"Missing" books under Author but OK as tagged

[crane3]

I have encountered a bug where some books were not listed under one of the author's name, but is listed as tagged with the last name of the author.

The problem is that "L. E. Modesitt, Jr." does not appear as an author but "L. E. Modesitt Jr." does; notice the difference is the presence of the comma. The books were tagged "Modesitt" which lists all 27 books; & under author, only 18 of the books are listed. The author has 4 variations of his name in the published books.

What is puzzling is that the author, "Modesitt, Jr., L. E." shows up as listed for its named book.

I could edit the name & remove the "," but will Calibre take notice & update the database & send the correction to Calibre Companion? Or would I have to also do the edits in Calibre Companion?

Not even sure others have found the strange problem.

[BetterRed]

Not a bug, you haven't taken enough care in ensuring the author names have consistent and correct values. This can happen if you download metadata from multiple sources, e.g. Amazon, Google and Goodreads may use slightly different values for the same author.

I would go into Manage Authors and harmonise the different "Modesitt' Author values into a single value. Where necessary you can also override the computed Author Sort value - e.g change John, St Madeleine to St John, Madeleine.

BR

[theducks]

BR
Even publishers can't harmonize an authors name (nor their own).

Just open the copyright page (IMHO the official metadata)

Different versions of the author name
Different versions of THEIR name
Even different versions of the SERIES name (also by list)

Add in acquisitions (X now a division of A )

Your problem child is one of the worst for variants (comma before the Jr, No comma, period, no period) I have run accross
The quality check Plugin will help identify and fix most (but not this one)

Another name issue: 'Brother and Sister Jones' that requires TLC
Brother Jones & Sister Jones

[crane3]

It is not the "to harmonize" the author's names that is a bother, but that a version of the author's name is missing when selecting the 'author' column & not available as variant.

The basic(?) full screen display that comes up displaying all the books has the variant name, the one with the comma! So, the name variant should be found in the author column beginning with the letter "M". I don't know if the author column is created "on the fly" or part of the data/metadata in Calibre's database. I think that the author's name should appear no matter how it is spelled even if as a separate author name; especially when the missing name appears in the full screen & counted.

I believe something went wrong with the author selection display vs the correct display for all the books. As I have only around 670 books, it is not as big a problem as with people with books numbering in the thousands. Do not think that I will be reaching the thousand mark unless I download more of the classic literature available at Gutenberg & other places even if I won't be able to read them all.

[BetterRed]

@crane3 - I've concluded I don't really understand your issue, can you post some annotated screen shots that demonstrate your problem.

There are settings in Tweaks and Add books, and maybe elsewhere, that define the rules of how Author names are treated and how Author Sort values derived. And the Quality Check plugin has some author name related features - such as getting initials consistently spaced.

AFAIK - both the Author and Author Sort values are held in the database, the latter is initially derived from the former.

BR

[crane3]

Cannot do a screen shot of Calibre & so did a couple of snips using the ms snipping tool. Problem is that the forum wants a url for the insert image which I don't have. Cannot do the link as no way will I link my computer to the internet. Nor do I intentionally use any cloud service nor have I setup any cloud accounts. A copy & paste would be preferable & I believe I still need to shrink the image.

[davidfor]

You can add the image as an attachment to your post. That will store it on the forums servers.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by crane3

Cannot do a screen shot of Calibre & so did a couple of snips using the ms snipping tool. Problem is that the forum wants a url for the insert image which I don't have. Cannot do the link as no way will I link my computer to the internet. Nor do I intentionally use any cloud service nor have I setup any cloud accounts. A copy & paste would be preferable & I believe I still need to shrink the image.

• Capture the screen shot
• Paste the clip into an image editor
• Save to your desktop
• Back at the browser, in MR advanced mode, click the paper clip icon (see attachment)
• Browse to saved image on desktop
• Click Upload
• Click Close Window (top left)

That will attach a thumbnail image, so no need to shrink image, we can click on thumbnail to see full size.

BR

[crane3]

Here goes, did the "go advanced" & found about using attachments!

'Calibre 1.jpg' is the clip of 'ungrouped' books sorted by date; 'Calibre 2.jpg' is the clip of expanded group author, then selected "M"; 'Calibre 3 tag.jpg' is clip of group by tags.

