Topic 6: Glossary: Chief title

[Richard Noble]

At 05:19 PM 1/7/99 -0700, Bob Maxwell wrote:
>>Chief title.  [Omit definition.] % See Title proper. % [Omit "see also."]
>
>I think I agree with this, but is a distinction made between "chief title"
>and "title proper" anywhere in the rules? Is such a distinction necessary?
>If not, we should clean it out. If so, we need to make the difference
>clearer in the glossary. I personally don't think the distinction is
>necessary but maybe one of you understands the need?

I think it's needed.

"Chief title" has no counterpart in AACR2. It was almost certainly
suggested by the AACR2 definition of "title proper": "The chief name of an
item...". [Note here the slipshod use of "item" for "work"; what's named is
the work, which is contained in the item or publication.] Presumably
because, in the cataloguing context, it would make for some confusion if
title information were to be referred to as any sort of "name", the
technical term "chief title" was introduced in BDRB, and eventually defined
in DCRB, partly to take the place of the undefined informal phrase "chief
name".

Its use is really warranted, however, by the explicit inclusion, in the
DCRB definition of "title proper", of text preceding the chief name that
would not be included in the title proper if it followed the chief name, as
well as the need to specify, in rules concerning abridgement of long
titles, a portion of title text that does not include alternative titles.
Put that together and you have our chief title--the "core" of the title, so
to speak. (This is the basis for the uniform title as described in AACR2
25.3B, though that rule doesn't mention alternative titles, even though
they seem to be generally omitted in u.t's--is that per LCRI?)

If we were to delete the phrase "chief title", we could, I suppose, revert
to using "chief name"--but we'd then have to define that phrase in the same
terms that we use to define "chief title". In that case we'd be altering
the AACR2 definition, "the chief name of an item, including any alternative
title...", from which which one must infer that the chief name itself
includes "any alternative title".

The current definition of "chief title" could be made a little clearer. As
it stands, it appears that "alternative titles" are among those elements of
a title proper that may precede the chief title. Not so, of course, since
alternative titles always follow the chief title (see what a handy phrase
it is?).

The definition of "chief title" might therefore be: "That portion of the
title proper which constitutes the distinctive name of a work contained in
a publication, excluding alternative titles, as well as any initial [or
preceding] parallel titles, other title information, or subsidiary title
information. In the absence of such elements, it is identical to the title
proper. See also Title proper." Or the existing definition could at least
be more modestly edited for clarity concerning alternative titles.

 
RICHARD NOBLE : RARE BOOK CATALOGUER : JOHN HAY LIBRARY : BROWN UNIVERSITY
PROVIDENCE, RI 02912 : 401-863-1187/FAX 863-2093 : RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU