AI and the Art of LT Maintenance

So, after a recent experiment where I got quite a lot more help out of Grok (https://grok.com/) than out of the community ( https://www.librarything.com/topic/377364 ), and having landed a short-term SuperGrok trial, I decided to wade a bit deeper into the waters of Generative AI-enhanced LT maintenance. Mostly this involved experiments around identifying awards and where to find them (cf. the private franken-list of several hundred worldwide university and academic presses' pages aggregating their award-winning books I generated yesterday, and the list of hundreds of medical-related book awards I generated last night), but I just decided to let Grok try its hand at assisting with work combining.

We all know how daunting an author page filled with uncombined translations can be. Even in the best case, and with elementary language knowledge of all the languages involved, tidying it up will involve a ton of scrolling to find matches. Can we do better?

To test, I found a European arch-sociologist with translations into scads of languages that haven't been combined.
https://www.librarything.com/author/tourainealain

I wrote a prompt:
"Please examine the following list of works (where each work has string "(int copies ; go to work)", followed by a list of exemplars), and determine which can be translated literally into another language to match another work. Works that translate literally into another language to match another work should be combined. Please enumerate the pairs of works that should be combined."

And then I just copy-pasted the complete page text here: https://www.librarything.com/combine.php?author=tourainealain

Result (using Expert mode):

Pairs of works to combine (literal translations across languages):

A Busca De Si ↔ La recherche de soi (Portuguese "In Search of Oneself" ↔ French)
Apos A Crise. Decomposicao Da Vida Social E O Surgimento De Atores Não Sociais ↔ Après la crise (Portuguese "After the Crisis..." ↔ French)
Après la crise ↔ Depois da Crise (French ↔ Portuguese "After the Crisis")
Birlikte Yasayabilecekmiyiz? ↔ Can We Live Together?: Equality and Difference (Turkish "Can We Live Together?" ↔ English)
Bugünün Dünyasini Anlamak Için Yeni Bir Paradigma ↔ New Paradigm for Understanding Today's World (Turkish "A New Paradigm to Understand Today's World" ↔ English)
Critique of Modernity ↔ Modernligin Elestirisi (English ↔ Turkish "Critique of Modernity")
Demokrasi Nedir? ↔ What is Democracy? (Turkish "What is Democracy?" ↔ English)
Iguais e Diferentes ↔ Can We Live Together?: Equality and Difference (Portuguese "Equals and Differents" ↔ English)
Igualdad Y Diversidad ↔ Can We Live Together?: Equality and Difference (Spanish "Equality and Diversity" ↔ English)
Podremos vivir juntos? : iguales y diferentes ↔ Can We Live Together?: Equality and Difference (Spanish "Can We Live Together?: Equals and Differents" ↔ English)
Un nuevo paradigma para comprender el mundo de hoy ↔ New Paradigm for Understanding Today's World (Spanish "A New Paradigm to Understand Today's World" ↔ English)
El fin de las sociedades ↔ La fin des sociétés (Spanish "The End of Societies" ↔ French)
El mundo de las mujeres ↔ Il mondo è delle donne (Spanish "The World of Women" ↔ Italian "The World is Women's")
El mundo de las mujeres ↔ Mundo das Mulheres (Spanish ↔ Portuguese "The World of Women")
Il mondo è delle donne ↔ Mundo das Mulheres (Italian ↔ Portuguese "The World is Women's")
L'après socialisme ↔ O Pós-socialismo (French "After Socialism" ↔ Portuguese)
La sociedad post-industrial ↔ The post-industrial society : tomorrow's social history, classes, conflicts and culture in the programmed society (Spanish "The Post-Industrial Society" ↔ English)
La sociedad post-industrial ↔ The post-industrial society;: Tomorrow's social history: classes, conflicts and culture in the programmed society (Spanish ↔ English)
Le Retour de l'acteur: Essai de sociologie (Essais) (French Edition) ↔ Return of the Actor: Social Theory in Postindustrial Society (French "The Return of the Actor" ↔ English)
Le Retour de l'acteur: Essai de sociologie ↔ Return of the Actor: Social Theory in Postindustrial Society (French ↔ English)
Le retour de l0'acteur ↔ Return of the Actor: Social Theory in Postindustrial Society (French ↔ English)
EL REGRESO DEL ACTOR ↔ Return of the Actor: Social Theory in Postindustrial Society (Spanish "The Return of the Actor" ↔ English)
Le mouvement de mai ou Le communisme utopique ↔ The May Movement;: Revolt and Reform: May 1968--the student rebellion and workers' strikes--the birth of a social movement (French "The May Movement or Utopian Communism" ↔ English)
Pela sociologia ↔ Pour la sociologie (Portuguese "For Sociology" ↔ French)
Production de la société ↔ The Self-Production of Society (French "The Production of Society" ↔ English)
Qu'est-ce que la démocratie? ↔ What is Democracy? (French "What is Democracy?" ↔ English)
SOCIOLOGIA DE LA ACCIÓN ↔ Sociologie de l'action (Spanish "Sociology of Action" ↔ French)
Solidarité (Mouvements) (French Edition) ↔ Solidarity: The Analysis of a Social Movement: Poland 1980-1981 (Msh) (French "Solidarity" ↔ English)
Vie et Mort du Chili populaire (juillet-septembre 1973) ↔ Vita e morte del Cile popolare (French "Life and Death of Popular Chile" ↔ Italian)
VIE ET MORT DU CHILI POPULAIRE Julliet-Septembre 1973 ↔ Vita e morte del Cile popolare (French ↔ Italian)

