Cataloging Anthony Trollope Series

[Kirsten Wever]

Hello all,

Among Trollope's best known works are the Barsetshire and Palliser novel series, known as The Chronicles of Barsetshire and The Palliser Novels.

A Literary Fiction genre search yields only one of these series, and calls it simply "Barsetshire Series." So I thought maybe ...

The Palliser Novels could be added as a Literary Fiction series, and
the "Barsetshire Series" might be renamed The Chronicles of Barsetshire

What say you?

Kirsten

[TriciaG]

The one series is returned in that genre search because (at least) one of the books in the group has Literary Fiction as the genre. We can't categorize a group/series by genre.

I guess one question would be, are Trollope's works Literary Fiction?

Literary fiction, mainstream fiction, non-genre fiction, serious fiction, high literature, artistic literature, and sometimes just literature are labels that, in the book trade, refer to market novels that do not fit neatly into an established genre (see genre fiction); or, otherwise, refer to novels that are character-driven rather than plot-driven, examine the human condition, use language in an experimental or poetic fashion, or are simply considered serious art.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_fiction

I would argue that Trollope is popular fiction rather than literary.

I agree with the renaming of the Barsetshire group. I'll do that.

[Kirsten Wever]

Thanks for the renaming.

Of course if none of the Pallisers are tagged literary fiction, it's a no go (unless it's easy to re-tag, which I suspect it ain't).

Good question, popular or literary fiction. There's no question The Warden is literary, and The Way We Live Now isn't. And I know 50 people who would say that some of Trollope's novels are way better than any of Henry James's.

I'm interested, so I'll poke into that genre and see who is and isn't there. I may or may not have anything more to say.

Thanks again, K

[TriciaG]

Keep in mind that it's the reader/BC who enters the genres, and so they might be all over the place, with projects definitely not relevant added to the genre.

I remember when we first had the "Classics" genre, we didn't have "(Latin & Greek antiquity)" on it. Basically, people were like, "Dickens! He's DEFINITELY 'Classic'!" so the genre got stuffed with science fiction, romances, etc. from every era and origin. Eventually we added the clarification and cleared out the irrelevant stuff.

So, don't judge a genre by what's in there. Ha ha!

[Kirsten Wever]

I'd already thought of that, reflecting on past genre searches, where tales of Anarchist suicides were tagged Humorous Fiction.

However. Hypothetically, if I searched through a genre I know well and found two or three percent of its projects mis-tagged), and if someone qualified checked, maybe amended my list ...

... should, and could we retag? Or would it be too much work, possibly overstepping boundaries?

I may well be gnawing on a tiny piece of gristle which my toothbrush will remove.

[knotyouraveragejo]

MCs can change tags in our database, but that will only change the genre for our catalog searches. For that you just have to find someone willing to do it. When a project is cataloged, the genres also get uploaded with the description to the Archive.org page by us. We can edit those pages, but then there are the YouTube channels that host all our audio, apps and many other places that use our files where changes are out of our control.

I think grossly mis-assigned genres should be changed. Subtle changes, may not be worth the time. Having said that, at some point the genre search in the catalog may be more user friendly, so it's worth have relevant keywords and genres assigned.

[Kirsten Wever]

Thanks for the info, Jo.

I'm always wanting to know more about the processes that are dark to those of us who aren't admins.

Do you happen to know if there's someplace in the Forum where I could learn more about what happens behind the scenes?

Kirsten