Authors with first names and last names

[Robert]

Hi

Where are the fields for first names and last names of authors?

I try to get sort the authors in alphabetical order and do not want to write names with commas like:

SCHLESINGER, ARTHUR (all in one text field)

I would prefer
Arthur (in one text field) Schlesinger (in the second field).

Have a nice weekend!

Regards
Bob

[Nora]

Hi Bob,

To sort your authors by last name, hold down the Option key and sort the author column once more by clicking on the "Author" column header.

[Eric]

Hi Bob,

To sort your authors by last name, hold down the Option key and sort the author column once more by clicking on the "Author" column header.

What I noticed is that this will only work correctly with names that are only FIRSTNAME LASTNAME. If there is a middle initial or if the middle name is included or if there is "Jr." appended, it doesn't work right. I also think the ability to have separate fields for names would be nice, but it'd be hard, e.g. I have one book with three authors. What to do then? And I have a book that has the author's name entered with three different spellings (he lived in the 1500s). Also, it seems the other systems such as amazon.com, Library of Congress, etc. use one field, so expanding it would only confuse things by making import less simple. So it may be best just to leave it as it is, and if we're stuck on having a sort by last name, we can enter them all like this: LASTNAME, FIRSTNAME. Just my thoughts.

[Conor]

Thank you for the feedback. The recent addition of the sort title field (off by default) has worked really well in allowing user flexibility when it comes to title sorting. Now that it has proven efficient in our shipping version we might expand it to include a sort author in a future version.

[Eric]

Thank you for the feedback. The recent addition of the sort title field (off by default) has worked really well in allowing user flexibility when it comes to title sorting. Now that it has proven efficient in our shipping version we might expand it to include a sort author in a future version.

I agree that a "sort Author" field would provide the flexibility needed for Author searches, but may I also suggest a "sort Translator" field, a "sort Editor" field and a "sort Illustrator" field? Then we could handle the names of people in the way we want to. I think I'd use the "sort Author" field for every book I add and the other ones I just mentioned also rather frequently.

Another thing I would like is the ability to tick a checkbox if you want to NOT be able to add new entries in a field on the fly. E.g., if I've set up auto-fill for a given field (say, "Personal Classification #"), I'd like to restrict myself to those previously-entered options. It would help me ensure uniformity in my data-entry. Obviously, for many fields, like Title, etc. this is totally unnecessary. And maybe it should not be allowed for data that will be downloaded, but for user-defined custom fields, at least, it would be wonderful.