Jaw-dropping. It understood perfectly and spit out exactly the results I was looking for, on the first try. That should cut combining labor by 50% or more.

Is anyone else using any AI to good effect for Combining purposes? Has anyone else managed to get a similar quality of results with a service other than Grok (PLEASE!)?

Please discuss.

P.S. For my next trick, I switched to Abbreviated view and did Dostoevsky.

Prompt: "This list omits the exemplars following each work. With that in mind, please perform the same operation on the following list of works."

Result:

Thought for 1m 29s
Pairs of works to combine (literal translations across languages):

Белые ночи ↔ White Nights (Russian "White Nights" ↔ English)
Белые ночи ↔ Beyaz Geceler (Russian ↔ Turkish)
Белые ночи ↔ Noites brancas (Russian ↔ Portuguese)
Белые ночи ↔ Valkeat yöt (Russian ↔ Finnish)
Белые ночи ↔ Le notti bianche (Russian ↔ Italian)
Белые ночи ↔ Las noches blancas (Russian ↔ Spanish)
Белые ночи ↔ Helle Nächte (Russian ↔ German)
Преступление и наказание ↔ Crime and Punishment (Russian "Crime and Punishment" ↔ English)
Преступление и наказание ↔ الجريمة والعقاب (Russian ↔ Arabic)
Преступление и наказание ↔ 罪と罰 (Russian ↔ Japanese)
Преступление и наказание ↔ Delitto e Castigo (Russian ↔ Italian)
Преступление и наказание ↔ Crime et châtiment (Russian ↔ French)
Преступление и наказание ↔ Crimen y castigo (Russian ↔ Spanish)
Преступление и наказание ↔ Bűn és bűnhődés (Russian ↔ Hungarian)
Братья Карамазовы ↔ The Brothers Karamazov (Russian "The Brothers Karamazov" ↔ English)
Братья Карамазовы ↔ الأخوة كارامازوف (Russian ↔ Arabic)
Братья Карамазовы ↔ Braća Karamazovi (Russian ↔ Croatian/Serbian)
Братья Карамазовы ↔ Les frères Karamazov (Russian ↔ French)
Братья Карамазовы ↔ I fratelli Karamazov (Russian ↔ Italian)
Братья Карамазовы ↔ Karamazov Kardeşler (Russian ↔ Turkish)
Братья Карамазовы ↔ Os irmãos Karamazov (Russian ↔ Portuguese)
Братья Карамазовы ↔ Die Brüder Karamasow (Russian ↔ German)
Братья Карамазовы ↔ Bröderna Karamasov (Russian ↔ Swedish)
Идиот ↔ The Idiot (Russian "The Idiot" ↔ English)
Идиот ↔ Ο ΗΛΙΘΙΟΣ (Russian ↔ Greek)
Идиот ↔ L'Idiot (Russian ↔ French)
Идиот ↔ Der Idiot (Russian ↔ German)
Идиот ↔ El Idiota (Russian ↔ Spanish)
Идиот ↔ A félkegyelmű (Russian ↔ Hungarian)
Идиот ↔ Idioten (Russian ↔ Swedish)
Идиот ↔ L'idiota (Russian ↔ Italian)
Записки из подполья ↔ Notes from Underground (Russian "Notes from Underground" ↔ English)
Записки из подполья ↔ Memorie dal sottosuolo (Russian ↔ Italian)
Записки из подполья ↔ Insemnari din subterana (Russian ↔ Romanian)
Записки из подполья ↔ Zapiski iz podzemlja (Russian ↔ Serbian)
Игрок ↔ The Gambler (Russian "The Gambler" ↔ English)
Игрок ↔ Le Joueur (Russian ↔ French)
Игрок ↔ El jugador (Russian ↔ Spanish)
Игрок ↔ Il giocatore (Russian ↔ Italian)
Игрок ↔ Spilleren (Russian ↔ Danish)
Игрок ↔ Der Spieler (Russian ↔ German)
Игрок ↔ Hráč (Russian ↔ Czech)
Двойник ↔ The Double (Russian "The Double" ↔ English)
Двойник ↔ Le Double (Russian ↔ French)
Двойник ↔ Il sosia (Russian ↔ Italian)
Двойник ↔ Der Doppelgänger (Russian ↔ German)
Двойник ↔ Dvojnik (Russian ↔ Croatian)
Бедные люди ↔ Poor Folk (Russian "Poor Folk" ↔ English)
Бедные люди ↔ Pobres gentes (Russian ↔ Spanish)
