Schema:canonical author

Schema Summary

+-----------+------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field     | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+-----------+------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| ca_id     | int  | NO   | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
| title_id  | int  | YES  | MUL | NULL    |                |
| author_id | int  | YES  | MUL | NULL    |                |
| ca_status | int  | YES  | MUL | NULL    |                |
+-----------+------+------+-----+---------+----------------+

Description

The canonical_author table is a normalization table. It defines the authors of a particular title by mapping a title record to an author record. Having a single canonical_author mapping table can provide ambiguious results for interview and review records, as each record refers to two different sets of authors: the author that wrote the review or interview, and the author who is the subject of the review or interview. Instead of having three different tables, all of the author mappings are stored here, and the ca_status column is used to differentiate between the three types of authors. This table supports indices for both title_id and author_id. A search for title_id is conducted when trying to locate the collaborators of a title. A search for author_id is conducted when trying to construct an author's bibliography.

• ca_id - This column is the unique record id for the canonical_author. It is the primary key for the table.

• title_id - This column is a foreign key which points to a record in the titles table.

• author_id - This column is a foreign key which points to a record in the authors table.

• ca_status - This column determines whether this is a canonical record, an interviewee record, or a reviewee record. A canonical entry has a status of 1; an author who is the subject of an interview has a status of 2; an author who is the subject of a review has a status of 3.
  • 1 - Canonical author entry
  • 2 - Interviewee author
  • 3 - Reviewee author