Database Schema

Introduction

There are three primary document views utilized by the ISFDB: showing the bibliography of an author, showing the titles present in a publication, and showing the publications in which a title was published. These views require three primary tables: authors, titles, and publications. Various normalization tables are provided to reduce errors and storage needs.

The illustration below shows the relationship between the various tables. All notes are stored in the notes table, which other tables refer to via the primary note_id key. There are two tables which are used for administrative and display purposes. The metadata table contains data pertinent to the database itself, while the magazine table contains information that allows magazine publication to be grouped under a single magazine heading.

A high-level explanation of the database can be found in the Database Overview article. An up to date diagram of the ISFDB tables and their relationships can be found here.

Global Tables

Information stored in the global tables are shared across the title, author, and publication related tables in the ISFDB.

• Schema:metadata - Contains metadata about the database itself.
• Schema:notes - General-purpose notes area.
• Schema:submissions - Table for storing data submissions.
• Schema:history - Tracks database change history.
• Schema:directory - Holds author directory information.
• Schema:license_keys - Holds user license key information.
• Schema:user_languages‎ - Holds User Language preferences.
• Schema:user_preferences - Holds User preferences.
• Schema:user_sites - Holds User Website preferences.
• Schema:websites - Stores bookseller and bibliographic sites that a publication may link to.

Author-Related Tables

The following tables are used to store information about authors and their works:

• Schema:authors - Contains information about an author.
• Schema:canonical_author - Links author records to title records.
• Schema:emails - Specialized table for storing email addresses.
• Schema:pseudonyms - Table of pseudonyms.
• Schema:pub_authors - Links author records to publication records.
• Schema:webpages - Specialized table for storing webpage URLs. Originally for Author Webpages, now also for Publication Series and Titles.

Publication-Related Tables

The following tables are used to store information about publications:

• Schema:magazine - Contains magazine information. Will be deleted in near future.
• Schema:publishers - Contains publisher information.
• Schema:pubs - Contains information on a specific publication.
• Schema:pub_content - Links title records to a specific publication.
• Schema:verification - Contains verification information for a specific publication.
• Schema:reference - Contains information on verification references.
• Schema:pub_series - Contains information on a publication series.

Title-Related Tables

The following tables are used to store information about titles:

• Schema:series - Contains series information.
• Schema:titles - Contains information about a specific title.
• Schema:title_relationships - Maps relationship between a review, serial, or translations to a title.
• Schema:tags - Contains user-defined title tags.
• Schema:tag_mapping - Links a tags entry to a specific title per user.
• Schema:votes - Tracks votes for a specific title per user.

Awards-Related Tables

The following tables are used to store information about awards:

• Schema:awards - Contains award information.
• Schema:title_awards - Maps an award to a specific title.