Global Author Reset

[robroy47]

I have been changing the author to match the author sort, that is lastname, firstname. I now regret that. Is there anyway to globally set author to firstname lastname. I can do it individually, but there are thousands of books.

[BetterRed]

robroy47 - these are my thoughts.

First take a backup of what you have.

I would find a way to isolate authors with 2 part names - e.g. 'Dickens, Charles' and move them to a separate library. Probably need to use a regular expression search - see The search interface. I would then use the Bulk Metadata Edit, Search and Replace feature to reform the 2 part author names to FirstName LastName - e.g. Charles Dickens.

I would handle the remaining Authors, i.e. those with three or more part names individually - in the Manage Authors list. Probably have to handle books with multiple authors individually, and those with initials e.g. J. K. Rowling.

Then I would move the 2 part authors back to the original library

BR

[theducks]

The Fix section of the Quality Check plugin will flip the selected (books) Authors

It does NOT handle the edge case of 1 right, 1 wrong (Multiple Authors). Those need TLC

[chaley]

Originally Posted by theducks

It does NOT handle the edge case of 1 right, 1 wrong (Multiple Authors). Those need TLC

Just for fun I looked at using bulk S&R to solve this problem: multiple authors with only some of them incorrect. Under the assumption that any name containing a comma is LN, FN and wants to become FN LN, then using SR template mode with the template

program:
	list_re_group(field('authors'), '&', '.', '(.*)', '{$:swap_around_comma()}')

does the job. It processes each author in the list individually.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by chaley

<snip>

Does the job. It processes each author in the list individually.

That's where I wanted to go, but I would have got there in a roundabout way; mixing templates and regexs is territory for me.

'swap around comma' bought 'ring around rosie' to mind.

BR