HelpThing:Author controller

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Every author of a book that's been entered into LibraryThing has their own author page. Here you can find information about the authors themselves, as well as books they've written.

The current style of the author page was unveiled in October 2023 as part of the "LT2" site overhaul. Announcement topic.

Primary picture

Authors' pictures are user-submitted. If no one has submitted a picture, you'll see a blank silhouette with a question mark in place of a picture. You can see a larger version of this picture (if one is available) and other submitted pictures by clicking on the image. In the picture gallery you can also comment on pictures and choose which picture shows as the 'primary picture' on the author page.

You can add pictures by uploading one from your computer or grabbing one via its URL. Be sure you're familiar with LT's photo policy first. Images uploaded to this page should be of the author, not cover art.

Author Page

Author of

LibraryThing believes that the best way to identify an author is by what they write! The author's most common work is listed here to help differentiate between authors who share a name.

Quick stats

The stats bar gives you a quick snapshot of information about the author.

• Works - The number of works by the author.
• Members - The number of LibraryThing members with at least one book by the author.
• Reviews - The total number of reviews written by LibraryThing members about this author's books.
• Favorited - How many LT members have added the author to their Favorites list.
• Your library - If you have any books by the author, a link to see them in your library alongside a link to display the titles directly will show here.
• Open discussions - If there are any recent discussions about the author or their works, a link to the Discussions section will show here.

About the author

• Biography - If the author has an external biography, it will display here. For more information on biographies see further down this help page at HelpThing:Author_controller#Biographies.
• Includes the names - If the author has any combined names, they will display here.
• Image credit - The image description/credit text for the primary author picture.

Series

A list of series to which an author has contributed one or more books, sorted with most popular first. Clicking on a link will take you to the appropriate series page. Series information can be entered or edited via the Series section of the work pages of individual books belonging to a series, or directly on the Series page itself. See HelpThing:Nseries_controller for more detail.

Works by

A list of all of the works attributed to this author, with sort options of Popular, or Recent. You can see at a glance how many copies of each work have been cataloged. Clicking on a title will take you to its work page. The "(show all XX)" will expand the list on the page. The Work Explorer button will access the HelpThing:Author_controller#Work Explorer page.

Colored Checkmarks

Books you have catalogued will display a colored checkmark, according to the collection they are in.

Wishlist - displays purple checkmark

Read but Unowned - displays blue checkmark

Your Library - displays green checkmark

any other collection - displays gray checkmark

Only one checkmark will be displayed, so if a book qualifies for more than one checkmark LT will display the color that is nearer to the top of the list above.

Associated works

A list of all the works where this author is attributed as a secondary author. Checkmarks are displayed similar to above.

Tagged

A mini tag-cloud of tags that have been applied to this author's work. Tags are sized by a combination of frequency of use and overall rarity of the tag; thus "celtic" might be larger than "fiction", even though it is only used 18 times to "fiction"'s 124. Because "celtic" is much rarer across the site, its concentration on this author's works is more significant.

Common Knowledge

Common Knowledge is a place for users to enter facts about an author. By default this section is set to View mode, to reduce accidental editing of data by inexperienced members. To edit or add information, click Edit, and then on the small pencil icon on the relevant field. Most fields allow more than one line, to get additional lines hit the "+" box. For more information and formatting guidelines, see the Common Knowledge wiki page. If you want to see what changes have been made to the Common Knowledge fields over time, click on the history button after clicking the small pencil.

Clicking on a fact will search for other incidences of that fact in Common Knowledge - for instance, clicking on "Chicago, Illinois, USA" in the "places of residence" field will find other authors who have also lived in Chicago.

Members

Click any member name to visit their profile, and any number in parentheses to see a list of the books by the author that the member owns in their catalog.

• Top members - Members who have cataloged the most books by the author.
• Recently added - Members who have recently added books by the author.
• Your Friends - Friends who have cataloged books by the author.
• Legacy Libraries - Legacy Libraries that have cataloged books by the author.
• Member Favorites - A list of LibraryThing members who have marked this author as one of their favorites. To add an author as a favorite use the "Add to Favorites" button at the top of the right sidebar.

Discussions

If the author or their works have been the subject of any [[HelpThing:Talk|Talk] topics, links to those topics will show here.

Reviews

The most recent few member reviews of the author's works are shown. Click the "See More Reviews" button to access the full reviews section for the author, which is covered by a section further down this page.

Lists

Lists featuring the author's works are displayed here, in popularity order. The number in parentheses shows how many of the author's works are on the list.

Awards

Awards and Honors featuring the author's works are displayed here and can be filtered by award or by work. "Show more" will expand the list if applicable.

You May Also Like

Previously known as "If you like...", this section shows suggestions of similar authors. "See All" accesses the full page (for more information see "Similar Authors" a few sections down this page).

