Import endpoint should allow for Open Library author identifiers

[Frederik “Freso” S. Olesen]

Problem

A clear and concise description of what you want to happen

Provide Open Library OL…A Author identifiers when importing Editions if the importer has already otherwise dealt with the matching (e.g., using other identifiers).

Expected behaviour / screenshots

Additional Context

Proposal & Constraints

What is the proposed solution / implementation?

Is there a precedent of this approach succeeding elsewhere?

MusicBrainz’ seeding pages allow for MBIDs to pre‐seed relevant fields. (E.g., if seeding a Release page, you can provide MBIDs for artists, release group, recordings, label, …) I’m sure there are other cases too. It doesn’t seem like a very novel idea. 😂

Which suggestions or requirements should be considered for how feature needs to appear or be implemented?

• Multiple identifiers should be accepted for multiple authors
• It should allow a mix of identifiers and unidentified names (e.g., for cases where some but not all authors could be identified as already existing in OL)
• It should probably only accept one or the other per author entry
  • Alternatively, if name and OL…A id(s) are both specified, the name should be disregarded if the OL…A id is valid, but could be used as a fallback if the OL…A id is not valid (e.g., has been deleted entirely or something). (MusicBrainz, BookBrainz, and Wikidata at least keep references to old OL identifiers around, and if an OL entry somehow got deleted entirely rather than merged, that might cause an invalid OL…A assignment, possibly?)

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