. This was reported months ago.

Anyway, what do you think should be done about Jim Stewart? I see four books, perhaps by two or more different Jim Stewarts, and it's not as if they are even on the J. I. M. Stewart page but on the page of a pen name ? I don't like it.

Easy going: A comprehensive guide to Grant, Iowa, and Lafayette Counties

Joey's horse

Managing Change Through Training and Development

mySAP HR Interview Questions, Answers, and Explanations

Newbie here,

Thomas McGrath has two authors in the list. I've written an disambiguous note.

Tom McGrath has at least two authors, no note written yet.

Unfortunately one book in Tom McGrath belongs in Thomas. I've written a note to the only other owner of Longshot O'Leary Counsels Direct Action

At least LoC cleaned up the Thomas McGraths in one day.

Samuel Johnson, the 18th century essayist & lexicograper is not the same Samuel Johnson who wrote the Beavis and Butthead Ensucklopedia.

I take great comfort in knowing that there are about 75 works by Samuel Johnson more popular on LT than the Beavis and Butthead Ensucklopedia.

O.

Message edited by its author, Mar 17, 2007, 3:11pm.

Richard Hooker is both the name of a 16th-century Anglican theologian, author of Of the laws of ecclesiastical polity, and the pseudonym of H. Richard Hornberger, author of MASH.

Hudson Taylor, aka James Hudson Taylor, was the father of Howard Taylor, aka Dr. Frederick Howard Taylor. Howard Taylor was married to Mrs. Howard Taylor, aka Mrs. Mary Geraldine Taylor, aka Geraldine Taylor.

Hudson wrote "Union and Communion" (1893), "A Retrospect" (1894), "After Thirty Years" (1895), "Separation and Service" (1898), and "A Ribband of Blue" (1899), some of which are on LT, some not.

Howard wrote one book on his own - These Forty Years - which doesn't seem to be owned by anyone on LT.

Howard and Geraldine wrote three books together: Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission (in two volumes) and Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret.

Geraldine Taylor (listed on LT at Mrs. Howard Taylor with a few books under Geraldine Taylor) wrote several books on her own.

I've done my best, but I can't get them all straight as things stand now. I'm really looking forward to the new author system. ;)

I've added a note to Stephen M. Johnson. I only know about the one with one copy of one book.

James Fisher is a C20 British writer of fine natural history books, and also an C18 divine: The Assembly's shorter catechism ...

Message edited by its author, Mar 25, 2007, 6:13pm.

37> I should have looked before I posted... There is a third James Fisher, a contemporary American author of The Theater of Tony Kushner and other books.

Edited to point out that there is also a fourth who is a psychotherapist, author of The Uninvited Guest: Emerging from Narcissism Towards Marriage.
Disambiguation notice posted.

Message edited by its author, Mar 25, 2007, 6:41pm.

There are multiple authors named David Garnett.

There's the early 20th C. fantasist, author of Lady into Fox, and there's David S. Garnett, late 20th C SF anthologist. There may be others. Someone has written a "multiple author" statement, but some of these are already commingled.

What's especially annoying is that some of DSG's books are commingled with DG's books - and yet there seem to be TWO "David S. Garnetts" whose author pages refuse to combine. That is, "David S. Garnett" won't combine with "David S. Garnett"

Thus, the David S. Garnett who edited Zenith WILL NOT combine with the David (S.) Garnett who edited Zenith 2 OR with the David (S.) Garnett who edited The Orbit Science Fiction Yearbook.

Someone may need to divide all of the DSG works from the DG works, and start over?

(I'm not especially good at this, so I've given up on it.)

Message edited by its author, Mar 26, 2007, 12:06am.

>39

I've gone some way towards tidying things up. (It was my disambig statement.) However, I see that you are a culprit, using a combination of David Garnett and David S. Garnett yourself. If you could change your authors for New Worlds 1, 3 and 4 (2 is correct!) (although interestingly, most people seem to think that New Worlds was edited by Moorcock, I see) and The Orbit Science Fiction Yearbook 3, then that would be a small step towards a neat and tidy LibraryThing! (Small step, as against the light year journey to the target: needle in a haystack just doesn't seem to convey the right sense of scale.)

It doesn't help that one of the David Garnetts was also an editor of works by T. E. Lawrence.

It was fun trying to wade through the 179 pages of books (at 30 a page) which you have tagged Science Fiction! I'm impressed.

>40

Whoops. I spent quite a bit of time last evening separating the David and David S. Garnetts and then putting the titles together again by isbn number. As for New Worlds, I read that Garnett was the editor of the new paperback, but Moorcock was the original magazine author, so I left that one for AsYouKnow_Bob or someone more knowledgeable to sort out.

BTW it looks like the Michael Moorcock page needs some work, or are those names pen names?

#40 Noisy, #41 kathrynnd - thank you both.

(Small step, as against the light year journey to the target: needle in a haystack just doesn't seem to convey the right sense of scale.)

Actually, I've been quite surprised to see visible progress in the LT database - nearly every day, I can see improvements done while I sleep, apparently by elves. It's nice to meet some of the people working on it.

but Moorcock was the original magazine author

The New Worlds anthologies mess is even a bit more complicated than that - there was the magazine - some of which appeared as paperbacks - and any number of magazine anthologies from the '60s; and, more recently, some number of original anthologies - different series of NW anthologies, variously with DSG and with MM as editors. (I think I hold the DSG series, but a shelf check is now in order.)

BTW it looks like the Michael Moorcock page needs some work, or are those names pen names?

I'd wager 'pen names', but personally, I'm afraid to even peek at the Michael Moorcock author page.

It was fun trying to wade through the 179 pages of books (at 30 a page) which you have tagged Science Fiction! I'm impressed.

Uh, thanks; my catalog is shaping up, but some days the collection does feel like an albatross.

anyone say Paul Collins seems there are multiple. One being the Australian SF editor and writer.

Michael Moorcock is tricky given he has so many and so many compilations, yeah. I took a fair shot at it a while ago, but haven't looked at it for a while.

I've written a huge disamb note for Michael Lewis and wrote notes to those owning Michael Arthur Lewis and Michael C. Lewis. That still leaves many plain old Michael Lewis, two of them well-represented in LT. The biggie isn't really plain old, but Moneyball Michael M. Lewis has over 1000 copies.

Hmm, the Moneball touchstone picks up a couple of strays.

