Source of Information

Main page

Choice of the main title

Hierarchy

Works often contain different title pages, with different spellings or wordings of the title. To achieve uniformity in the bibliographical descriptions, a strict hierarchy is established to identify the main title of the work. This has the advantage, both for the cataloguer as for the user, that there is no doubt about the choice of main title if there are for example multiple title pages present in a publication.

The hierarchy is as follows:

1. Cover title or collective title on a separate, so-called collective typographical title page for multi-volume works. If there is only an engraved collective title page present, then the preference goes to the typographical title page of the first volume.
2. Title on the typographical title page
3. Title on the engraved title page
4. Title on the printed cover (very rare for Flemish imprints)
5. Title/caption above the text (not a title page in the strict sense of the word, the text starts immediately after the title on that same page)
6. Incipit (first meaningful words of the text itself)
7. Running title (title that is printed at the top of the page and repeated throughout the entire work)
8. Self-selected title on the basis of an earlier edition of the same work
9. Self-selected title on the basis of the half title, a mention in the prelims, in the privilege, in the approbation or elsewhere in the document
10. Self-selected title on the basis of the general contents of the work