"Dead or Alive" Authors

The new meme "Dead or Alive" wants us to mark the gender for corporation authors. Do we mark:

other/contested/unknown
or
n/a

for a book by General Foods?

Beyond that, what about pseudonyms when the actual author is a collaboration. I have a Claude Izner book, but "he" is actually two French women. What do I mark then?

General Foods should be marked n/a

I don't think any solution has come up for collaborative names, either for gender or dates -- maybe best to leave Izner until some consensus emerges.

>1 davidt8:

I would mark the Claude Izner* name as female, since both authors are. No dates, though, and no other CK.

If the collaboration is between or among persons of different genders, I'd leave that blank as well.

* "Claude" is not necessarily a man's name. It's a fairly common French woman's name.

I make all corporate authors sharing a single name as "n/a". I just think that's more accurate, since the collective itself does not have gender; and it is easier to standardize. For instance, in corporate entities that may add new members, a unisex gender make-up may change over time.

That way, also, gender is attached *only* to fields of actual individual people. So, any one person's gender is stored in one and only one place, and that is going to keep the dataset cleaner over the long run.

Agree with #4, two people working together isn't a person, male or female.

I agree with 4 & 5, and I've seen at least one case where this has been implemented: Grant Naylor is two men, sex n/a

So, I just saw this new meme on my homepage about dead and alive authors. How does one go about changing an author from "unknown" to "not a person"?

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

which is the collective author of the book
http://www.librarything.com/work/6234478

Any help appreciated!

7> Someone's just fixed that for you, as I understand it - you basically go to the author link you provided, scroll down to the "common knowledge" section and edit their gender to "n/a".

I'm seeing Karen Traviss listed in my "Dead Authors" when she's very much alive and kicking. I think it's because someone has entered "20th Century" in the DOB field. I have looked for a DOB for her so that I could edit the field but I can't find one, so do I remove the entry or leave it alone?

>9 Sodapop:: Hm, weird - I don't think entering a DOB is meant to influence date of death (especially since wer're talking 20th C).

I'm having the opposite problem with Shimon bar Yochai - http://www.librarything.com/author/1893172442 - who, though I clearly entered that he died in the 2nd century, is still listed as unknown.

If you read the thread "cleaning up common knowledge" the answer seems to be that you need to use circa or c. when there is not a specific date of death. There doesn't seem to be a way to move living authors to the "alive" list without a specific D.O.B. Or remove living authors from the "dead" list for that matter.
ETA; #10 I'm with you on the Nationality thing.

10>

Date of birth doesn't influence date of death, but it does influence whether someone is considered to be alive. "20th century" isn't parsed well -- my guess is it gets parsed as "20". You need to put in a four-digit date, at a minimum, with "c." to indicate imprecision. I put in "c. 1960" for Karen Traviss and it moved her over to Alive; it's your call whether you want to leave it like that, delete it, or fill in a better guess if you have one.

For one of my authors I could only find the Month and day of birth no year. I just entered it at January 18 and it moved her to the live list. I wasn't sure if that would work but took a chance and it did.

Anyone try editing Popular Mechanics? The gender is set properly to "n/a", yet it stubbornly remains in my "Unknown" column instead of moving into "not a person".

>14 Suncat: Got it. I separated out your version of the author, gave it an n/a for gender and recombined. It seems to have worked.

Yes it did. My list is fixed too. Thank you.

>8 AndrewB: thanks!

As for getting people who are alive to show up in the right category when you don't know an actual birthyear, I have been adding 'c. 1900 (20th century)' as the birthdate. Since just '20th century' lists them as dead.
If someone comes up with a better suggestion, I'll be happy to go fix it all.
:)

Okay, I get on this morning and the little link that was on my home page is not there for the dead or alive authors. Does anyone know how to get to this list? I have been looking and can not figure it out. Any help would be appreciated :) Thanks!!

It's under the memes tab in your profile / homepage

Thank you so much!!!

Another question.
In my "unknown" list I had an author "Warner books". Clearly that's not a person so I went and set gender to N/A which moved them to the "not a person" list BUT, I don't have any books by this author (or none that are listed on the author page it links to). Why is this author appearing in my list?

ETA: Apparently I do? Sort of. I searched my library and found Where the Heart is by Warner books. That's not right, I know that much. I will have to search my bookshelves to find out the real author. Looks like combining gone awry.

Even more bizarrely when you click on the author link for Warner Books "Where the Heart is, isn't listed as one of the books on the author page

Looks like combining gone awry.

It's not combining gone awry because "Warner books" is listed in your library as the author only if you listed it that way as your library is a collection of your data, as you choose to list it. You imported that book from Amazon, so that's probably why the data was a bit off. It was properly combined and so showed up on the Billie Letts page (and that's why it wasn't on the Warner Books page).

Thankyou. I went back and changed it in my library.
I have another question that probably doesn't belong in this thread but...
I have a book Muddle Farm by Axel Scheffler. When I go to the work page > Edit book > work details the link to the author at the top of the page takes you to a page with no books listed but the link underneath work details takes you to the correct page. WHY?

