Field descriptions for WHSO recommended fields

· 1. Record identifier (unique)

o this must be unique for all items in the database; suggested format would be one-, two-, or four-digit year followed by sequence number, followed by bibliography identifier, thus: 2005.123456.Isis

· 2. Document type (fixed)

o should be one of four types (book, chapter, journal article, review); other types can be added as agreed upon by the committee (electronic sources, audio-visual material, and archival material, for example)

· 3. Author (subdivided)

o full names should be used; surnames should be clearly demarked from given names; authors should be clearly subdivided from each other; suggested punctuation; “surname 1, given-name 1; surname 2, given-name 2; …”

o the surname should not, in most cases, begin with a prefix such as “von,” “da,” or “de”; where possible use AACR2 (Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd edition) as the authority for all name forms

o corporate authors should be indicated as such; suggested usage: “CorpName: [United States Department of Agriculture]”; if possible use AACR2 as the standard.

· 4. Title

o both title and subtitle should be included

· 5. Year of publication

o four-digit year

· 6. List of contributors (for creating an author index) (subdivided)

o this field contains the names of all authors, editors, and contributors to the volume using the format discussed above in the author field description

o some discretion is used in determining which names to include; generally editors of a volume are not included in the contributor list for individual chapter entries.

· 7. Subject index terms (for creating a subject index) (subdivided; standardized)

o all terms should be separated by a consistent delimiter so that they can be pulled out for indexing

o names of persons and institutions should be entered, where possible, as they are found in the WHSO thesaurus or the Library of Congress subject terms

o subject index terms other than proper names should be entered using English; where non-English terms are used, their English equivalents should be entered separately; where possible, terms should follow already established terminology in HSTM

· 8. Language

o The language or languages of the work should be supplied.

· 9. Classification

o If the bibliography has a classification hierarchy, this can be included at the discretion of the bibliographer; the entire classification scheme should be accessible to all users of the bibliography.

· 10. Abstract

o for a descriptive note

o for edited works, this can be used for a table of contents of separately authored papers (ideally the table of contents will include author, title, and page numbers)

o in order for chapters in an edited work to be fully searchable, they should be entered as separate chapter records, in addition to being listed in the abstract field of a book entry.

· 11. Electronic access information

o if the source is accessible electronically, the access information goes here

· 12. Editor (subdivided)

o at the discretion of the bibliographer, this field can be included as a separate field distinct from edition details; it should be formatted in the same way as the author field discussed above; including editor information in edition details has the advantage of allowing the bibliographer to specify the precise nature of the editorial relationship

· 13. Edition details

o the information here will vary depending upon the source

o translation or transliteration of the title; to be indexed, the text must be clearly marked; suggested usage: “Translated title: [Origin of Species]”

o information about editors, translators, introductions, etc.; any people whose names are to be indexed will have to be marked using a special standard set of codes; suggested format: “Translated by [Yamamoto, Keiji]”

o statement of edition, such as “2d edition”

· 14. Publication information (imprint)

o publisher and/or place of publication, as indicated on the title page

· 15. Physical details (collation)

o include number of volumes; pagination; indication of illustrations, maps, diagrams; indication of bibliographies, notes, indexes

· 16. Series name and number

o include full series name and institution; separate the series number with a comma (or other consistent punctuation)

· 17. ISBN/ISSN

o if there are more than one ISBN numbers, give all

· 18. Title of volume (for chapter citations)

o both title and subtitle are included

· 19. Journal title

o the full title of the journal should be given; if an abbreviation is used, the abbreviation list must be available to all users; ISSN should accompany the title or the abbreviation list

· 20. Journal citation

o include volume number, issue number (where pagination is not continuous from issue to issue)

· 21. Pagination

o page numbers of chapter or journal entries

· 22. Citation of reviewed literature

o author or editor of the book; title; publication information; and year of publication

o the data in this field should be delimited consistently