Difference between revisions of "Editing:Merging Titles"

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There are three ways to merge title records. The first one is to use the "Titles" link on an author's Summary Bibliography page, check the boxes next to the two (or more) titles in question and then hit the "Merge Selected Records" button. Note that this method doesn't work if the titles that you are trying to merge are on two separate pages of the "Title Search" page. This can happen when trying to merge, say, "Axe" and "The Axe" by a prolific author, when the second title record is displayed on the second or even third page of "Title Search".  
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There are three ways to merge title records:
 
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#The first one is to use the "Show All Titles" link on an author's Summary Bibliography page, check the boxes next to the two (or more) titles in question and then hit the "Merge Selected Records" button. Note that this method doesn't work if the titles that you are trying to merge are on two separate pages of the "Title Search" page. This can happen when trying to merge, say, "Axe" and "The Axe" by a prolific author, when the second title record is displayed on the second or even third page of "Title Search".  
The second way is to use Advanced Search and search for the title. This method is a little more time consuming, but also much more powerful since you can use various AND/OR/NOT (ANDNOT is currently broken; We apologize for this inconvenience.) combinations, which allows you to merge any titles.
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#The second way is to use "Advanced Search" and search for the title. This method is a little more time consuming, but also much more powerful since you can use various AND/OR/NOT (ANDNOT is currently broken; We apologize for this inconvenience.) combinations, which allows you to merge any titles.
 
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#The third way is to use the "Check for Duplicate Titles" link from the author's Summary Bibliography page. This scans the list of works by the author for ones which have identical titles, and displays each pair (or larger group) that it finds together, with a separate "Merge Selected Records" button below each group. Each button applies only to the group directly above that button
The third way is to use the "Dup Candidates" link from the author's Summary Bibliography page. This scans the list of works by the author for ones which have identical titles, and displays each pair (or larger group) that it finds together, with a separate "Merge Selected Records" button below each group. Each button applies only to the group directly above that button
 
  
 
Regardless of how you got to the Title Merge screen, once you hit the "Merge Selected Records" button, you will find yourself on the "Title Merge Results" page, which displays any conflicts/discrepancies between the two records that you are trying to merge. Select the correct choices and hit "Complete Merge".  
 
Regardless of how you got to the Title Merge screen, once you hit the "Merge Selected Records" button, you will find yourself on the "Title Merge Results" page, which displays any conflicts/discrepancies between the two records that you are trying to merge. Select the correct choices and hit "Complete Merge".  

Revision as of 07:50, 15 June 2012

This page is a help or manual page for the ISFDB database. It describes standards or methods for entering or maintaining data in the ISFDB database, or otherwise working with the database. Other help pages may be found via the category below. To discuss what should go on this page, use the talk page.

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There are three ways to merge title records:

  1. The first one is to use the "Show All Titles" link on an author's Summary Bibliography page, check the boxes next to the two (or more) titles in question and then hit the "Merge Selected Records" button. Note that this method doesn't work if the titles that you are trying to merge are on two separate pages of the "Title Search" page. This can happen when trying to merge, say, "Axe" and "The Axe" by a prolific author, when the second title record is displayed on the second or even third page of "Title Search".
  2. The second way is to use "Advanced Search" and search for the title. This method is a little more time consuming, but also much more powerful since you can use various AND/OR/NOT (ANDNOT is currently broken; We apologize for this inconvenience.) combinations, which allows you to merge any titles.
  3. The third way is to use the "Check for Duplicate Titles" link from the author's Summary Bibliography page. This scans the list of works by the author for ones which have identical titles, and displays each pair (or larger group) that it finds together, with a separate "Merge Selected Records" button below each group. Each button applies only to the group directly above that button

Regardless of how you got to the Title Merge screen, once you hit the "Merge Selected Records" button, you will find yourself on the "Title Merge Results" page, which displays any conflicts/discrepancies between the two records that you are trying to merge. Select the correct choices and hit "Complete Merge".

Note that you should be careful to confirm that what you have selected are in fact different records for the same work. Follow links as needed to confirm this before selecting "Complete Merge". In particular, be careful if the title types are not the same, as it is not at all uncommon to have a collection or anthology with the same name as one of its contents, and not unheard of for a short story to be expanded into a novel by the same name. (For example: "Departures" is a short story, while Departures is a collection that contains the short story. And "In the Presence of Mine Enemies" is a short story, while In the Presence of Mine Enemies is a novel expanded from that short story.)

Once you click "Complete Merge" the software creates a Title Merge submission that will need to be approved by a moderator. Approving the submission merges the two title records and repoints the Publication records that used to point to the dropped Title record to the kept Title record. You can now review and edit these Publication records as appropriate.

Note that when you are adding new Contents items, the software automatically creates new Titles for every content line added. These new title records will then need to be merged with pre-existing title records if applicable.

See also