Optimize Add Book author dropdown

[siznax]

The author drop down is driven by the author search. We need updates to the author search to be faster so the author drop down is current. Without this we get duplicate authors added to the system.

Here are some examples from siznax:

http://openlibrary.org/authors/OL26320A/J._R._R._Tolkien (April 1, 2008)
http://openlibrary.org/authors/OL6807514A/J._R._R._Tolkien (May 6, 2010)

[George (george-archive)]

I'm tempted to mark this critical. Seeing more examples of books where we should be able to find a title/author match. E.g. http://openlibrary.org/works/OL15157229W/Passage_to_India

[George (george-archive)]

Edward - there's a clear use case where one user will add several books (or editions) by the same author. The author dropdown on Add Book isn't refreshing fast enough to show the newly added author, so duplicate authors are being created.

We need to get that author dropdown updating in as near-real time as possible. Imagine you're set on adding 4 books by the same author. From the end of the first save to the next Add Book and author selection could be as short as <5 seconds.

[George (george-archive)]

Need to account for the data entry of alternate names too. If someone types an alternate, we should display the master in the menu.

[Edward Betts (edwardbetts)]

I filed the alternate names feature request, so we can track it: Bug #618851