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Reconciling titles

DS does not use a title authority file for title string reconciliation. Rather, a bespoke controlled vocabulary of Standard Titles has been developed over time to aggregate and harmonize the titles of works or texts represented in or by the metadata records of manuscript objects. Because we are not seeking to implement or reproduce a bibliocentric model, nor does the data we take in always support this kind representation, we are unable to provide metadata for Works in the bibliographic sense. Instead, Standard Titles offer the opportunity to enrich string values with our own authority values to better power faceted browsing, search, and retrieval.

To that end, we have made an evolving series of decisions to guide Standard Title creation and application (found below).

  1. Examine the title_as_recorded and uniform_title_as_recorded fields. Determine if the title information can be standardized or if it is a specialized, unique, or highly descriptive title which does not lend itself to standardization and aggregation. Not all titles can or should be standardized.
  2. Search in the DS Catalog or the title.csv data dictionary to see if a Standard Title has already been assigned to a similar title string.
  3. If a Standard Title is unavailable, search in Wikidata, or commonly used name or title Authority files or controlled vocabularies, such as FAST or LCNAF, to see if a suitable form of a title exists. Uniform title information from the original metadata, where available, may be helpful in determining how to standardize a title for enrichment.
  4. Efforts should be made to aggregate works at the highest generic level possible. For instance:
    • "Book of Hours, use of Rome"
    • "Book of Hours : use of Rouen"
    • "Book of Hours, Use of Paris"
      should all be assigned the Standard Title Book of hours
  5. Standard Titles should be formatted in sentence case, with appropriate capitalization for proper nouns, unless convention/authorities dictate otherwise.
  6. More than one Standard Title can be assigned to a title string. This should be done to represent as many works/texts/units as are represented in the original metadata. Examples include:
    • record with string value from title_as_recorded: "Bible, Gospel of John" should be assigned 2 Standard Title values: Bible;Gospel of John
    • record with string value from title_as_recorded: "Old Testament. Ezekiel, xix.12-xxxix.29" and string value from uniform_title_as_recorded: "Bible" should be assigned 3 Standard Title values: Bible;Old testament;Book of Ezekiel
  7. When items have a well-known common or "trivial" name, assign that name as a Standard Title along with a more generic standard title, if applicable.
    • record with string value from title_as_recorded: "Llangatock Breviary" should be assigned 2 Standard Title values: Llangatock Breviary;Breviary
  8. When the term "work" or "works" is used in reference to the production of particular authors or writers, the term "work(s)" should be retained:
    • e.g., string value "Collection of works by Saint Augustine" should be assigned a Standard Title of Works of Augustine
    • e.g., string value "Works of Aristotle, Theophrastus, Ammonius, Porphyrius, and Pseudo-Galen" should be assigned the following Standard Titles: Works of Aristotle;Works of Theophrastus;Works of Ammonius;Works of Porphyrius;Works of Pseudo-Galen
  9. When a well-known or specific title is given, assign the Standard Title to reflect that text. An additional generic Standard Title may be assigned to facilitate retrieval.
    • e.g., string value "Opusculum astrologicum, ex diversorum libris, summa cura pro studiosorum utilitate collectum" should be assigned the following Standard Title: Opusculum astrologicum and may be supplemented as described in cases below (Astrological text)
  10. Defer to external sources for whether or not a Standard Title should be rendered in English or in another/original language.
    • e.g., string values "De coniuratione Catilinae" or "Bellum Catilinae" should be assigned the following Standard Title: The Conspiracy of Catiline
    • conversely, Interpretationes nominum Hebraicorum is the preferred Standard Title for the text often translated as "Interpretation of Hebrew Names"
  11. Spelling conventions should be standardized and modernized, unless convention/authorities dictate otherwise.
    • e.g., the Latin Judeaos is preferred over "Iudeos" and the Spanish Historia rather than "Hystoria"
  12. When the terms "work" or "text" is used in reference to generic writings (no author represented), the term used should be "text":
    • e.g., string value "Collection of works on Arabic grammar" should be assigned a Standard Title of Arabic grammatical texts.
  13. When a descriptive title is used in the title_as_recorded the singular or plural should be retained in the Standard Title, with each individual descriptor as a title:
    • e.g., string value "Astrological Miscellany" should be assigned a Standard Title of Astrological texts
    • e.g., string value "Medical treatise" should be assigned a Standard Title of Medical text
    • e.g., string value "Theological and legal works" should be assigned a Standard Title of Theological texts;Legal texts
  14. When title_as_recorded is a commentary or other text written about a known work or body of work, the appropriate Standard Title should be used for such commentaries:
    • in the case of a named title within a single author's works, use the Standard Title Commentary on..., as in the example Commentary on Aristotle
    • in the case of biblical commentary, use the Standard Title Bible commentary and Commentary on..., as in the examples Commentary on John or Commentary on Second Kings
  15. When title_as_recorded is a letter or letters, assign Standard Titles as follows:
    • in the case of a well-known letter or collection of letters, assign a Standard Title in accordance with convention/authority, as in Letters of Phalaris or Epistles of John
    • in the case of a letter to well-known or specific individual or group, assign a Standard Title that begins with Letter(s) and which names the recipient of the letter, as in Letter to Aurelius or Letter to the Dominicans
    • in the case of a letter that is not addressed to a well-known named individual or group (i.e., a more generic letter), assign the Standard Title Letter or Letters