DUH! Never Mind. After repeatedly going back and forth checking the spelling etc. It finally dawned on me that the author was listed by first name, last name format. I fixed it and lo and behold the problem's gone.
As you can tell I'm slightly obsessed with "fixing" my dead and alive lists. I thought I was getting on a roll but then I fixed a mistake that I have now discovered wasn't a mistake - everyone else was wrong and I was right!!!

Yes, my authors are dropping like flies because of this 20th century thing. I am thinking if you don't have at least a year, just don't put anything. If you erase the incorrect information it moves the back to the unknowns but that is better than dead.

>27 TheLibraryhag: Respectfully, I disagree. I'd rather have them be something rather than unknown. I've been adding 'c. 1900 (20th century)' to all the authors that are alive but without known birthyears, because just saying '20th century' lists them as dead.
I apologize if this messes up anyone else's catalog, and I am perfectly willing to go through and change them all to something else if someone can suggest a better option.

A little quirk I've just discovered:

I have an author in the "Alive" column for whom no information has been entered in CK. So how did he end up there? His birth year was entered on the Italian site.

Alberto Abruzzese on LibraryThing.com
Alberto Abruzzese on LibraryThing.it

I've changed it so that if you have no date of death and your date of birth doesn't "parse" (eg., 20th century) you are marked as "alive."

And if DOB does parse but predates the 1900's and there is no date of death? What then? I just had to put down formerly dead Fannie Merritt Farmer, luckily the date of death was readily available from a link on the author page. I don't have a date of death for Edmund Vale born in 1888 though.

31>

You could just use a floruit date for date of death. In the example you gave, c. 1980 (unknown, but 20th century). Or just 'presumed dead'. Any text in date of death marks them as dead. Including "not dead yet".

>31 kathrynnd:

I've entered Vale's birth and death dates from http://www.authorandbookinfo.com/ngcoba/va.htm into CK.

When I go to the Dead or Alive page for either of my accounts, I find that a few names have moved out of the unknown column beyond those that I have filled in info for. I'd like to say thanks to everyone who has been working on this.

Does anyone have access to this?
http://www.gale.cengage.com/LitSol/products/cao.htm

I have a 120 some unknowns still and about 90% of them seem to be pretty obscure so I don't think there's much chance of any of them magically switching lists.

>35 Sodapop:

I do. It's not a panacea, but it did fix 2 of your first 10 unknowns. I'll see how it does on the rest of your list.

Update: Okay, I think that's now all that source has to contribute to your list. (It knocked out about a quarter of your unknowns.)

Holy Cow! My unknowns dropped by 20. Did you do all of those?

E.T.A. Make that 30! THANKYOU!

Thanks for pointing out this source to me. I was able to knock about 20 unknowns off my own list.

What would be neat is if there were a list of the most popular "unknown" authors, so that those of us with spare time could maximize the impact of our efforts.

> 35-37 : And if so, could I peruade you to have a look at my c. 1,600 unknowns? Kiddin'

> 30: I don't think it's limited to authors with dates that "parse" - take http://www.librarything.com/author/vatsyayana for example

>30 timspalding:

So I could just put "yes"? (no, no, stop throwing things, I won't actually do it!)

I think we should establish that the entry must be in date form. c. 1920 is a date. "He's alive" is not a date.

#39 I moved one of your unknowns!! At least yours have such unusual names that you don't have to wade through millions of hits on google.

Why can't I get 'United States Congress' into the not a person section? It seems stuck as unknown.

>44 hailelib: It depends. Whose library are you looking at?

I was signed in as cmslib29631 and looking at those authors. It had n/a as the gender on the page, but...

Other authors I worked on at that time went into the right column.

>46 hailelib: Got it.

>46 hailelib: Just in case you were curious: the problem occurs when the author in question is combined into a subordinate which is then combined into the dominant author.

So, to be specific: You have it entered as "States, Congress of the United" (or /author/statescongressoftheu). The dominant author was /author/unitedstatescongress. However, yours had not been combined into /unitedstatescongress but was instead combined into "Congress, United States" (/author/congressunitedstates) which was then combined into /unitedstatescongress.

In short, it appears that if there is a larger degree of separation than one degree off, then the CK will not carry over. To fix it, I separated out to find which subordinate yours was part of and then combined yours directly with the dominant author.

(I promise it makes perfect sense in my head. Perhaps less so when I try to explain it)

It does make sense...sort of. After a little more investigation I had about decided that there was a combination glitch but wasn't sure as I only do simple combining and very little separating. So thanks for tracking it down.

> 43: Thanks!

That's definitely a bug though. Logically, if A is combined with B and B is already combined with C then the system should ensure that A also gets combined with C. However, I think its a bug that Tim won't be interested in fixing since I believe the whole problem can't happen under the new author system that Tim is devising.

Does anyone want to look at C. A. Chardenal?

This is a case of an author being very obviously dead (his earliest work IIRC is from 1887), but I haven't been able to find any biographical information about him, and I'd rather not put non-dates into the birth/death date slots.

Authors shouldn't allow A -> B -> C. When B gets combined into C, it should look for As. How are you deducing it?

http://www.gale.cengage.com/LitSol/produ... is often available through your local public library, if you are a member. Check it out.