Disambiguation notice for Paul Barnett: There are at least three Paul Barnett's listed on LibraryThing. Because of the way LT handles authors, works by all authors are included in this listing. Paul Barnett is a retired Anglican Bishop of Australia. Another Paul Barnett writes under at least three pen names: John Grant, Eve Devereaux and Armytage Ware. His works are about juggling, card games, tricks and flags. The third Paul Barnett is the author of Conservation and Natural Resources.

the social & political philosopher john arthur is a different author than the one who writes about watercolors and landscapes.

Both Rev. Jesse Jackson and his son, Rep. Jesse L. Jackson, Jr., are authors. To confuse matters even more, both Jacksons have written a couple of books together.

There are multiple Bruce Arnolds covering guitar, irish art and culture, and poetry:

(1) Bruce Arnold (born July 31, 1955) is an American jazz guitarist, composer, educator and author.

(2) Bruce Arnold is a writer and journalist based in Dublin. He is the author of 14 books, including biographical studies of Charles Haughey and Margaret Thatcher, and studies on Irish cultural matters, including a Concise History of Irish Art and works on Jack Yeats and Sir William Orpen.

(3) Bruce M. Arnold is Associate Professor of Classics at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts - co-author of Love and Betrayal: A Catullus Reader"

There are at leaast three men named Michael York
one is an actor, one is scholar, and one is motivational speaker.

There are at least two William H. Snyder

I fixed the one I have William Henry Snyder is the author of Time, Being, and Soul in the Oldest Sanskrit Sources and is not the author of The Crown and the Tower: The Legend of Richard III or Everyday Science

I have posted a disambiguation notice about the two authors named Geoffrey Green, the one a US academic, the other an English football writer.

There seem to be two different authors named Bruce Campbell: the one (likely a pseudonym) who wrote at least the first Ken Holt mystery, The Secret of Skeleton Island (A Ken Holt Mystery) and the Bruce Campbell pictured on the LT author page, looking much too young to have authored a book in 1949.

Another name which appears to represent two different authors is Henry James. One Henry James is of course the famous literary writer and the other Henry James is the author of The Curse of the San Andres, an account of lost gold treasure in southern New Mexico, published in 1953.

Paul S. Kemp who writes Forgotten Realms novels and Paul S. Kemp who write naval warfare historical books are separate people.

I don't know for sure, but I suspect that the Julia Quinn who writes lighthearted Regency romances is not the author of The Everyday Guide to Prayer: A Friendly & Informative Guide to Meaningful Prayer. I guess she could be, but I would defintely investigate.

There is already a disambiguation notice, but it concerns another work using a Julia Quinn pseudonym.

I suspect that the John Stone (cardiologist, medical school dean of admissions, and modern American poet) who definitely wrote In the country of hearts : journeys in the art of medicine and several volumes of poetry listed on LT (e.g. The Smell of Matches) is not the same person/people as the John Stone who wrote Tank Debate: Armour and the Anglo-American Military Tradition (touchstone not loading), Racial Conflict in Contemporary Society, or several other of the books attributed to the name John Stone...

I spent quite a bit of time the other night making a disambiguation notice for the page on Michael Meyer. There must have been 10-11 different ones!

There are three William Gibsons. I separated the historian W. Gibson from the others, but I can't seem to separate the other two. One wrote Neuromancer and other cyberpunk, the other is a playwright who wrote The Miracle Worker. Some how I get an error when I try to separate them.

Message edited by its author, Nov 24, 2007, 5:41pm.

Susan Hill, author of Jonson as critic, is not the same as Susan Hill, the well-known author of many books. I have posted a disambiguation notice on the page for Susan Hill

I've posted a disambiguation notice on the page of Robert Newman.

I've posted a disambiguation notice for Robin Wood, who is at least 2 and possibly 4 different people.

Whoo-hoo! got it all split into 7 distinct authors! This one is done.

Message edited by its author, Feb 7, 2009, 12:57pm.

Anybody brave enough to try to disentangle Peter Brown? The historian of late antiquity and biographer of Augustine, Peter Robert Lamont Brown, has his own author page, but some of his works are stuck on the Peter Brown page with all sorts of other things...

I suggest separating the Peter Robert Lamont Brown books from the Peter Brown list as the books are there due to inappropriate author combining. Any Peter Brown orphans left behind should be able to be added to the work from the Debris page later. I've started with the work Augustine of Hippo : a biography which according to the MARC record and many LT entries is by Peter Robert Lamont Brown.

ETA: I've been going through the Peter Brown author page and found a dozen different authors entered with this name. Someone else has written a general disambiguation notice already, I don't know whether it is worth doing any more at this time

Message edited by its author, Jan 11, 2008, 11:57pm.

I am pretty sure Leo, artist name for Luis Eduardo de Oliveira the comic book author and illustrator is a different person then Pope Leo. Yet books by both authors are shared under Leo.
Personally, I would list all the comic books under Oliveira, but since the rest of the world uses the Artist name, I am forced to do the same.

I'm pretty sure David Grant, the alias of Craig Thomas who wrote Moscow 5000, is not the same person as the David Grant who wrote A question of faith : a history of the New Zealand Christian Pacifist Society, and I strongly suspect neither of them is the David Grant who authored Metaphor and Organizations.

I've posted a disambiguation note about the authors named Ron Edwards, one who writes roleplaying books and at least one other who writes books on Australia and whip-making.

I posted a disambiguation notice for Michael Dorn. All three of them have published a single book.

I posted a disambiguation notice and also started a thread (http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.ph...) on the two (at least) William Barry's.

I posted a disambiguation notice for Donald Hamilton. There are at least 4 different authors there.

One of them, Donald L Hamilton, has a separate page but one of his books appears without his middle initial and so is on this page

Another new disambiguation notice -- for the rather long lived Thomas Wright.

Chris Van Dusen, children's book author and illustrator, appears to be a different person from the Chris Van Dusen who has authored Grey's Anatomy scripts.

John Ash the English poet (born 1948) and John T. Ash the Napa valley chef (and cookbook author) are different people. Their books are jumbled together.

There are two Jenny Whites--one writes historical mysteries, one writes 3-4 ingredient cookbooks.

The photographer Man Ray is confused with the comic artist Rayman.

Paul Doherty, who also writes as P. C. Doherty, Paul Harding, C. L. Grace, Michael Clynes, Anna Apostolou, Ann Dukhtas and Vanessa Alexander is highly unlikely to be the same Paul Harding who writes the "Lonely Planet" Travel Guides, for example Lonely Planet New South Wales.
Unfortunately, this latter Paul Harding is combined with the former.

Also, the scientist Paul Doherty who wrote The Cheshire Cat and Other Eye-Popping Experiments on How We See the World and The Spinning Blackboard and Other Dynamic Experiments on Force and Motion is definitely a different person from the one mentioned at the beginning. These two Dohertys are combined as well.

