Name authority headings for the book trade

This article discusses situations where it is not immediately clear whether an entity should be established as a personal or corporate name heading. While these situations are well-documented in early modern materials, less attention has been paid to them in 19th- (and, to a lesser extent, 20th-) century items.

The Folger is currently in the process of deciding on an approach to the "personal vs corporate" name heading problem, and is collecting a pool of examples, both to inform our decision-making process and to assist other catalogers considering the same issue. We are disregarding at the moment the current existence of authority records that may pertain to these entities for the purpose of establishing a general principle for tracing these names.

All examples should include at least one photograph of the item (see instructions for uploading files) and a link to a catalog record.

Danish examples

Folger PR2807.P4	Folger QB85.B8

English examples

This section is currently a draft.

Folger E166.B9	Folger CS435.S7 M2
	|
Folger PR2825.A334 Sh.Col. (title page)	PR2825.A334 Sh.Col. (title page detail)

French examples

Folger PR2796.F6 A13 Sh.Col. v.3 (front cover)	Folger PR2796.F6 A13 Sh.Col. v.3 (back cover)
Folger PR2796.F6 1842a Sh.Col. v.1

German examples

Folger PR2831 1840 Sh.Col. (title page)	Folger PR2831 1840 Sh.Col. (colophon)

Italian & Latin examples

Folger QB41.B8 E6 1896	Folger PR2796 I8 K6 1946 Sh.Col.

Polish examples

Folger PR2796.P5 H1 A13 Sh.Col.	Folger PR2796 P5 J1 1859 Sh.Col.