Quoting George Oates <[email protected]>:
> > FWIW, I've changed lots of titles on openlibrary.org, but mainly > along the lines > of making something title case, or correcting a typo. Sometimes > people split the > title/subtitle if it's clear. Just a bit of library arcana: Libraries do not use title case for titles. They use sentence case. I had never heard why that was so I posted the question to a library list. No one knew for sure, but someone found a quote from about 1850 that seemed to explain it. To begin with, many titles are given all in upper case, so you don't want to use the case that is on the book itself. Sentence case makes clear which of the words in the title are proper nouns. That's about it. I think the upshot is that consistency makes it easier to scan through a bunch of titles on a page, regardless of how you do it. kc > > Cheers, > george > > > On 10/16/10 5:16 PM, Patrick Conley wrote: >> No, a library should not change the title of a book. If the title contains >> words like "and", "or" etc. they are part of the title. >> >> BTW: The Robinson's book has a pretty short title compared with >> other works from >> the past. Just take this book from 1882: >> >> "Des hocherleuchteten Lehrers, Herrn Johann Arndts, weiland >> General-Superintendenten des Fürstenthums Lüneburg, Sechs Bücher vom Wahren >> Christenthum : welche handeln von heilsamer Buße, herzlicher Reue >> und Leid über >> die Sünde und wahren Glauben, auch heiligem Leben und Wandel der >> rechten wahren >> Christen; desgleichen wie ein solcher Sünde, Teufel, Hölle, Welt, >> Kreuz und alle >> Trübsal durch festen Glauben an Gottes Wort und Gebet überwinden soll. Nebst >> beigefügtem Lebenslauf des seligen Herrn Autors, ingleichen kurzen >> Gebeten nach >> jedem Capitel, Morgen- und Abendsegen auf alle Tage in der Woche, >> und nöthigen >> Registern, auch mit 66 feinen Holzschnitten geziert, nebst dessen >> Paradiesgärtlein. Nebst sieben und zwanzig geistlichen Sendbriefen >> des seligen >> Verfassers." >> >> In this case San Francisco Public Library gave up and uses the >> short version: >> "Des hocherleuchteten Lehrers, Herrn Johann Arndts ... Sechs Bücher >> vom Wahren >> Christenthum" >> >> http://openlibrary.org/books/OL22942972M >> >> >> Am 16.10.2010 20:16, schrieb Alan Millar: >>> I see some books with [what looks to me like] a title and subtitle >>> connected by "or", currently all together in the title field. For >>> example: >>> >>> The Swiss family Robinson, or, The adventures of a father and his four >>> sons on a desert island >>> >>> http://openlibrary.org/works/OL2463033W >>> >>> This seems to me like it should be split between the title and >>> subtitle fields. >>> >>> Should the word "or" be kept at the beginning of the subtitle? >>> >>> - Alan >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Ol-discuss mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-discuss >> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to >> [email protected] > _______________________________________________ > Ol-discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-discuss > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to > [email protected] > -- Karen Coyle [email protected] http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet _______________________________________________ Ol-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-discuss To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to [email protected]