This has been bothering me for months now.

There are two Elizabeth Jennings - I have a book by one that is a romantic suspense; looks like the other one writes poetry.

There are apparently three Andrew Petersons. One writes children's and Christian books, the other has a book called First to Kill, which won't touchstone, but is listed on Peterson's author page. The third wrote Dictionary of Islamic Architecture.

I am not familiar with the second two at all, but I know for sure the Peterson who wrote On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness and The Ballad of Matthew's Begats didn't write the other two books.

I'll happily correct it if I could, but I don't know how to separate a work from an author. Is this even a power we have?

No, we don't have that power, and why should we. All of those books are legitimately written by an Andrew Petersons so there is no legitimate reason to remove any of them from their page. Some day LT will be able to have all three on separate pages and at that time it would make sense to move books around between those pages.

There are several (at least four) Jim Thompsons.

#76

Maybe, you should try writing a disambiguation notice on the author page. If you look thse authors up in the Library of Congress catalog, you might get some assistance in figuring out who wrote what. LOC uses the author's dates to separate people.

Two Gunnar Olssons.

Message edited by its author, Jul 3, 2008, 1:21pm.

I don't know how to do it, but is there a way to switch books from one (incorrect) author page to another (correct) one? There are some books by Sir Walter Scott (novelist) have wound up in with Walter Scott (web services). I just don't think that they are the same. Thanks for any help.
Keith

ETA: The affected page is http://www.librarything.com/author/walte...

Message edited by its author, Sep 3, 2008, 9:57pm.

81> They are the same; LibraryThing does not separate authors with the same name.

Actually I mistyped, the programming writer is Scott Walter. Several of Sir Walter Scott's books have found their way in due to people entering (first name) (last name) instead of the other way around. Most seem to be typo's since the other SWS books owned by them are set up (LN), (FN), but since we're not allowed to contact them, I won't. (Plus, even if allowed, I wouldn't want to try to contact 236 users including one that writes in a language that I don't.:)) I seperated it from the SWS page and wrote a disambig. notice and added a canonical name. I was hoping for a more tech solution, but not available yet.

Are the programming writers Scott Walter and Scott Walters two different people? Just wondering.

To make things even more confusing: there was also a Walter Scott who published a major edition of the Corpus Hermeticum (as translator/editor) .

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH, better now. #84 Fortunately Walters does seem to be a different person from Walter.

#85 This should be fun. I'm beginning to think that we need an agency to force authors to use any middle initial they may have, like SAG does for actors. :) Any support for this one?

>86 : Or parents should be prohibited to name their offspring after famous writers. :)

>87 I had a boyfriend who was an aspiring novelist. His birth name was James Joyce. He had already decided to publish under his middle name.

Should his parents be beaten with a stick, or is it a case of name influencing life? I did go to art school with a guy named Bob Painter.

I have a book on Islamic suicide terrorists by David Cook. Apparently there are at least two authors, David Cook, David "Zeb" Cook and maybe another one as authors in LT. Am I correct that these must remain combined? I have posted information about the David Cook who writes on Islam on the author page, and posted the following disambiguation notice:

"Doubtful that the author of all those listed books is also the Professor of Religious Studies, or that he received the E. M. Forster Award.
My book on suicide attacks is not in the above list."

Can anything be done, or is this just one of the quirks of the way LibraryThing works?

89

Paul,

Thank you for the information. My book points to the combined works author, but my book is not listed among the works of David Cook.

91>

I see it there -- did you click on "show all 102 works"?

If you did, it's possible that you had just entered the book recently and the system hadn't caught up yet.

I don't know if anyone else has reported this, but David Weber the author of Quechua texts, is not the author of the Honor Harrington novels(sf), yet 2 of those books are on that page, even though one of the Quechua texts has a different middle name. Any way to fix this?

all authors that have the same name are on the same page regardless of the fact that there may be one author with that name or 1000 authors with that name.... at this time.

There has been discussion about changing this, but not in the immediate future.

So, all books that have an author by the name of David Weber will be listed on the same author page.

Kjell Eriksson is two authors. I posted a disambiguation notice.

The internet confirms my suspicion that Brad Watson is two different authors, so I've posted a disambiguation notice.

Message edited by its author, Sep 27, 2008, 8:55am.

Susan Cooper appears to be at least two different authors, possibly more. Someone has beat me to the disambiguation notice, and... apparently, she won't touchstone. Her page is here: http://www.librarything.com/author/coope...

Roderick Hunt

Until we get a change in the LT software, the best we can do with duplicate or multiple authors with the same author page is post a disambiguation notice.

Copied from another thread:
"Hello - I'm new to this forum so please excuse any errors or my possibly misplaced posting. However, I noticed some time ago that there were multiple "James McClure"s in LT including one of my favorite mystery writers. It turns out that today (Oct 9) is his birthday and thanks to Writers Almanac I learn that his full name is James Howe McClure - so I have corrected his books in my library to reflect his full name and then filled in some of the data for the Author entry for James Howe McClure. I also edited the disambiguation notice on James McClure to reflect this information for the benefit of others who have his mystery novels or nonfiction works in their library. However, if there is anything else that could be done to help disentangle the McClures it is beyond my ken at this point. So I am posting the information here for anyone interested and having more skills than I at this point.

Robert A. Mosher"

Portia -
Thanks for reposting the information here!

Robert A. Mosher

Stephen Booth. At least two of them. Posted a disambiguation notice.

There are several authors named Alan Watts. Posted a disambiguation notice, but didn't have patience to check who has written what.

#103

Looking at LOC wasn't too difficult. So, I extended the disambiguation notice. The LOC results are below. The entries for #1 & #4 below are for the same person as #3. #5 writes on low speed auto accidents, and #6 writes on Dickens. The big Alan Watts (#2) was quite prolific.

1 2 Watts, Alan personal name
2 100 Watts, Alan, 1915-1973 personal name
3 17 Watts, Alan, 1925- personal name
4 3 Watts, Alan. from old catalog personal name
5 3 Watts, Alan J. personal name
6 2 Watts, Alan S., 1919- personal name

Message edited by its author, Oct 15, 2008, 4:48pm.

Patrick White. There are at least two of them: the Nobelist Patrick White (b. 1912) and Patrick White (b. 1965) who is the editor of the dictionaries. Library of Congress lists several Patrick Whites, but I didn't check all the titles to see if there are more than two on the LT author page. Added a disambiguation notice.

