"creator" formats

anyabernstein
In my library, "creators" are sometimes displayed with their surnames names first, and sometimes with the given names first. This affects how the library is organized. When I organize by author name, I get different works by the same author in different places, depending on whether the author is displayed as Givenname Surname or Surname Givenname for that particular work. Confusing!

Is there some way to get the Library to consistently display author names as "Surname Givenname"? I have the names in the right fields, it's just displaying them differently.
  • fbennett
    By "in the right fields", do you mean they're all entered in two-field mode (with the family and given names in separate fields)?
  • anyabernstein
    No, I think some are entered in two-field mode and others are entered in one-field mode. (When I start entering the citation, Zotero sometimes offers me two-field, sometimes one-field mode. I don't know how it decides what to offer, and I just type in whatever mode it offers.) But I assume it's designed to distinguish between family names and given names in one-field mode?
  • adamsmith
    No. One field mode is for institutional authors.
  • anyabernstein
    Ah! Well that explains it.

    In that case, can you tell me how I get Zotero to offer two-field mode when it first gives one-field mode?
  • adamsmith
    I'm surprised it doesn't default to two-fields - it does for me, I believe. You can toggle the two by clicking on the white box (or two white boxes) after the name.
  • anyabernstein
    Okay, that is very helpful. (For me it tends to default to one-field, which is why I figured it could differentiate first from last names that way.) Thanks so much!
  • adamsmith
    this isn't very intuitive I think.
  • dstillman
    It defaults to two-field mode.

    For an item without any creators, it uses the mode you last set it to.

    For an item with an existing creator, it uses the mode from the last creator of that item (since there's a decent chance you'll want the same format).
  • adamsmith
    sorry, I didn't finish writing that before pressing post - I think the defaults make sense as you (Dan) describe them. I think the overall handling of this is not very intuitive, thought it works well once you know about this - I've suggested Simon add one of his guidance balloons for this.
    http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/19907/whats-not-obvious-about-zotero/#Item_9
  • Johannes Greisen
    My first day using Zotero. I use it with MSword2007.
    Very happy with Zotero,overall.
    - But I find that authors/"creators" of an "article" are listed with Family name i left box and Given name in right box, and authors og a "book" are listed the opporsite.
    If it's true, Its very inconvient.
    The results are:
    1) The library will be listed in-consequently by creator-name, since the coloumn "creator" refers to the left box.
    2)The citations in the text is simply wrong - as far as I can see.

    Am I wrong?, Do I have a bug?, or are there some settings I have overlooked?
    Thanx
  • adamsmith
    All authors/creators should be in the form Lastname, Firstname
    If that's not the case the data in Zotero is wrong - whether that's a Zotero bug depends on how you got that data into Zotero.
    Where is the data for books in your database from?
  • Johannes Greisen
    Thanks, Adam, for stating the order: Lastname, Firstname.
    And you´re right:
    When I import the book-data from an other database the order appears correctly, so the problem is not within Zotero, but seems to be within the database i used, www.kasbbasen.dk, or within the connection between Zotero and the database.
    If it's a common problem, a toggle-function in Zoteros reference-editing would come handy...but copy-paste also works (slower) to flip the order.
  • adamsmith
    edited December 23, 2011
    yeah - that's a problem with the library catalog most likely, Zotero works correctly with other Primo catalogs - my supicion would be that they have the data as Firstname, Lastname in their XML - I'll double check when I get a chance.
  • Johannes Greisen
    I will contact the staff at the library catalog and let them know that there might be a problem with their XML in relation to Zotero.. and perhaps wider.
  • adamsmith
    actually - I take that back.
    The library catalog has the data correctly.
    Zotero expects authors to be in the form "Firstname Lastname" and gets confused when they are "Lastname, Firstname".
    We'll fix this in Zotero, I'll tell you when it's done.
  • adamsmith
    OK - a fix for the translator is now up. It will automatically update in zotero in the next 24hs or you can manually update from the general tab of the Zotero preferences.

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