VIAF: The Virtual International Authority File is an OCLC-run database that contains structured records–called “name authority files”–for individual authors and creators. We used VIAF to gather information on authors whose novels were included on the list, including their birth and death dates, nationalities, genders, and occupations.

Comparing the average points of movement between the top 500 and 3 other ranking lists, we can see that the novels moved the least when compared to the number of holdings ranking (45 pts). Novels were 2x more likely to move positions when compared to the number of editions ranking (82 pts) and 3x more likely to move when compared to GoodReads rankings (137 pts).

Above are the top 10 authors and the number of times they appear. John Grisham appears a stunning 19 times!

author gender and name.

Itt

may have been released in hundreds or thousands of editions since its initial publication.

A key issue in literary studies is which

To start, what is a novel?

We wondered about the implications of this claim and more broadly about what it means to base ideas of “literary greatness” on the number of libraries that hold a particular work. How do historical biases in systems of literary production, preservation, and circulation figure into these kinds of claims? And how do we even define what counts as a novel?

most widely held in libraries

This