Edited to add:
British Library has these listed:
White, Patrick, 1912-1990 - Name Information (LC)
White, Patrick, 1939- - Name Information (LC)
White, Patrick, 1948- - Name Information (LC)
White, Patrick, 1965- - Name Information (LC)
White, Patrick, 1966- - Name Information (LC)
White, Patrick, 1970- - Name Information (LC)
White, Patrick, 1971- - Name Information (LC)
WHITE, Patrick Cecil Telfer
White, Patrick F., d. 1875
White, Patrick Frederick, 1799?-1875
White, Patrick J - Name Information (LC)
White, Patrick Valdimar, 1944- - Name Information (LC)
See: White, Pat, 1944-
White, Patrick, Very Rev. - Name Information (LC)
See: White, P. (Patrick), Very Rev.
White, Patrick Victor M

Message edited by its author, Oct 18, 2008, 4:27am.

Judith Collins. Two or three of them.

Alan Brown is at least four authors and probably more. Library of Congress lists nearly seventy, with and without middle names and dates of birth. I added a disambiguation notice, but I didn't go through and determine which of the Alan Browns belongs to each and every work listed, so it's not exhaustive.

Similarly, Susan Wilson is more than one author; I've posted another less-than-exhaustive disambiguation notice. The books about Tori Amos, Nirvana, etc... do not appear in the LC catalogue as far as I can tell, but it seems that that Susan Wilson is distinct from the other two I've identified. I suspect that the books about Beacon Press and the Omni Parker house also belong to the Susan Wilson responsible for the two books about Boston in the notice, but again I can't confirm that through LC.

Message edited by its author, Oct 25, 2008, 9:17pm.

The Boston Public Library lists a bunch of Susan Wilsons:

Author Count
1. Wilson, Susan 2
2. Wilson, Susan, 1951- 9
3. Wilson, Susan B. 1
4. Wilson, Susan Fickertt 3
5. Wilson, Susan Hudson- 0
# 6. See Hudson-Wilson, Susan 1
7. Wilson, Susan Kaye 1
8. Wilson, Susan L. (Susan Louise), 1947- 2
9. Wilson, Susan M. 2
10. Wilson, Susan (Susan Carolyn) 6
11. Wilson, Susannah Jane Foster 0
# 12. See Wilson, S. J. (Susannah Jane) 6

I'm not sure any of these are the author of Tori Amos: Cornflake Girl. Worldcat only lists two holders of this book.

Stephen White
There is a post http://www.librarything.com/topic/4897#4... message 17 about 3 authors on this page, but there are more - at least 7 maybe 8. Disambiguation notice posted.

Should I be linking ALL the identifiable works in a cluster of some sort?

Moe

Stephen White who writes the Alan Gregory series;

Stephen White who writes the Barney/Baby Bop books;

Stephen White (1945-) of the University of Glasgow who writes on Soviet and post-Soviet politics;

Stephen {Augustus}White of the University of Texas at Austin Philosophy Dept (ancient ethics and psychology) who writes and edits classical Greek authors and also has one book in the mix on the Stephen A White page;

Stephen White, a Los Angeles collector, dealer and cultural historian. who publishes photo collections And this may be two guys and 6-7 books-one born in 1915 and one in 1938 - I haven't been able to nail this down.

White, Stephen, (1915- ) who has published on the Warren report, new math and writing The Written Word: And Associated Digressions Concerned With the Writer As Craftsman

Stephen White (b. 1696 or 97) author of Collateral bee-boxes. Or, A new, easy, and advantageous method of managing bees)

There are seven different authors named Michael Morris -- Disambiguation notice posted.

Message edited by its author, Nov 6, 2008, 7:06pm.

Clive Anderson is a British lawyer who later went on to host radio and TV shows such as "Whose Line is it Anyway" as well as lending his name to the odd book of humour and TV tie-ins such as great railway journeys. But he isn't the religous author who did a biography of CH Spurgeon and other similar works. Disambiguation notice posted, but since this is the first time I've done this, I may not have got it quite right.

Now split

Message edited by its author, Feb 7, 2009, 7:42am.

There are multiple authors called John Barry. Disambiguation notice posted.

Aargh, not John A. Barry. This John Barry:
http://www.librarything.com/author/barry...

Message edited by its author, Nov 9, 2008, 3:23am.

The Dorothy Wall who wrote Encounters With the Invisible: Unseen Illness, Controversy, And Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (Medical Humanities) is almost certainly not the Dorothy Wall who was writing children's literature in Australia in the 1930s (Blinky Bill et al.)

Now split

Message edited by its author, Feb 7, 2009, 7:42am.

#113

I took a look at the LOC listing for Dorothy Wall, and the author of the Yaquina Lighthouses (and "Finding your writer's voice"), born in 1926 is not the same as the author, born in 1948, of Encounters with the Invisible, and obviously not the same as the Blinky Bill writer.

I was unable to edit the disambiguation notice (wonky browser, I think).

> 114
Thanks for that - I've amended the disambiguation notice to reflect the results of your research.

I just attempted to disambiguate Michael Ford thusly:

"This entry includes works by numerous Michael Fords: Michael Ford who writes on visual effects (3D Character Setup, Michael Ford who writes on technology (Don't Bid On It), Michael Ford who writes on legal issues of health and safety (Redgrave's Health and Safety), Michael Ford who writes on architecture (FINITO 2006 RMIT Landscape Architecture Major Projects ), Michael Ford (1973-), poet (Carbon), Michael Ford (1956-) who writes on spirituality (Wounded Prophet and more), Michael James Ford (1980-) who writes juvenile fiction and non-fiction (You Wouldn't Want to Be a Greek Athlete! and more), Michael John Ford (1950-) who writes and edits gay literature (Happily Ever After: Erotic Fairy Tales For Men and more) and Michael W. Ford, an occultist (Book of the Witch Moon and more). In the future LibraryThing will be able to split authors with identical names. At present, it cannot.

Assignments made!

Message edited by its author, Feb 7, 2009, 1:22pm.

I've just written a disambiguation notice for Peter Bryant, the author of Dr Strangelove amongst other books (and I want to write Peter George there, but that won't touchstone properly.) He originally wrote under the pen name of Peter Bryant (and this has been combined) but it's sucked in two other Peter Bryants, both of whom have been writing since Peter George died.

Partly done, but I'm unsure of exactly how many authors there are and how to split them.

Message edited by its author, Feb 7, 2009, 7:50am.

Paul Williams. Library of Congress lists more than 50 authors with the name Paul Williams (with or without the middle initial). I added a general disambiguation notice (not specifying which book is written by which Paul Williams).