Бедные люди ↔ Arme Leute (Russian ↔ German)
Бедные люди ↔ Pobre gente (Russian ↔ Spanish)
Бедные люди ↔ Fattige Folk (Russian ↔ Danish)
Село Степанчиково и его обитатели ↔ The Village of Stepanchikovo (Russian "The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants" ↔ English)
Село Степанчиково и его обитатели ↔ Le Bourg de Stépantchikovo (Russian ↔ French)
Село Степанчиково и его обитатели ↔ La aldea de Stepantchikovo (Russian ↔ Spanish)
Село Степанчиково и его обитатели ↔ Das Gut Stepantschikowo (Russian ↔ German)
Вечный муж ↔ The Eternal Husband (Russian "The Eternal Husband" ↔ English)
Вечный муж ↔ L'eterno marito (Russian ↔ Italian)
Вечный муж ↔ Der ewige Gatte (Russian ↔ German)
Вечный муж ↔ El eterno marido (Russian ↔ Spanish)
Вечный муж ↔ Věčný manžel (Russian ↔ Czech)
Вечный муж ↔ Vječni muž (Russian ↔ Croatian)
Дневник писателя ↔ A Writer's Diary (Russian "A Writer's Diary" ↔ English)
Дневник писателя ↔ Diario de un escritor (Russian ↔ Spanish)
Дневник писателя ↔ Dnevnik pisatelja (Russian ↔ Croatian)
Дневник писателя ↔ Tagebuch eines Schriftstellers (Russian ↔ German)
Дневник писателя ↔ Deník spisovatele (Russian ↔ Czech)
Бесы ↔ Demons (Russian "Demons" ↔ English)
Бесы ↔ Les démons (Russian ↔ French)
Бесы ↔ I demoni (Russian ↔ Italian)
Бесы ↔ Die Dämonen (Russian ↔ German)
Бесы ↔ Biesy (Russian ↔ Polish)
Подросток ↔ The Adolescent (Russian "The Adolescent" ↔ English)
Подросток ↔ L'Adolescent (Russian ↔ French)
Подросток ↔ Der Jüngling (Russian ↔ German)
Подросток ↔ Keskenkasvuinen (Russian ↔ Finnish)
Подросток ↔ Výrastok (Russian ↔ Slovak)
Записки из Мертвого дома ↔ The House of the Dead (Russian "Notes from the House of the Dead" ↔ English)
Записки из Мертвого дома ↔ Memorie da una casa di morti (Russian ↔ Italian)
Записки из Мертвого дома ↔ Wspomnienia z martwego domu (Russian ↔ Polish)
Записки из Мертвого дома ↔ Opptegnelser fra det døde hus (Russian ↔ Norwegian)
Записки из Мертвого дома ↔ Les Carnets de la maison morte (Russian ↔ French)
Сон смешного человека ↔ The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (Russian "Dream of a Ridiculous Man" ↔ English)
Сон смешного человека ↔ El sueño de un hombre ridículo (Russian ↔ Spanish)
Сон смешного человека ↔ Le Songe d'un homme ridicule (Russian ↔ French)
Сон смешного человека ↔ Der Traum eines lächerlichen Menschen (Russian ↔ German)
Кроткая ↔ The Gentle Spirit (Russian "The Meek One" ↔ English)
Кроткая ↔ La douce (Russian ↔ French)
Кроткая ↔ Die Sanfte (Russian ↔ German)
Ёлка и свадьба ↔ The Christmas Tree and the Wedding (Russian "The Christmas Tree and the Wedding" ↔ English)
Ёлка и свадьба ↔ شجرة عيد الميلاد والزواج (Russian ↔ Arabic)
Мальчик у Христа на ёлке ↔ The Beggar Boy at Christ's Christmas Tree (Russian "The Boy at Christ's Christmas Tree" ↔ English)
Мальчик у Христа на ёлке ↔ A árvore de Natal na Casa de Cristo (Russian ↔ Portuguese)
الجارة ↔ The Landlady (Arabic "The Neighbor" ↔ English)
الجارة ↔ La logeuse (Arabic ↔ French)
الوديعة ↔ The Gentle Creature (Arabic "The Meek One" ↔ English)
الوديعة و حادث مؤسف للغاية ↔ The Meek One and A Nasty Story (Arabic "The Meek One and A Most Unfortunate Incident" ↔ English)
شجرة عيد الميلاد والزواج ↔ The Christmas Tree and the Wedding (Arabic ↔ English)