Attachments:

[uli]

Think of the Authors as tags, you have four spelling variants (see attached). You need to normalize into a single spelling. Also it's not necessary to tag books with authors name, it's more suited for generic subjects like fiction and fantasy.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by uli

Think of the Authors as tags, you have four spelling variants (see attached). You need to normalize into a single spelling. Also it's not necessary to tag books with authors name, it's more suited for generic subjects like fiction and fantasy.

exactly

Calibre uses two collective nouns for Authors, Publishers, Tags etc. Category: in the left sidebar (Tag browser) context menu we find Show all categories. And Tag: in the Layout button we find Show/Hide Tag browser. The latter noun is most prominent.

If one doesn't cotton onto the synonymous usage of Category and Tag and the self-referencing overload of Tag and Tags, calibre can be quite confusing.

Then of course there are the 'tags' in the xhtml code of ePubs. The computer industry abounds with examples of using different words to mean the same thing, and the same word to mean different things.

BR

[crane3]

I use tagging for my own preferences for a "category" & when doing so, I remove any 'tags' from the downloaded metadata. The authors that are tagged are David Weber, Bujold, Modesitt, Brittain, Because there were enough of their books that I feel that I can get to more readily.

The tags by the publisher or somewhere do not usually coincide what I want to see & lots of times, there are too many tags for a particular book or that some tags I do not want to see applied to a particular book.

The missing author is not due to tagging which shows up in the tagged group's display. What is missing is the author's name & related books for the author no matter how the author's name is spelled when selecting the author group. I feel that it is a problem of a missing author & that, in this case, it just happens that is is a variant of the author's name. In the ungrouped display, the author's name variant is not missing so that in the category of author, the selection for the display is in error since it would apply to any author when selecting/comparing & counting the number of books.

uli's attached thumbnail is a shot of the display showing the grouping/category by author where the 5th variant, is missing as in the name with the 'comma' between the last name & suffix. My 2nd screen clip is the one where the author tag is displayed & should have been done better to display all the variants of the author's name.

My belief is that when doing a grouping/category display for an author by the 1st letter of the last name, ALL authors names with the same letter should be displayed no matter how the name(s) are spelled.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by crane3

...
My belief is that when doing a grouping/category display for an author by the 1st letter of the last name, ALL authors names with the same letter should be displayed no matter how the name(s) are spelled.

Yes, but in your examples, the last name for "L. E. Modesitt Jr." was probably interpreted by calibre as "Jr." and would show up when you used the Tag Browser to show authors whose last name starts with a "J". There is no way for calibre to reliably know to treat the suffix "Jr." as a suffix without the comma.

[davidfor]

I think the problem is that you are looking in the wrong spot in the tag browser for the missing version of the authors name. My bet is that "L. E. Modesitt, Jr." is under either "L" or "J".

The author category in the tag browser is created using the value of the "sort author", not the "author". This displayed value is "author", so if you have an unusual value for the sort author, the author will appear in an unexpected place in the tag browser.

As others have said or implied, the problem here is that the authors name is not consistent across these books. If you fix that, then the problem will go away. And, you won't need the extra tag. Or at least, I can't think of a way it would help me.

[crane3]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I think the problem is that you are looking in the wrong spot in the tag browser for the missing version of the authors name. My bet is that "L. E. Modesitt, Jr." is under either "L" or "J".

The author category in the tag browser is created using the value of the "sort author", not the "author". This displayed value is "author", so if you have an unusual value for the sort author, the author will appear in an unexpected place in the tag browser.

As others have said or implied, the problem here is that the authors name is not consistent across these books. If you fix that, then the problem will go away. And, you won't need the extra tag. Or at least, I can't think of a way it would help me.

Got it! Found that L. E. Modesitt, Jr. appears under "L". Thought I had read somewhere the author name was sorted by the last-name.

Strangely, I did find a listing as "Jr" but for Lloyd Biggle & Jr. No idea how the '&' got there. will also have to correct it there. At least CC says that I won't need to change it on CC as the metadata will be propagated by Calibre.

So much for not wanting to change the 'original' data on the books.

This like the problems I have with my ripped CDs using the metadata from the 'freedb' & not paying attention as some people uploaded irrational names for the tracks & listing of the names of the 'artists'.