[DCRM-L] Publishers Personal Name/Corporate Body

[Deborah J. Leslie]

Ted and others, if you take a look at the attached 2001 BSC document, you will see how we ended up resolving the issue: if a name was presented as personal, it was traced as a person. If a corporate body, then as a corporate body. 

In the hand-press era, few partnerships were established, stable and ongoing; it was more usual for individual booksellers to partner ad hoc. One such example was C. Hitch and L. Hawes (Firm). Wording and punctuation used in imprints turns out to be a pretty reliable, if not infallible, guide. 

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 Ted P Gemberling
Sent: Monday, 23 May 2016 18:00
To: DCRM Users' Group
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Publishers Personal Name/Corporate Body

Oh, I'm sorry: I meant to say " catalogers put the names of the two partners on as separate *personal* names" near the end. Sorry if that confused someone. 
Ted 

-----Original Message-----
From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On Behalf Of Ted P Gemberling
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2016 4:54 PM
To: DCRM Users' Group
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Publishers Personal Name/Corporate Body

Daryl,
Yes, I suppose almost all printers and booksellers had employees, but before about 1801 (I think), the name on the title page was usually just an individual's name. There was nothing to indicate it was actually a corporate body. After about that time, corporate names become more and more predominant. That was probably an effect of the mechanization of printing and the development of the whole "publishing" industry as something distinct from printing and bookselling. As it became easier to print a lot of copies of something, printing and publishing became corporate activities to a greater extent. Especially publishing: I think you still see lots of individual printers' names later. 

I'm not the expert on this. Richard, how am I doing? 

Now, I just thought of a kind of example that should be considered. Unfortunately I can't remember at this moment a pre-1801 example, but maybe Richard or someone else can. There are corporate names like T. and G. Underwood (Firm). I think that is inherently corporate though it is a combination of two personal names. It says the two worked together as equals in some sense. 

I have seen a few instances where catalogers put the names of the two partners on as separate corporate names. I'm not sure if that is necessary in some cases. I doubt it would be often. Maybe they weren't sure how to formulate a corporate name for them. 

I personally think we must treat most publishers before 1801 as personal names because that is in keeping with the usage on the books. 

Just my two cents. 

Ted Gemberling

-----Original Message-----
From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On Behalf Of Daryl Green
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2016 4:34 PM
To: DCRM Users' Group
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Publishers Personal Name/Corporate Body

Hi all-
Just to stir the pot a little as devil's advocate, and I apologise if I'm stepping out turn here, but couldn't nearly all publishers' and printers' names in an imprint be considered a corporate name? Very rarely was it one man or woman operating a print shop, surely Baskerville wasn't inking, pulling and hanging his sheets by himself, and so the name on the imprint "Printed by John Baskerville" or "Typis" or whatever is actually a mark of a company, run by the named individual, but almost always the work of a body of people?

Just a thought; I'll now strap on my armour for the flurry of replies....

-Daryl

Daryl Green
Rare Books Librarian
 
University of St Andrews Library
Special Collections Division
Library Annexe
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KY16 9WH
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Tel: +44 (0)1334 462325
 

The University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland : No SC013532
 
Echoes from the Vault: a blog from the Special Collections of the University of St Andrews

-----Original Message-----
From: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu] On Behalf Of Ted P Gemberling
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2016 5:54 PM
To: DCRM Users' Group <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Publishers Personal Name/Corporate Body

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>
>