Message edited by its author, Nov 16, 2008, 3:17am.

Marc Bolan was the lead singer, writer of songs and general all-round purveyor of glam rock with T Rex in the 1970s. He met an untimely end before he was 30. But Marc Bolan, Ph D, now appears to be an affiliate consultant with Organisational Research Services and the author of a book on managing data for event-based outcomes. They are, without a shadow of a doubt, not the same person.

ETA: disambiguation notice added.
(and I only worked out today what 'ETA' means.)

Now split

Message edited by its author, Feb 7, 2009, 8:32am.

Henry Roth is two authors. One is born 1906 and the other 1916. Added a disambiguation notice.

Andrew Miller is certainly two authors, one writing in the 19th/early 20th century about church history and similar matters, and one born in 1960 and a british novelist. And I suspect that there's a third who writes about mentoring stdents. Disambiguation notice of sorts added.

Incidentally - since we now have a comprehensive log of such notices, which is searchable - is it useful or necessary to write talk posts as well?

Done, but one author can possibly be floated off now to Andrew W. Miller, who already has a page

Message edited by its author, Feb 7, 2009, 8:44am.

>121 Incidentally - since we now have a comprehensive log of such notices, which is searchable - is it useful or necessary to write talk posts as well?

Disambiguation notices can be deleted. I don't know if that happens, but it is possible. And I think I have seen them disappear in combination.

>122 Disambiguation notices can be deleted.

Yes they can. But the helper log still records that they were created, I believe, so it's possible to search that to recover the data. But maybe I'm missing something.

Message edited by its author, Nov 27, 2008, 3:23am.

Roger Morris is at least three authors. Added a disambiguation notice.

Steven H Cooper, author of Stand! Crime and Criminology: Contending Ideas and Opinions is the President and CEO of a company called Construction Management & Technology.

Another Steven H Cooper is the author of The Objects of Hope. He is a psychologist and psychoanalyst and Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology, Harvard Medical School.

Disambiguation notices added.

Message edited by its author, Dec 9, 2008, 1:20am.

There are at least two authors by the name Mike Miller. Both have been combined with Michael G Miller.

The Mike Miller who wrote beyond Crossword puzzles is a senior editor at The Wall Street Journal. This is his only published book. I have added his correct middle initial "W" to my copy even though it was not published with a middle initial, to differentiate the author, at least in my library, from the other authors with the same name.

Disambiguation notices added, along with above possible fix.

Hugh Broughton was both a late 16th/early 17thc puritan writing on religious matters, and is a contemporary author of at least one book about architecture in Madrid. Disambiguation notice added.

Now split

Message edited by its author, Feb 7, 2009, 8:46am.

Richard Roth, b. 1946, author of Beauty is Nowhere is not the same individual as ...
Richard Roth, b. 1947, author of The Beagle: An Owner's Guide, and other books on beagles.

I'm assuming I should not add any author details, since the author page represents two people. Disambiguation notice added.

Raymond F. Jones, author of science fiction and science fact books is not the same author as Raymond Jones, commonly Ray Jones, author of guides to lighthouses.

There are at least two different authors whose name is Åke Holmberg

Åke Holmberg (1907-1991) is the author of Ture Sventon books.
Åke Holmberg (b. 1915) has written the book "Ruotsi vuoden 1809 jälkeen" (original title: Sverige efter 1809).

Two authors named Esko Salminen:
Esko Salminen (b. 1940)
Esko Salminen (b. 1937)

Owen Johnson: a popular American novelist, and a British naturalist.

Edda Servi Machlin, writer about Italian-Jewish cuisine, is not the same person as "E S Machlin" author of a thermodynamics text. Disambiguation notices added.

Robert Miles is at least three authors. Added a disambiguation notice, but not very detailed.

Don't see him on any list yet:
Michael Phillips
( http://www.librarything.com/author/phill... )

The economist and the inspirational fiction author do not appear to be the same person.

There are at least six authors Jane Evans.

Jane A. Evans writes about fiber and weaving; Jane A. Evans, astrology; Jane Evans, Chinese art and painting; Jane Evans, a poet of Crosswords and Stampede of Seconds; Jane Evans writes of Methodist congregational life in Massachusetts; and Jane Evans, mental health practitioner, books on counseling and mental health.

David Fraser -

There appear to be at least three and possibly more authors of the name David Fraser. One is the military historian aka General Sir David Fraser, the poet David Fraser, and an Australian legal expert David Fraser. I have posted a disambiguation notice.

Robert A. Mosher

re #137

I've been separating out authors with middle initials (after combining works) from author pages. Anyone have thoughts on that?

>139

Right--you should be. Since there is more than one Jane Evans, Jane A. Evans should not be combined to that page.

>139, >140

Forgot to mention I separated the Jane A. Evans from Jane Evans after combining and leaving disambiguation notices.

That still led to multiple authors on one author page, but it was a bit of an improvement. The trouble is more untidy when some of the middle-initialed authors are listed with the initial and some without. That was not the case here, fortunately.

Message edited by its author, Dec 27, 2008, 1:16pm.

I have amended the disambiguation notice for Christopher Buckley having identified one of the additional authors as war correspondent and military historian Christopher Buckley who was killed in 1950 in Korea.

Robert A. Mosher

There are at least two authors by the name Judy Jackson. One writes cookbooks, the other fiction.

There are at least three authors with the name Gordon Forbes. One is the author of the 1955 novel Too Near the Sun; another a former NFL player and now football writer; the third a South African member of the tennis circuit in the 50s and 60s, author of the tennis classic A Handful of Summers and other books on tennis.

Message edited by its author, Dec 29, 2008, 2:48am.

There are several authors named William Henry. At minimum, there is one who calls himself an "investigative mythologist"; another who writes books on chemistry; at least one expert on Greek Historical writing;a second historian, and certainly more that I haven't tracked down.

Disambiguation notice offered.

There appear to be a number of Robert Wards reflected under

http://www.librarything.com/author/wardr... -

at least one novelist, a historian, and an expert on computer software.

Robert A. Mosher

Peter Drucker, the editor of 'Different Rainbows', was born in 1958 and is married to Christopher Beck. He is not the same person as Peter Ferdinand Drucker, the renowned authority on management who was born in 1909.

The Rev. Nancy L. Wilson, author of 'Our Tribe: Queer Folks, God, Jesus, and the Bible' and co-editor with Malcolm Boyd of 'Amazing Grace : Stories of Lesbian and Gay Faith', is the moderator of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches. She is not the same person as Nancy Ann Wilson who also writes about religious issues as well as family and education. There is also a guitarist named Nancy Wilson and a jazz singer but I don’t know if either one has published anything.

