Metadata correction proposals

 

!!! Publisher Inconsistencies

* The remaining listed publishers (as of 8/7/14) are intentional doubles. Here's the logic behind them: There's a value in standardizing publisher names down to one version, for the sake of an organized library. But there's also a real value in keeping different iterations of publisher names separate, for the sake of cataloguing editions and citing books accurately. Older publishers especially altered their names all the time; similar to modern day law offices, the names could change every time (…)

* When there are just /too many/ names. The publisher currently listed as 'Longmans' includes 14 variants with up to 5 proper names in a string. Sometimes the names are the same, and they just change the order in which they are cited. We combined them all for our collective sanity.

* When two related names are distinct legal entities. IVP and Inter-Varsity are the UK and US branches of a parent group, and they remain separate by choice. You'll notice that books they publish internationally will list both publishers separately in the front matter. Macmillan and Macmillan Company is another publisher that duo-bills like this.

* When a publisher rebrands across the board. Given the way publishers rebrand, acquire each other, merge, and deploy or retract imprints, there is a potential danger to wind up standardizing everything into the same few, uninformative names. That's why I prefer to stay a little redundant with the older publisher names, like George Bell and Sons, and to sometimes capture imprint names in the metadata rather than parent publishers (also, imprints get convoluted /fast/). This is also why publishe (…)

* *C. Scribner* == *Charles Scribner & Co.* == *Charles Scribner's Sons*?

* *E. Dilly* == *Edward and Charles Dilly*?

* *G. Bell* == *George Bell and Sons*?

* *Ignatius* - should be *Ignatius Press*  (change needed on website as well)

* This was intentional, part of an initial push to simplify publisher names down to the shortest possible versions. This became untenable when we noted it would result in too many publishers simplified down to the same name (Universities in particular draw a distinction between their own publications and the publications of their Presses). ~Hayley Price

* *P. J. Kenedy* == *P. J. Kenedy & Sons*?

* *Robert Carter* == *Robert Carter & Brothers*?