>53 timspalding: Well, that's how I've been fixing the problems (described in 48) with an author that seems to be sticking in the unknown column even though there is a date or a n/a. I don't see why else it would be working. . .

Before I try the same steps on HD (Hilda Doolittle), do you want to look at it?

>52 keristars:

I've added some info about Chardenal, found in a history of the Glasgow Athenaeum at GoogleBooks and in the 1861 and 1881 censuses of Scotland. His wife is shown living on her own in 1891, so he may have died by then.

Two things about the entry: since he lived in Scotland before there was a UK, should there be a "UK" in the places of residence? And, I added the institution with which he was most connected as an "organization", esp. since there is so little info available, but that may not be correct. Feel free to edit.

Did c.1827 put him into the dead column?

> 55

That's a bad link.

>57 auntmarge64:

Nope, he's now listed as alive - quite an old-timer, too. ;) Maybe a "c. 1890 (?)" for death will be accurate enough for the CK.

But for UK - I haven't the foggiest. I can see arguments for and against, and I can't remember seeing anything definitive for it. I think maybe it should be included, so that it has better connections?

Thanks so much for finding that information, though! It really bugged me that he was so obviously dead, but I couldn't find anything about him that wasn't about his textbooks.

>57 auntmarge64:

Can we date the United Kingdom (UK in LT's CK entries) from the Acts of Union in 1707, which united England and Scotland?

I have a lot of British books and fiction set in England and Scotland, and I am careful not to put UK for authors or events before 1707. Shakespeare did not live in London, UK, but the economist Adam Smith did live in the UK. That is my practice, after seeing other comments in LT threads.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_Union_(1707)

>57 auntmarge64: I copied someone else's URL. I would hope that readers will understand I am referring to the Gale service, which I have used through my local free public library.

I agree, and have been asking for this for a while. John Locke did not live in London, England, UK. He lived in London, England. There was no UK. But a lot of people will go through and edit any London, England entries to add UK; the main advantage of doing so is probably that all these entries are then linked together. But if we add some text in parentheses like "(now in UK)" then they could still be linked together, no?

Okay, this is disheartening. Web search for my author Io. Simeon Lindinger leads to my own LT author cloud on number 1. ;-(

We have a lot of LibraryThing Authors who don't have a date of birth on their Author page. Perhaps some hardworking CK helper could start sending them private messages asking for a date of birth.

Because of privacy concerns, some may wish to avoid giving the exact date, but just the year would be good.

Is there an easy way to find LT Authors, other than the daily pair posted on the home page?

#62 Is this your man?
http://ester.utlib.ee/search~S1/aLindhout,+Willem+Hendrik/alindhout+willem+hendr...

Must be. Johann spelled modern way with J instead of I, but right period too. Thanks!

>63 davidt8: You can look here.

Those authors who are not active LT'ers may not see your message and those who are may not want their birth date publicized.

>58 lilithcat:

backing out the url, try this: http://www.gale.cengage.com/LitSol/

I found another stubborn entry:

Smithsonian Institution remains in my unknown column, even though it has been marked n/a for gender.

>69 timepiece:

I combined a few more author variants for "Smithsonian;" now yours shows known.

>70 PhaedraB:

Thank you - that was annoying me.

In my list http://www.librarything.com/profile/TimSharrock/memes/deadoralive I have two "Andre Norton"s - one dead and one unknown. The unknown one is listed in the As rather than the Ns, but both, when clicked go to the same author page http://www.librarything.com/author/nortonandre

I won't go through my catalog to find the ones entered wrongly yet, in case this "partialy merged author" is of interest to Tim.

Libraries may have more than one source that could provide authors' date of birth and/or death: Try Gale sources such as Contemporary Authors Online, Literature Resource Center, Biography Resource Center, and Ebsco's Novelist. These could be available for use from your home, but usually require your library card number and possibly a pin. (Often listed on library's website as Electronic Resources or Databases)

I've tried several alternatives, but Shimon (or Simeon) bar Yochai (2nd century CE) refuses to leave the unknown list. Anybody? Help!?!

>74 Nicole_VanK: Check it now.

After recombining - my entry no longer referred to any works - he's now finally confirmed dead. Whatever you did : thanks!

Yeah but something is still screwy. As you say, your book (or the 32 other copies) doesn't actually connect with any author. I actually fixed one other person's problem with this author but yours only partially. I'm stumped now having run out of tricks. If it doesn't fix itself after a couple of days, I would recommend emailing Tim or maybe reporting on the combining group. They are a lot better at this than me!

Out of curiousity, I was looking at the authors who have already died in 2009. I found that Joan Winston is set to die on 9-11-2009.
Mistake? Joke? I have no idea.
http://www.librarything.com/author/winstonjoan

Also Peter Branscombe will die on the last day of the year.
http://www.librarything.com/author/branscombepeter

78>

Mistake, in both cases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Winston

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article5568501.ece

Someone's fingers obviously slipped.

(Never heard of either of them, but doing a search seemed the obvious way to find out.)