At least two Barbara Bates (3 if you count the actress, whose unconfirmed Wikipedia link is on the author page but no works for her - can I just delete that?)

Barbara Bates MD b1928 wote on TB, critical thinking and physical assessment.

Barbara Bates wrote Bible Feasts

Disambiguation notice posted

Message edited by its author, Jan 7, 2009, 4:02pm.

We have no fewer than FIVE David Cohens: David Elliot Cohen (photographer, 1955- ), David C. Cohen (mathematician, 1942-2002), David W. Cohen (mathematician, 1940- ), David William Cohen (historian of Africa, ca. 1943- ), David Cohen (psychiatrist, 1946- ). Most of their works are hopelessly conflated under David Cohen.

Disambiguation notice posted, for all the good it'll do, and help asked for in the Combiners group to sort out the mess.

There are (at least) two 'Sherry Thomas' authors.

Disambiguation Notice added showing which books are attributable to which author.

One ST author wrote on farming, etc. and was published originally in the mid-1970's.

The other ST author is new to the romance genre industry and based on her photograph (for which I did receive author approval), she probably was in diapers, if not still a twinkle in her parents eyes.

http://www.librarything.com/author/thoma...

Lots of James Wilsons - up to 10.
James Wilson (1948- ) British novelist and indigenous peoples advocate - author of The Dark Clue, The Bastard Boy, The Woman in the Picture, Consolation, The Earth Shall Weep.

James W.Wilson, co-author of All About Herbs and possibly The Victory Garden.

James Wilson (1742–1798), Scottish lawyer, signer of the United States Declaration of Independence.

James Wilson gamebook author of Blue Frog Tavern and Sword for Hire.

James Wilson, 1775-1845, Virginia born/Northern Ireland raised blind - author of Biography of the Blind.

James Wilson (1742-1798), 19th c. astrologer-author of Dictionary of Astrology

James Wilson (1953- ) who writes about WWII Germany (Hitler's Alpine Retreat, Luftwaffe Propaganda Postcards

James Wilson (1963- ) author of Berkeley UNIX

James Wilson (1943- ) 56 More Devotions on Short Notice

James Wilson (1853-1926) author of he dialect of Robert Burns as spoken in central Ayrshire

Disambiguation notice posted

http://www.librarything.com/author/wilso...

Message edited by its author, Jan 10, 2009, 6:52pm.

There are five different William Craigs. Disambiguation notice has been edited to add the additional information.

Walter Scott is still a work in progress.

There are some problems with Timothy Murphy:
http://www.librarything.com/author/murph...

Some of his books are replicated with Tim Murphy, but I'm not sure that all of those are by the same Tim Murphy, so I am afraid to combine them

http://www.librarything.com/author/murph...

Timothy Murphy (the first guy) probably didn't write all the gay and lesbian prose and poetry PLUS the gay and lesbian study guide (maybe the first two) PLUS the psychology parenting volume PLUS a literarary book of days

I combined a few obvious works of the first Timothy Murphy, but nothing more. These could use it, but -- as I said -- I don't want to combine the authors.

http://www.librarything.com/work/5258305
and (the preferred work, I think):
http://www.librarything.com/work/7181723

>153

I have added the following disambiguation notice to Timothy Murphy's page:

"There are several authors named Timothy Murphy represented on this page.

Timothy Murphy (1969-) wrote: The Literary Book of Days and Getting off Clean

Timothy Murphy (1851) wrote: Deed of Gift

Timothy F. Murphy wrote on science, ethics, and gay/lesbian studies.

Adding a middle initial (when appropriate) may help your work be associated with other copies of the same work and other works by the same author. This author should NOT be combined with authors which have middle names/initials indicated."

Please feel free to edit as appropriate.

You are correct in not combining other, more specific, authors with the Timothy Murphy entry.

I have combined the works at the end of your post (and a few others) - in the future you can request such work combining in the "Fix this book" thread found here:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/52612

Message edited by its author, Jan 11, 2009, 12:56pm.

I have posted a disambiguation notice for Steve Bell, distinguishing three or four of them. The Wikipedia link is to the cartoonist, more data about the others would be helpful.

Julie Meyers the romance writer is not the same as the Julie Meyers who wrote the book about dog accessories.

John Owen (1616-1683) was a prolific author of religious texts (or at least a great number of them are here on LT.) But he cannot be the John Owen who writes books on small British railways and probably neither are the author of such books as Gluttony without Guilt. Imperfect disambiguation notice added.

Partially split, but there's a lot remaining in author 1 that needs to be split further. I see someone added further clarification to my disambiguation notice identifying at least one further author, and there are more hiding in there.

Message edited by its author, Feb 7, 2009, 8:52am.

There are 3 authors named Larry Ross. Disambiguation notice posted and many thanks PortiaLong I stole your middle initial and clarification sentence - complete and succinct. Hope that's OK.

Robert Rosenberg disambiguation notice edited to include two additional authors of the same name.

There is apparantly two authors by the name of Frans Bengtsson. However, one writes as Frans G. Bengtsson, so separating was easy. However, the other only seems to have one book to his name, which also somehow shows up for John Brook. Anyone has a clue what's going on with that?

David Greenberg disambiguation notice added: There are several authors named David Greenberg on this page including: 1) David Greenberg, associate professor of History, Journalism & Media Studies at Rutgers University, author of "Nixon's Shadow," "Presidential Doodles," and "Calvin Coolidge." 2) David T. Greenberg, author of children's books, including "Bugs!" and "Crocs!" 3) David Greenberg (b. March 8, 1971), a poet, art critic, and essayist, co-author of "Strange Messenger: The Work of Patti Smith."

Message edited by its author, Jan 24, 2009, 2:18pm.

What is a disambiguation notice?

Disambiguation notices can be added to authors or works.

With regard to authors:
A disambiguation notice can provide additional information - such as pseudonyms or the fact that there are multiple authors with the same name whose works are represented on the page.

On the author page: You can add a disambiguation notice (like people are talking about on this thread) on the author page - scroll down to the CK fields and you will see an editable field where it can be entered. The disambiguation notice will then show on the TOP of the author page and in the green sidebar.

With regard to works - on the works page a disambiguation notice can be entered in the editable CK fields. It appears on the "Editions" page and will show whenever that work is being combined with another. Work disambiguation notices can provide information such as alternate titles or that the work is an abridged version or some other reason why it should NOT be combined with other works with a similar name.

(PS - Someone with some Wiki skills may want to add something to the Help/FAQ about this).

