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Old 03-17-2019, 09:08 AM   #1
Ruthd
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Question Correct format for author name in metadata

Hi,
I belong to a volunteer group who produces ebooks from public domain material and have done thousands. We have been using Calibre to convert to different formats.

My question is to do with metadata. We have found that a number of volunteers are adding metadata for creator (the original author) in the format "firstname lastname" and a number in the format "lastname, firstname". And then some will be an organisation.

We have realised that we don't actually know which is correct and works best in keeping our users happy.

I note that Calibre lists the Author as 'firstname lastname' but sorts on the last name.

Once we establish which is correct, we than have to work out how (or whether) to fix the existing books. As they are in our own database, we would need a way to do it in bulk and put it back in our database. But first, we need to know what should be our standard. I have tried to research the Dublin Core preference, but it is unclear.

Help in clarifying would be greatly appreciated.
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Old 03-17-2019, 09:34 AM   #2
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Personally I enter both "Author" and "Author Sort" as "lastname, firstname". That results in the correct "firstname lastname, sorted by lastname" sort order on the Kindle.

The easiest way to maintain author metadata is the "Authors" section of the tag browser in Calibre. Changing an author's name in the tag browser automatically changes it in all the corresponding books.

Last edited by HarryT; 03-17-2019 at 09:59 AM.
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Old 03-17-2019, 10:08 AM   #3
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Since you are producing e-books for distribution I suggest that you follow the EPUB specification for creator names. An author is considered to be a "creator" in EPUB.

Quote:
The creator element SHOULD contain the name of the creator as the Author intends it to be displayed to a user.
An example given is:

Quote:
<dc:creator id="creator">Haruki Murakami</dc:creator>
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Old 03-17-2019, 10:28 AM   #4
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That's all very well, but you tend to end up with your books sorted by first name on some reading devices if you actually follow that advice!
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Old 03-17-2019, 12:31 PM   #5
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The Quality check plugin has 2 sections that help with this (Fn Ln issue)

There are author checks (use to detect the wrong ones)
then there is the Fix section, used to swap the selected
Finally, be sure to Polish or embed the metadata as QCPI only fixes that shown in Calibre

Other QCPI checks might show the other issues. Or they may show in the Tag Browser sections.
Remeber to embed the corrections: You only fixed what is in Calibre
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Old 03-17-2019, 05:38 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ruthd View Post
Hi,
I belong to a volunteer group who produces ebooks from public domain material and have done thousands. We have been using Calibre to convert to different formats.

My question is to do with metadata. We have found that a number of volunteers are adding metadata for creator (the original author) in the format "firstname lastname" and a number in the format "lastname, firstname". And then some will be an organisation.

We have realised that we don't actually know which is correct and works best in keeping our users happy.

I note that Calibre lists the Author as 'firstname lastname' but sorts on the last name.

Once we establish which is correct, we than have to work out how (or whether) to fix the existing books. As they are in our own database, we would need a way to do it in bulk and put it back in our database. But first, we need to know what should be our standard. I have tried to research the Dublin Core preference, but it is unclear.

Help in clarifying would be greatly appreciated.
I don't think there is a definitive right way in calibre, its entirely up to the user. But if there are multiple users, as in your case, it is important they all do record the author name in the same way.

I prefer to sort author names primarily on an author's family name, but I enter and display them with given names first. In calibre parlance that's 'LN, FN' for the sort name. But that doesn't always work - e.g. I want sort names such as "Berners Lee, Timothy", not "Lee, Timothy Berners" and "Garcia Lopez, Christina" not "Lopez, Christina Garcia".

Because it's keyboard navigable I prefer to make adjustments to the display and sort values in the Manage Authors list rather than in the Tag Browser tree - same goes for Tags, Series, Publishers etc.

In the case of Authors there's also an Author Link field in the Manage Authors list; you might be able to use it to directly associate an Author in calibre to an Author your other database. Then when you click an Author name in calibre's Book Details panel the other application would pop its "Author" record/page/note whatever.

BR
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Old 03-17-2019, 07:17 PM   #7
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Just another opinion ...

My advice is to enter the authors field in the default calibre way, i.e. enter them as FN LN and let calibre create the partner author_sort field as LN, FN. If calibre occasionally gets it wrong (as described by BetterRed in post #6) then manually correct those authors.

The reason for this advice is that it should give your users the best flexibility. Each user can then choose to send author name(s) as either FN LN or LN, FN when sending to their chosen reading device. If both calibre fields authors and author_sort have the same value they won't have a choice.

As a practical example, my own experience is with Kobo devices where it is important to have the option to send in FN LN format to be able to use their 'Author Lists' feature.
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Old 04-01-2019, 06:56 AM   #8
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Smile Thank you

Thank you all for your input. We have taken it all on board and will now be able to make our work consistent. We now have about 4,500 public domain books we have created if anyone cares to check out our collection at fadedpage.com, or if you are a bookophile and care to help pgdpcanada.net

Thanks again
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