Help talk:How to merge authors

Suppose you enter the following two publications:

Test Title 1, by Test Author1 Test Title 2, by Test Author2

This creates two pubs, two titles, and two authors, and two records in pub_authors and two in canonical_author (which is the title_author cross reference).

There are now three possible merges: "All records", "Only title records", and "Only publication records". For these examples, the "target" of the merge is "Test Author1; the "source" (i.e the author which is surplus to requirements) in Test Author2.

1. If you select only publication records, only the pub_authors record is updated. Now the publication Test Title2 still has an author of Test Author2, but the pub_auths record links it to Test Author1. Test Author1 will display only Test Title 1, and Test Author 2 will still display Test Title2, since this is still the state of the cross-reference canonical_author records. Displaying Test Title2 shows a publication as Test Title2--I'm not sure how pubs are selected for display under a title. Lexically, where the title matches the pub title and the author matches from pub_author? That can't be right because pub_author has been updated.
2. If you select only title records, then Test Author1 acquires a new title, Test Title2, and both titles are listed for that author. Clicking on Test Title 2 shows that the publication record for Test Title2 still points to Test Author2, though, so this publication shows up as a "stray publication" for Test Author2.
3. If you select all records, the canonical_author and pub_author records are updated to point to Test Author1. The authors record for Test Author2 is deleted. The result is as if Test Author2 had never existed, and Test Title2 had been entered for Test Author 1 in the first place.

Mike Christie 19:30, 19 Jun 2006 (CDT)