Message edited by its author, Jan 24, 2009, 4:58pm.

Jose Torres - there appear to be two Jose Torres, one is the former light heavyweight world champion and former silver medalist who also authored two boxing biographies about Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson. The other books listed appear to be the work of a separate Jose Torres.

Robert A. Mosher

Nellie Bly disambiguation notice added: There are at least two authors named Nellie Bly on this page, including: 1) Nellie Bly, pictured here (1864-1922), the famed journalist who wrote "Around the World in 72 Days" and "Ten Days in a Mad-House"; 2) the author of biographies of Barbra Streisand and Oprah.

Richard Butler. Dab notice added.

It is unlikely that A. S. King, legal name Amy Sarig King, the novelist who wrote The Dust of 100 Dogs is also the author of the anatomy and physiology books:

Outlines of avian anatomy
Physiological and clinical anatomy of the domestic mammals. Volume 1:…
Form and function in birds
Notes on Abdominal and Pelvic Anatomy of Domestic Mammals
A Guide to the Physiological and Clinical Anatomy of the Thorax (Fifth…
A Guide to the Physiological and Clinical Anatomy of the Central Nervous…
.
Also, Amy Sarig King is not the novelist Amy King, who wrote:

I'm The Man Who Loves You
Antidotes for an Alibi
The People Instruments

John W. Dean Disambiguation notice added: There are several authors named John Dean or John W. Dean on this page: 1) John Wesley Dean III (pictured), b. 1938, White House counsel to President Nixon and author of books on politics; 2) authors of works on crafts and computers.

Message edited by its author, Jan 31, 2009, 3:14pm.

I have added a disambiguation notice to Alan J. Lerner, neurologist to help keep him separate from Alan Jay Lerner, the lyricist and librettist. I'm still working out how to move the misattributed books, though.

I've added a disambiguation notice: that Edgar Cayce is not the same person as his son, Edgar Evans Cayce.

John Armstrong is a nest of people. I've posted a disambiguation notice about four of them, but there are others not tracked down.

Roger Price is at least 3 people. I have deleted the CK info (which only applied to one of them) and added the following disambiguation notice:
There are at least 3 Roger Prices represented here - the American comedy writer, the British creator of assorted tv series (including The Tomorrow People) and a historian.

Victoria Alexandra is at least four different people. I deleted the CK info, which only applied to Victoria Alexander, the romance novelist) and added a disambiguation notice to the author: There appear to be several authors named Victoria Alexandra listed. There is the prolific American Romance novelist, a psychiatrist, an Australian cookbook author and Victoria N. Alexandra.

The main Christoph Wagner
http://www.librarything.com/author/wagne...
has written many books in German, mostly aobut Autrian cooking. Introduction to Credit Risk Modeling is almost certainly by a second author, but that is a multi-authored book with Christoph Wagner actually the second author listed, and it is only owned by one person, so I have filled in some CK about the cookbook author and a disambiguation notice.

Split!

Message edited by its author, Feb 7, 2009, 4:56pm.

Lennart Svensson is two persons. The author of Eld och rörelse, Antropolis and Den musiske matlagaren is not the same as the author of Projektarbete : teori och praktik and Nycklar till kunskap : om motivation, handling och förståelse i vuxenutbildning.

Message edited by its author, Feb 3, 2009, 9:58am.

There are at least two, possibly three or more, authors named Mark Gerstein on LT.

Marc S Gerstein (who also publishes under the name Marc Gerstein, as noted at the link) is an American business consultant who writes on risk management, organizational issues, and IT issues.

Marc Saul Gerstein (can't seem to find a website with a photo of this one) is an art historian (possibly British) who has written about Impressionist art and stained glass.

Marc H Gerstein writes on investment issues, particularly "rules-based equity investing strategies".

A Google search finds additional Marc Gersteins, none of whom are listed on LT at this time:
Marc B Gerstein, a professor of biomedical informatics at Yale (considering his profession, I would expect this one will eventually turn up as an author)
Marc Gerstein, an acupuncturist in Bloomfield, CT
6 Marc Gersteins (2 seem to be duplicates) on LinkedIn

David G Brown is another tricky name.

David Glenn Brown at David G Brown Studios is an artist, editor, and publisher of award-winning cartoons, graphics, and books.

One David G Brown (no website) is a boating expert and a writer on nautical topics.

Another David G Brown is part-time coordinator, IAC of the Atlantic Coast Conference Universities, and Prevost Emeritus at Wake Forest University. This David G Brown has written several books on technology and leadership issues in higher education.

The David G Brown who is a Director at eGain Communications Corporation does not appear to be an author as of February 2009.

Message edited by its author, Feb 5, 2009, 6:30am.

Woo-hoo!
See the blog post:
http://www.librarything.com/blog/2009/02...

I just tried it for the author from 175 - nifty.

Looks like we have a fair amount of work to do...

YAY !!!!!!

It's fabulous, I just sorted out Jeff Smith, who has been bugging me for a while...

Just lovely....

178> So is it worth tracking those we believe solved here, or in another thread, or not at all ? I'm going to start with the handful that I reported myself, but as we deal with more and more of them, it would be useful to know which are left to deal with. But I don't have a good suggestion for how to do that.

(pity we didn't use a wiki page in the first instance to keep track of these, as that would have made it easier. So it goes.)

ETA: I'm being a bit slow. We could just edit the post in question to mark it done. (Slaps head.)

Message edited by its author, Feb 7, 2009, 7:41am.

pity we didn't use a wiki page in the first instance to keep track of these

WikiThing didn't exist when the first iteration of this thread was started.

>181

I am starting with my own and will edit my posts accordingly - the problem of keeping track is that we can only edit our OWN posts (of course) - so when you work on one that someone else reported it will be hard to keep track of.

I'm hoping that once Tim sees how much splitting his happening he will give us some way to see which ones have been split already (master list officially Identically Named Authors) and so when we are working the lists we can see if they are on it already and if not we can get cracking.

>11,12,15(17) Jeff Cox, Michael Turner, and Michael A. Kahn have been split.

Edit: Michael Turner could still use some work, though. I don't know enough about him to split much more than the Linux author. (apparently there are three or more Michael Turners)

>18 Fran Lebowitz has been split.
>32 Samuel Johnson has been split per your post, but I wonder if there aren't more hidden in there . . .
>19/20 Andrew Harper has been split.
>35 Hudson Taylor has been fixed, somewhat. Many of the works are too obscure to say who exactly wrote them.
>38 James Fisher has been split.
>36 Stephen M. Johnson has been split.
>46 John Arthur has been split

Sorry about this ridiculous list, but I think it's best to mark the people who have been split if we have another list compilation. (and people could edit their original messages.)