Better an AI thinks for 90 seconds than one of us thinks for 90 minutes and still misses a bunch.

Obviously this is very conservative and only catches exact, direct title translations. But even so, it's huge -- to the point where I'm thinking of making an RSI to incorporate something like it as a means of generating autosuggestions. We're at the point now where this could be table stakes.

Until that day (call it The Combinening?), I'm very much looking to hear people's experiences with DIY. Even the free versions of most of the Chat AIs are good for a few tries in various "thinking" modes before they lock you out for the day.

Here's a thought: author splits and 'editing the division'.

I also recall mention of an AI that surfed the Internet for you; that could be a way of finding biographical data on obscure authors.

Not to piss on your parade, but I just use 'simple translate' browser addon. ;) Highlight and voila, a translation pops up. Combining is the niche use for it, but I did use it a number of times for that too. Aside from adblockers and privacy tools, that is my No1 addon.

>3 Maddz: I've had the most luck with Grok for web searching (sadly). It's been blowing Gemini, Perplexity, etc. out of the water on questions in the form "book x was given award y by what organization in what country?" Any suggestions for other services with on-par performance?

>4 SandraArdnas: Yeah, I already used the same. Still doesn't come close to knowing ahead of time what all the pairs needing combining are and going on a Ctrl+F frenzy.

>5 davidgn: I don't use AI or social media, LT Talk is the closest I get apart from some Discord servers I'm on. Let me see if I can find the Ars Technical article; it was fairly recent.

Ah, here we are: https://arstechnica.com/google/2026/02/tested-how-chromes-auto-browse-agent-hand...

>6 davidgn: Yes, indeed, if there are cases with a ton of uncombined translations, but I only ever come across one or two strays.

>3 Maddz: I tried using ChatGPT and Claude to find info about authors I couldn't find, but in the end I didn't trust them without them able to cite any source of it, so I gave up. LLMs are far more reliable when you give them text that constrains them, like in the above examples, but asking them the birth year of an author or divide these works among these authors will result in them coming up with something they consider most likely, never a 'don't know' on any part.

>9 SandraArdnas: Have you tried asking them explicitly to cite the source? The more explicit you can be in the prompting, the better. Anyhow, the models change every few months, so if you found sourcing hit or miss, it may already be worth giving it another shot. Perplexity is also meant to be sourcing-forward, I understand. A pity that Grok seems to have better insights, especially when it comes to searching sites that now only exist on the Wayback Machine. My trial is going to expire soon, and I still don't want to give Musk a red cent.

