Author's Middle Initial: Period or No Period?

[DNSB]

Whereas I go for consistency and use X. for initials.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I would go with what the author goes with.

And it would be Jim C. Hines, not Jim C Hines.

Yes, that's the best approach. Unfortunately publishers are inconsistent.
Ursula K. LeGuin, Ursula K Le Guin and Ursula Le Guin on my bookshelf!
Wikipedia is sometimes wrong too.

[BetterRed]

Rowling also uses the pseudonym "Robert Galbraith", which is no accident, via her two pseudonyms she is honouring someone she admires John Kenneth Galbraith.

[EnterNameHere]

For me, there's a difference between "author name" and "real name". For the purpose of my library, "J.K. Rowling" and "Robert Galbraith" are two different "authors" and I'll file them completely separately, regardless of them having been written by the same "real" person. Likewise "Iain Banks" and "Iain M. Banks" are different authors - it's irrelevant (to me) that they happen to be the same human being.

I am struggling with Chris Brookmyre, who is listed as "Chris Brookmyre" on some of his books, and "Christopher Brookmyre" on others. There doesn't seem to be any good reason for this...

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Use of initials amongst UK writers used to be common: P.G. Wodehouse, W.H. Auden, G.K. Chesterton, A.A. Milne, D.H. Lawrence, A.D. Hope, C.S. Lewis, A.E. Housman, W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot.

Ahem - W.B. Yeats (who went to the same school as me, if not exactly at the same time) was certainly not a "UK author" - he was Irish!

[HappyCalibreUser]

Originally Posted by EnterNameHere

For me, there's a difference between "author name" and "real name". For the purpose of my library, "J.K. Rowling" and "Robert Galbraith" are two different "authors" and I'll file them completely separately, regardless of them having been written by the same "real" person. Likewise "Iain Banks" and "Iain M. Banks" are different authors - it's irrelevant (to me) that they happen to be the same human being.

I am struggling with Chris Brookmyre, who is listed as "Chris Brookmyre" on some of his books, and "Christopher Brookmyre" on others. There doesn't seem to be any good reason for this...


Ahem - W.B. Yeats (who went to the same school as me, if not exactly at the same time) was certainly not a "UK author" - he was Irish!

In my library I use the name listed on the book, then add in the author's true name. They can have any number of pseudonyms, but as long as I list a used pseudonym and the real name I can pull up instantly either the pseudonyms list, or every book the author has written in the library whatever name they used.

Galbraith, Robert & Rowling, J. K.

Unless some public library's have changed their old-style catalogs, it's normal to use whatever name is on the book along with notated referencing on the card.

[BetterRed]

I maintain an Index of Creators as a separate calibre library.

Calibre URI links are used to link items in my Books, Periodicals, and Media libraries, i.e. works by J.K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith in my Books library are linked to the creator Joanne Rowling. And the creator Joanne Rowling links to items in my Books by J.K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith.

Some creators have works in my Books library, my Periodicals, and my Media libraries… e.g. Jeffrey Sachs, Geraldine Brooks, and Joanne Rowling.

BR

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by EnterNameHere

For me, there's a difference between "author name" and "real name". For the purpose of my library, "J.K. Rowling" and "Robert Galbraith" are two different "authors" and I'll file them completely separately, regardless of them having been written by the same "real" person. Likewise "Iain Banks" and "Iain M. Banks" are different authors - it's irrelevant (to me) that they happen to be the same human being.

I am struggling with Chris Brookmyre, who is listed as "Chris Brookmyre" on some of his books, and "Christopher Brookmyre" on others. There doesn't seem to be any good reason for this...


Ahem - W.B. Yeats (who went to the same school as me, if not exactly at the same time) was certainly not a "UK author" - he was Irish!

Technically so also was C.S. Lewis, because though he is described as a British Author and lived most of his life in England, Northern Ireland didn't exist till 1922. He was born in 1898, Belfast, Ireland.

***********
Edit: Lewis & Yeats

Lewis developed a particular fondness for W. B. Yeats, in part because of Yeats's use of Ireland's Celtic heritage in poetry. In a letter to a friend, Lewis wrote, "I have here discovered an author exactly after my own heart, whom I am sure you would delight in, W. B. Yeats. He writes plays and poems of rare spirit and beauty about our old Irish mythology."

And after meeting Yeats:

"I am often surprised to find how utterly ignored Yeats is among the men I have met: perhaps his appeal is purely Irish – if so, then thank the gods that I am Irish.

**********

Re: Chris Brookmyre, who is listed as "Chris Brookmyre"
I've seen that with some authors writing in one genre. It's hard to know if personal reasons or a publisher's whim without asking them, but many are dead. J. M. Barrie's full name is on "Quality Street".

[fidvo]

Originally Posted by EnterNameHere

For me, there's a difference between "author name" and "real name". For the purpose of my library, "J.K. Rowling" and "Robert Galbraith" are two different "authors" and I'll file them completely separately, regardless of them having been written by the same "real" person. Likewise "Iain Banks" and "Iain M. Banks" are different authors - it's irrelevant (to me) that they happen to be the same human being.

I am struggling with Chris Brookmyre, who is listed as "Chris Brookmyre" on some of his books, and "Christopher Brookmyre" on others. There doesn't seem to be any good reason for this...


Ahem - W.B. Yeats (who went to the same school as me, if not exactly at the same time) was certainly not a "UK author" - he was Irish!

I tend to normalize the variations of the same name. I see no advantage to separating books by Iain M. Banks from those by Iain Banks. Normalizing them loses the information about which version of his name is attached to a particular book, but that seems trivial compared to the advantage of making it a lot easier to search for his books in Calibre, not to mention avoiding the whole Chris Brookmyre/Christopher Brookmyre problem.

On the other hand, I keep the listed author on books in cases where the author wrote under a pseudonym. This is because often an author will use a pseudonym for a different writing style, and often different authors will adopt the same pseudonym either to write in a shared universe or simply to mimic each other's style. And in some cases, it's difficult or even impossible to know who the real author is. For example, any given book by Lewis Padgett might have been written by Henry Kuttner, C.L. Moore, or both. And in some cases the best we can get is a "probably."

Where the real author is know, I have a hierarchical tag-like Contributors custom column to track editors, illustrators, etc, as well as real authors.Kuttner, Real Author.CL Moore" in the Contributors column.

This is also why I prefer to leave out periods in author names. If a book's listed author is Lewis Padgett but it was written by C.L. Moore, "C.L. Moore" would add two extra levels to the hierarchy instead of representing a single name. For the sake of consistency, I leave out the periods in both the Contributors column and the Authors column.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Yes, that's the best approach. Unfortunately publishers are inconsistent.
Ursula K. LeGuin, Ursula K Le Guin and Ursula Le Guin on my bookshelf!
Wikipedia is sometimes wrong too.

I don't have to worry about the metadata of her eBooks as I have none of them. I don't like her writing.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I don't have to worry about the metadata of her eBooks as I have none of them. I don't like her writing.

Are you recommending that all of us who like her writing should delete her books since you don't like her writing? Do you consider this to be a useful suggestion as to handling variable author names?