Associated Authors

Lists other authors who appear alongside the author, and what type of role(s) they had.

Statistics

Gives you some statistical information about the author.

• Works - The number of works where they are a main author.
• Also by - The number of works where they are a secondary author.
• Members - The number of LibraryThing members with at least one book by the author.
• Popularity - What relative position the author occupies.
• Rating - The average rating of all of this author's books.
• Reviews - The total number of reviews written by LibraryThing members about this author's books.
• ISBNs - The total number of ISBNs for books by this author.
• Languages - The number of different languages recorded for books by this author.
• Favorited - How many LT members have added the author to their Favorites list.

Charts & Graphs

Shows a popularity graph for the author. The "See More Charts & Graphs" leads through to the main Charts & Graphs section (see further down this page for information).

Work Explorer

Features a table containing the author's works and various pieces of information, including date, reviews, media, and more; there's even a link to add to the workbench! The rating detail view shows the same data as the old author page used to. Announcement topic, Oct 26, 2023

Note that the page defaults to filter by "Top Works", this can be changed to "All Works" if desired.

Reviews

The reviews subpage displays reviews for all of an author's works. It can be filtered by language and sorted by date, title or votes.

Similar Authors

Previously known as "If you like...", this page shows suggestions of similar authors, and allows the recommendations to be rated from 1 to 10 for validity.

Charts & Graphs

A popularity chart is shown on the main page for most authors, and a sub-page contains charts for genres, dates, languages, and more. Talk announcement, Oct 26, 2023

Biographies

If an author has any external biographies, they will appear here. These are from various sources (Wikipedia, Bowker, etc.) and are not currently editable (see conceptDawg Talk post, Nov 8, 2023), however curation can be carried out by means of up and down voting, or flagging. Questions over flagging can be raised in the Flaggers! group.

For more information see:

• New feature announcement, Talk topic, May 4, 2022.
• Curation announcement, Talk topic, May 12, 2022.

Helper Hub

The Helper Hub was introduced in October 2023 as part of the "LT2" overhaul to author pages. Announcement topic. The page contains tools and links used in author combination and improvement, some of which were previously located under the "Improve this author" heading on an author page sidebar.

The Helper Hub has a toggle switch "Show on right side-nav" Yes/No. This setting determines whether the below features also appear directly on an author's page, for user preference.

Note: the Helper Hub only displays those headings applicable to the author in question. For example if an author has no stranded links, there will be no 'Links stranded' heading in their Helper Hub.

Helper features available on the page are as below:

Combination issues

If an author has combination issues that need to be cleared up, this will show in a yellow alert box with a link to the Issues submenu.

Links stranded

If any subsumed author name in a combination has links on its page, information will appear here with a link to the stranded links.

Combine/separate works

LT relies on combining to create works - it takes the hundreds different versions of Pride and Prejudice and puts them in one place so that readers can talk to each other about their favorite works. Access the work combining page here.

Author division

When more than one author share a name, the author page is split and works are assigned to authors different numbers.

Name disambiguation

This section only appears when an author name has been split. It provides a link to the disambiguation page.

Includes

A complete list of all names that have been combined into the authors'. This is usually to account for aliases, misspellings, spelling and puntuation variations, and foreign translations. You can separate out any names that have been mistakenly combined here.

Combine with…

Combine suggested authors here, or search for them. For more on author combining see HelpThing:Author#More_on_Author_Combining

Recalculate

Forces the site to do an immediate recalculation and display the most popular version of the author's name amongst all the combined variants.

Author biographies

If author biographies exist, a link to the page is provided here. Allows up and down voting if there are multiple biographies, and flagging of issues.

"Stranded" Common Knowledge

If any subsumed author name in a combination has Common Knowledge on its page, it will appear here.

Right Sidebar

Add to Favorites

Click the button to add this author to your favorite author list; click again to de-favorite. You can see the list of all of the authors you have marked as favorites on your profile.

LibraryThing Author

If this author is a member of LibraryThing, a box with the LT Author Badge will appear at the top of this column, along with a link to their profile page, where you can view their catalog.

Legacy Library

If this author has a Legacy Library, a box with the Legacy Library Badge will appear at the top of this column, along with a link to their Legacy Library, their profile page, and their catalog.

Pictures

A quick overview of the author's picture gallery. Click on any thumbnail to enter the gallery and see a larger version of the picture.

Links

A space to enter links to external sites relating to this author - their blog, their publisher's author site, interviews, etc. You can add new links or edit existing ones.

Helper Hub (right sidebar)

By default this is hidden. To activate: within the Helper Hub menu toggle the "Show on right side-nav" to "Yes" and this section will appear.

For further help, see the main Helper Hub section above.

Is This You?

A link where authors can become a LibraryThing author.