[DCRM-L] Publishers Personal Name/Corporate Body

[Ted P Gemberling]

Richard, 
I would discourage George Virtue (Firm). When the name on a title page is actually his personal name, use his personal AAP. When it becomes corporate (I suppose because he was working with others who were regarded as his equals to some extent), use 
George Virtue & Company, or whatever is the predominant usage for the corporate name, with the other forms (*not* including George Virtue (Firm)), as 410's. 

When I came to this library, there were a lot of [personal name] (Firm) headings on our records. I ended up removing any I could find except for those that were actually established that way in the NAF. An example of that is Francis Hodgson (Firm). I think people used them locally because they assumed that publishers were always corporate names, and when they'd see a personal-looking name on the title page, an easy way to avoid deciding whether it was really personal was to set up the [personal name] (Firm) heading. The problem is that occasionally, if our library used an automated authority vendor like LTI, those names would be flipped to some completely extraneous corporate name. There was a case where the name of a publisher was flipped to the name of a law firm in Ireland because that firm's authority happened to have that personal name (Firm) as a 410!

Now, of course if your cataloger decides, with your approval, to set up the George Virtue (Firm) authority, that will not be a problem because it will be nationally established as a 110. But I just think it's a good idea to discourage use of such headings unless you know they are really correct. For example, if you know publications continued to have simply the personal name sometime after the person had died. 

I think it is true that publishers before 1801 were usually persons unless a corporate identity was indicated by the name. 

I agree Larry that there seems to be too much proliferation of J.S. Virtue authorities. It may make sense to request they be consolidated. However, that will be tough, because generally LC does not seem to want to change AAP's very much. 

Just my thoughts. 

Ted Gemberling
UAB Lister Hill Library 

-----Original Message-----
From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On Behalf Of Deborah J. Leslie
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2016 11:23 AM
To: DCRM Users' Group
Cc: Sarah Hovde
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Publishers Personal Name/Corporate Body

This is amazingly timely; I am preparing a query to DCRM-L (with pictures!) on this very topic. Stay tuned!

Deborah J. Leslie, M.A., M.L.S. | Senior Cataloger, Folger Shakespeare Library | djleslie at folger.edu | 202.675-0369 | 201 East Capitol St., SE, Washington, DC 20003 | www. folger.edu | orcid.org/0000-0001-5848-5467 


-----Original Message-----
From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On Behalf Of Laurence S. Creider
Sent: Monday, 23 May 2016 11:53
To: DCRM Users' Group
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Publishers Personal Name/Corporate Body

Richard,
I am not doing any cataloging these days, so take my comments with a shovel of salt. Your note leads me to ask a few questions.  You say, "in view of the fact that we usually treat printers and publishers who use a personal name as persons rather than corporate bodies ...."  I agree, but is there something in the rules that is clear about this?  Every time we change cataloging rules, there is provision for previous practice, everything needs to be re-thought.  This is a problem when book historians, bibliographers, and rare book dealers do not follow the same rules catalogers do and certainly not with chronological synchrony.  This leads to what I call "code interference."

Second, why is there no 500 from the personal name to the corporate body? 
Even if the rules were to forbid, common sense would call for it. 
Otherwise, one ends up with split files.

Third, the three authority records for J.S. Virtue and Co., James S. Virtue (Firm), and Virtue and Company sound like they should be one record, or at most two.  Split files with a vengeance.

I wish you luck.

Larry
--
Laurence S. Creider
Head, Archives and Special Collections Dept.
University Library
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, NM  88003
Work: 575-646-4756
Fax: 575-646-7477
lcreider at lib.nmsu.edu

Pobre Nuevo Mexico! Tan Lejos del cielo y tan cerca de Texas.--Manuel Armijo

On Mon, May 23, 2016 9:11 am, Noble, Richard wrote:
> In my new (and thankfully temporary) role as NACO Coordinator, I'm
confronted with a cataloger's new record for "George Virtue (Firm)".
Virtue
> was a publisher, for whom there is a personal heading that has served
for
> use in records for his publications:
>
> MARC nr 91022431
> MARC MWA eng rda MWA DLC
> NAME AUTHR Virtue, George, 1793?-1868
> NAME S FRM Virtue, G. (George), 1793?-1868 NOTE Fletcher, A. Scripture 
> natural history, 1838: t.p. (George Virtue;
London publisher)
> NOTE Concise DNB (Virtue, George, 1793?-1868; published books with 
> fine
copper and steel engravings)
>
> Relatively late in his career Virtue did use a corporate imprint 
> "Virtue
&
> Co." or "George Virtue & Co.", for which one might wish to establish a
corporate heading. But in view of the fact that we usually treat printers
> and publishers who use a personal name as persons rather than 
> corporate
bodies, is the following record at all useful or, as I think it may be, actually counter-productive, since it proposes an alternate corporate AAP
> for an established and much used personal name:
>
> 1102 George Virtue (Firm)
> 370  Ç,e London (England) Ç,2 naf
> 372  Publishers and publishing Ç,2 lcsh
> 4102 George Virtue and Co.
> 4102 George Virtue and Company
> 4102 George Virtue & Co.
> 4102 George Virtue & Company
> 4102 G. Virtue (Firm)
> 4102 Virtue (Firm)
> 670  Walks about the city and environs of Jerusalem, 1844: Ç,b title
page
> (London, George Virtue)
> 670  Coyne, J. Stirling. The scenery and antiquities of Ireland,
> 1843?: Ç,b engravings throughout text (London, Geo. Virtue, 26 Ivy
> Lane)
> 670  OCLC, May 20, 2016 Ç,b (access point: George Virtue (Firm) ; usage:
George Virtue, George Virtue and Co., George Virtue & Co., Geo. Virtue, G.
> Virtue)
>
> Obviously the treatment of the personal name as preferred name even 
> for
publications with a corporate-style imprint won't wash; nor the inclusion
> of "Virtue (Firm)" as a reference, since that involves us with the
successor firm operated by James Sprent Virtue. And in any case the Virtue
> father and son were probably whimsical in the forms of their imprints.
>
> Note that there are also AAPs for J.S. Virtue and Co., James S. Virtue
(Firm), Virtue and Company [which is James S. Virtue]--three authority records that don't "talk" to each other, and Virtue & Company, Ltd. (an unrelated[?] c20 firm). I'd rather we didn't contribute further to this proliferation of AAPs, and I'm certainly disinclined to try rationalizing
> the rather messy situation that already exists, having many other 
> things to do.
>
> Of course, another question is: does one want treat a person as a 
> corporate body solely because the relationship with the resource is 
> one that a
corporate body might have?
>
>
>
> RICHARD NOBLE :: RARE MATERIALS CATALOGUER :: JOHN HAY LIBRARY BROWN 
> UNIVERSITY  ::  PROVIDENCE, R.I. 02912  ::  401-863-1187 
> <Richard_Noble at Br <RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU>own.edu>
>