Adding fields to the admin section

Hello Everybody,
I would like to know how to add a Select form field to the area in the Document Manager of the administration section where you add a new page. I’m thinking under the General tab. What I’m trying to do is allow authors to be added to the database (which I will write a simple script for) so they can be chosen as the writer of the new article being posted. I would pick the author’s name from a drop down when I am entering the article into the document manager. I know you can create a new account for a user and post under their name, but I would like to implement it this way, without having to create a new account for each author and log in as that author. There may already be add-ons that allow this, and if you know of any please let me know. Thank you for your help.
Jonathan

So these authors are all fake?

I think that the site is maintained by someone other than the authors. I have some sites I manage where the client just sends me the word file and I include it for them. I use a similar method as described above but have a ’container’ document with each child the authors name (and any additional by line information) then use the pull down menu to create a list of the authors and record the document ID for the author. This way I can edit the author data and have it reflect in all locations. There are a few snippet that will create a list from a container document, I can think of ddTree (I think that is what it is called) and the more recent Quill. Then you will need a snippet like GetField to retrieve the author name based on the ID and use it in the rendered document.

Hope this makes sense