Message edited by its author, Feb 7, 2009, 2:20pm.

I'd recommend looking at the Library of Congress authorities page (http://authorities.loc.gov.) for help.

> 185

Hey, he's awake!

(imagining an LT OCD swarm let loose upon him like a suddenly-freed jar of Bill Gates mosquitoes)

Yeah, exactly.

>45 Paul Barnett has been split. Except, I just combined the retired bishop's book on Mark, and it showed up under "unknown", but disappeared from the author split page. Perhaps I just need to wait a little.

>185 I checked LoC for Paul Barnett, but none of them were there. Oh well.

>48 Bruce Arnold has been split.

The Paul Barnett book fixed itself. Or something.

Message edited by its author, Feb 8, 2009, 1:58pm.

Alright, so who is going to tackle Anonymous? http://www.librarything.com/author/anony...

My eyes bug out at the thought...

I think by definition that should be avoided.

There are a few anonymice that could be lumped, with a nice long Unknown tail.

The books of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, correspondence have nothing to do with the modern author of books on war and the Panama Canal. I don't know how to fix it, though, even with the recent LT changes.

Incidentally, when should a new thread on this topic be started? Perhaps the recent changes should mean a new thread.

Message edited by its author, Feb 9, 2009, 10:17pm.

>192 A new thread with a compiled list would be lovely. Then we could go through and check authors off the list when we get them split. Also, in future, would you perhaps post a link to the author? Thanks!

EDIT: Split.

Message edited by its author, Feb 9, 2009, 10:39pm.

Robert Shaw is another problem.

Robert E Shaw is a widely recognized expert on American folk art and traditional crafts, appraiser, curator of museum exhibits, and the author of books on quilts, baskets, guitars, and other traditional American crafts. ETA I have separated Robert E Shaw out as "Robert Shaw 2", and added a link to his home page.

Other authors named Robert Shaw have written about theology, chaos theory, psychotherapy, economic theory, computer programming, and adventure travel. They remain lumped together as "Robert Shaw 1".

Message edited by its author, Feb 9, 2009, 11:27pm.

>178 Yay!!!

#194

I've been dealing with such authors by lumping into "Unknown." Otherwise, it looks like there is a single Person 1 who wrote all those books.

>196

The right approach, I think. If you can pick out one author, make him #1 and the rest uncertain. If all you have are uncertains, though, it won't work--it won't show distincts unless there are more than one.

The problem in author=anonymous is that everything is by default person #1, so it looks like I've assigned them all.

Which raises the question, shouldn't the default assignment be to unknown? OK, for authors who have a unique name and hundreds of works, that makes a big problem, but it also means that a prolific author (who is more likely to have an on-line bibliography) when sharing a page with a number of other authors with singletons means that the singletons will be that much harder to identify. It's crying out for some sort of power edit mechanism.

The Zhu Wei of Kao Chi isn't the the same as the Zhu Wei of Vacuum Microelectronics.
http://www.librarything.com/author/zhuwe...

(What I don't understand is how they were lumped together in the first place; the author field for the latter was only in English, whereas the one for the former has Chinese characters.)

Message edited by its author, Feb 10, 2009, 1:44pm.

It's fun, playing in anonymous.

I have found one potential bug: I have bible truths for little children set to author 15 and the various 1001 nights stories set to author 18, but they're both displaying on the author page as author 15.

I'll change everything back to "unknown" later this week so they can all remain anonymous.

> 200 : somebody must have understood Chinese characters without understanding the books.

> 201: A. Nonymous is, without a shadow of a doubt, the greatest author ever.

>200 In the future, if someone enters a canonical name for an author, you have to leave it alone (or fix it if it is incorrect). When the canonical name is deleted, the name of the author goes blank. This is a known issue.
I put "Zhu Wei" back in as the canonical name on the English side, but I didn't try to make a distinction between family name and given name. If you know the distinction, I'd appreciate it if you could fix it.

198>

Which is why, if you couldn't complete the job, you shouldn't have started it, IMO.

http://www.librarything.com/author/hallc... is more than one author. I separated one of them out.

Hi. I am new to the group and wanted to make sure I understand how all this works. These are the two author entries I was looking at:

Francis Ching: http://www.librarything.com/author/ching...
Frank Ching: http://www.librarything.com/author/ching...

Some of Francis Ching's books are listed under Frank Ching. I used the disambiguation to separate them but there are still two separate author pages. Should I link them all and leave the disambiguation to separate the works?

Also is there some consensus about how to deal with different editions of a book? For example this one: http://www.librarything.com/work/825559. There are editions that deal with the 2000 building code as well as the 2006 building code. Not much information has changed, but I wasn't sure how this is typically dealt with. Thanks.

No. Because there are two different Frank Chings, He should not be combined with Francis Ching. You could add a disambiguation notice that Frank Ching (1) is the same person as Francis D.K. Ching. We hope in future to be able to combine part the separate parts, but not yet.

In most cases different editions are kept together, but in others people feel very strongly that for a particular book it makes a big difference which edition you own. With only 38 copies, it's probably better to leave them together.

Message edited by its author, Feb 10, 2009, 5:24pm.

Okay!

Here are four Matthew Parker authors.

Matthew Parker(1), WW II and Panama Canal historian:
http://www.librarything.com/author/parke...

Matthew Parker(2), Archbishop of Canterbury:

http://www.librarything.com/author/parke...

Matthew Parker(3), "Planting Seeds of Hope" author

http://www.librarything.com/author/parke...

Mr. Matthew Parker, "Women to Women" author:

http://www.librarything.com/author/parke...

I suspect that Matthew Parker (3) is also Mr. Matthew Parker.

Can someone else advance the cause for these authors?

207 - Thank you.

There seems to be a lot of different Michael Roberts out there - I've divided the author page into five different, but there are stil many unknowns, and I'm not sure whether or not some of those I've separated are in fact the same person - except for the historian, for whom there was a list of works on Wikipedia.

I added this disambiguation notice regarding Anthony Hobson:

There at least three Anthony Hobsons. The author of the books on Libraries and on bookbindings is the one born in 1921, the author of the book on Lanterns was born in 1944, and the date of the author of Waterhouse is unknown.

Message edited by its author, Feb 14, 2009, 2:00am.

There are at least four James Davidsons. The author of books on Ancient Greece, James N. Davidson, is not the same as the author of books on econometrics or that of books on home lighting techniques. The author of books on the Americas including Nation of Nations, Volume 2: Since 1865 is James West Davidson.