Also, plenty of authors out there with interminable lists of uncombined translations. (Perhaps some statistics on "most translated authors" would help in being able to find them reliably).

>8 Maddz: Thanks. Agentic AI feels a bit immature and overkill for live research assistance at the moment, but I'm sure that I'll have reason to eat my words before the year is out.

>10 davidgn: Just another example: Erasmus.
Prompt: "Repeat that operation for the following list of works"
Result:

Pairs of works to combine (literal translations across languages):

Μωριας Ἐγκωμιον. Stultitiae Laus ↔ A ​balgaság dicsérete ↔ Elogio de la locura ↔ Elogio della follia ↔ Lof der zotheid ↔ Das Lob der Torheit ↔ Éloge de la folie ↔ In Praise of Folly ↔ Pagiriamasis žodis kvailybei ↔ Lof heimskunnar ↔ Dårskapens lovtale (Greek/Latin "Praise of Folly" ↔ Hungarian ↔ Spanish ↔ Italian ↔ Dutch ↔ German ↔ French ↔ English ↔ Lithuanian ↔ Icelandic ↔ Norwegian)
Colloquia ↔ Colloqui scelti ↔ Colloquia Familiaria ↔ Familiaria Colloquia ↔ Colloques ↔ Samenspraken ↔ Fortrolige samtaler ↔ Vertraute Gespräche ↔ Rozmowy potoczne ↔ Colloquia selecta (Latin "Colloquies" ↔ Italian ↔ Latin ↔ Latin ↔ French ↔ Dutch ↔ Danish ↔ German ↔ Polish ↔ Latin)
Adagia ↔ Adages ↔ Adagios ↔ Adagi ↔ Adagium (Latin "Adages" ↔ English ↔ Portuguese ↔ Italian ↔ Latin)
Institutio Principis Christiani ↔ A Educação de um Príncipe Cristão ↔ The education of a Christian prince ↔ Kršćanski vladar ↔ De opvoeding van de christenvorst ↔ L'educazione del principe cristiano (Latin "Education of a Christian Prince" ↔ Portuguese ↔ English ↔ Croatian ↔ Dutch ↔ Italian)
Querela Pacis ↔ A Guerra e Queixa da paz ↔ Die Klage des Friedens ↔ La klacht van de vrede ↔ The Complaint of Peace ↔ Complainte de la paix ↔ Il lamento della pace (Latin "Complaint of Peace" ↔ Portuguese ↔ German ↔ Dutch ↔ English ↔ French ↔ Italian)
De Libero Arbitrio ↔ Discourse on Free Will ↔ DISCUSION SOBRE EL LIBRE ALBEDRIO ↔ Il libero arbitrio ↔ Livre Arbítrio e Salvação (Latin "On Free Will" ↔ English ↔ Spanish ↔ Italian ↔ Portuguese)
Opus Epistolarum ↔ Brieven van Erasmus ↔ Correspondance ↔ Epistolae ↔ Correspondencia (Latin "Letters" ↔ Dutch ↔ French ↔ Latin ↔ Spanish)
Enchiridion Militis Christiani ↔ Krisztus fegyverzetében ↔ The Enchiridion of Erasmus (Latin "Handbook of the Christian Soldier" ↔ Hungarian ↔ English)
Ciceronianus ↔ Dialogus Ciceronianus ↔ Il ciceroniano ↔ Diálogo Ciceroniano (Latin "Ciceronianus" ↔ Latin ↔ Italian ↔ Spanish)
Dialogus Iulius exclusus e coelis ↔ Julius excluded from heaven ↔ Giulio ↔ Papst Julius vor der Himmelstür ↔ Julius: Dialogue Entre Saint Pierre Et Le Pape Jules II (Latin "Julius Excluded from Heaven" ↔ English ↔ Italian ↔ German ↔ French)
De Civilitate Morum Puerilium ↔ A Handbook on Good Manners for Children ↔ De beleeftheidt der kinderlijcke zeden ↔ La Civilité puérile ↔ Llibre de Civilitat Pueril ↔ De la urbanidad en las maneras de los niños (Latin "On Good Manners for Children" ↔ English ↔ Dutch ↔ French ↔ Catalan ↔ Spanish)

