When you merge an author on Open Library, I believe there is a bot which runs 
afterward to try to merge works that belong to any/all merged authors. You can 
see though, that "WorkBot" doesn't run consistently yet:

http://openlibrary.org/people/WorkBot

We're hoping to provide an interface similar to the author merge to merge both 
works and editions at some point. No ETA yet, I'm afraid.

g

On 9/13/11 1:27 PM, Karen Coyle wrote:
> I don't know if there is an automated work-merging function. I hope
> someone else can say if there is. I'm pretty sure that there is an
> automated function that merges editions into works after they have
> been edited.
>
> kc
>
>
> Quoting Patrick Conley<[email protected]>:
>
>> Changing the work title to a uniform title is not enough. You will still
>> have two work pages:
>>
>> http://openlibrary.org/works/OL9179990W/Münchhausen
>> http://openlibrary.org/works/OL8772616W/Münchhausen
>>
>> What Ralf would need is a merge function for work pages and a delete
>> button for false records.
>>
>> Both is not yet implemented (but hopefully will some day).
>>
>> BTW, there are still a lot of work and author pages linked to 0 books:
>>
>> http://openlibrary.org/works/OL15330484W/Gottfied_August_Bürger's_Gedichte
>> http://openlibrary.org/authors/OL4064686A/Werner_Bürger
>> http://openlibrary.org/authors/OL4064628A/Werner._Bürger
>> http://openlibrary.org/authors/OL4118092A/Christoph_Bürger
>>
>> Cheers, Patrick
>>
>>
>> Am 13.09.2011 20:21, schrieb Karen Coyle:
>>> Libraries run into this problem frequently, and have developed
>>> something they call a "uniform title". That is, they select one of the
>>> titles, or create one if needed be, to represent all of the variations
>>> of the work. That uniform title brings them together even though the
>>> actual titles don't. It's an artificially created link between the
>>> items.
>>>
>>> For reasons that I can neither explain nor defend, the Library of
>>> Congress has chosen to give these works the uniform title
>>> "Munchhausen." You may find a better solution through German
>>> libraries. If you look at:
>>>
>>> http://openlibrary.org/works/OL9179990W/M%C3%BCnchhausen
>>>
>>> You can see three editions, each of which has a different title. So
>>> you need to get the uniform (work) title into any editions that have
>>> not yet merged. I looked at the edit page and I admit that it is a bit
>>> confusing. The top box that says "title" should get the work title,
>>> "Munchhausen". (Look at the edit page for editions on the page I
>>> linked to, above.) The specific edition of the title is called for
>>> further down on the page. If you have (logically, IMO) placed the
>>> specific edition title in the upper "title" field the items will not
>>> merge with that work.
>>>
>>> It seems that the edit page may need some clarification...
>>>
>>> kc
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Quoting Ralf Stephan<[email protected]>:
>>>
>>>> Now that Lee has clarified what I meant (am I that
>>>> cryptic geek?) let me point out that old works frequently
>>>> have editions the titles of which can differ widely, and
>>>> indeed I'm looking for a way to manually help that algorithm.
>>>>
>>>> However, let the example be Bürger's Münchhausen. Let's
>>>> not dive into if this is really the original, simply assume it is:
>>>> http://openlibrary.org/books/OL24988779M
>>>>
>>>> This was not in OL so I created it as edition of the abstract
>>>> "Münchhausen" work. Now, there are more editions I like to
>>>> add to the work:
>>>> http://openlibrary.org/books/OL22319113M
>>>> http://openlibrary.org/books/OL22050216M
>>>> http://openlibrary.org/books/OL12668689M
>>>>
>>>> and of course I want to delete the superfluous works and
>>>> editions afterwards. So how would I do it?
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> ralf
>>
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