GOKb Style Guide

Duplicate proprietary IDs

Within GOKb, the same ID cannot be used for multiple titles within the same namespace. Publishers will sometimes use the same ID for earlier and later versions of the same title (especially if they are hosted on the same web page).  For consistency, assign the ID to the most recent version of the title. Earlier versions of the title will not be assigned a proprietary ID in GOKb.

Package names

The basic format for package names is:
{Content Provider}: {Package name}

For more detailed information see GOKb Naming Conventions.

Project names

The basic format for project names is:
{Content Provider}: {Package name}: {YYYYMMDD}

For more detailed information see GOKb Naming Conventions.

Publisher versus imprint

GOKb uses the following definitions:

Publisher: The commercial entity responsible for the production and dissemination of content. (citation)

Imprint: A trade name under which a work is published. One single publishing company may have multiple imprints; the different imprints are used by the publisher to market works to different demographic consumer segments. In some cases, the diversity results from the takeover of smaller publishers (or parts of their business) by a larger company. (citation)

For a more detailed discussion of this topic see Publisher versus imprint.

Supplements

Supplements should have separate Title and TIPP records in GOKb. Many supplements will not have ISSNs. Supplements may not use the same ISSN as their parent publication, as this will cause incorrect merging to occur.

Title capitalization

The GOKb preferred style is title case (all major words in the title capitalized). Some providers may use sentence case in their data (only the first word and proper nouns capitalized). Currently there is no direct way to transform titles between title case and sentence case using OpenRefine, so you can accept whichever format you get. But if entering titles manually, use title case.

Occasionally you will see titles in a file that are either all caps or all lowercase. Before changing these to title case, verify that the title is not intended to have unconventional capitalization. Many titles are purposely formatted this way. All lowercase example.

Title metadata conflicts

Occasionally sources disagree about the details of a title, especially in relation to title changes. When sorting out a conflict, authoritative sources of title information include (in order of preference):

1. A PDF or printed copy of the original issue
2. The ISSN Portal
3. Ulrich's
4. The publisher's metadata

If no conflict is present, its not necessary to verify information in all of these sources.