Did you notice: it clustered them this time! I didn't tell it to do that. It figured out the value of doing that on its own.

>10 davidgn: Yes, and often I'll just get 'multiple sources say XY was born on this date', but no specifics, at which point, I'll put something noncommittal to DoB, just so they are put as alive in the stats.

My main issue with LLMs is that they have no concept of what they do or don't know. And it is baked into their core design and is not going to be fixed ever. For instance, find an author who has wrote only a few books, say it's 3, and ask them to list 7 books by that author and they will happily invent 4 more out of thin air. And that's just one example. Again, this will be far less of a problem if you give them specific data to work on, but researching info about authors and their works through AI is mostly a waste of time and humongous amounts of energy they gobble. Either you can find that info with old-fashioned search or they will give you something unreliable.

>13 SandraArdnas: that "i don't know" doesn't seem to be an option, as you pointed out earlier, isn't cool with me.

From https://www.computerworld.com/article/4059383/openai-admits-ai-hallucinations-ar...
OpenAI ”acknowledged in its own research that LLMs will always produce hallucinations due to fundamental mathematical constraints that cannot be solved through better engineering, marking a significant admission from one of the AI industry’s leading companies.”

(also at https://www.wired.com/story/ai-agents-math-doesnt-add-up/ and https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-agents-incapable-math )

What would worry me is titles translated unexpectedly , very often because an earlier book had been translated with a title that is close to the title of the new book or just because a publisher liked the title.

I never combine translations solely based on the title, even when I know the languages involved. It takes a second to verify externally once you have a suspicion and the pair of titles.

>15 AnnieMod: This is a potential problem, true. The examples I've chosen (classic authors, academic sociologists) seem less prone to such confusions than some others might be, and one develops a sixth sense of such things (a suspicion, as you say). But I agree it could be a trap for the unpracticed or unwary.

>16 davidgn: Well, hopefully no one is going around and combining solely based on the same-sounding titles.

Identifying the is half of the work anyway so it still is useful - but as with most things, it needs a human supervision for the final step.