Publisher versus imprint

Definitions

GOKb uses the following definitions for publisher and imprint:

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)

Examples

Publisher: Elsevier
Imprints: Pergamon Press, Academic Press, Cell Press, Mosby, etc.

Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Imprints: Routledge, Hayworth, CRC, etc.

Determining publisher versus imprint for GOKb data

In general, the publisher associated with a title in GOKb should be the independently operating commercial entity responsible for publishing, marketing, and licensing the content. So for example, we would use Elsevier as the publisher for Elsevier titles, regardless of imprint, because all of Elsevier's imprints are managed, sold, billed, and licensed together.

There are some cases where a company is owned by a larger publisher, but still operates fairly independently. To continue the Elsevier example: Elsevier owns the ebook publishing company Knovel. However, Knovel continues to maintain its own content platform, separate sales representatives, and separate licensing processes. In this case, we would continue to list Knovel as the publisher for Knovel titles.

Publisher information in KBART files

In many KBART files, the "publisher_name" field contains names of what would be considered imprints using the data above. When dealing with KBART files, verify the data in the "publisher_name" field to make sure it contains true publisher data. If so, you can rename it and import as the "org.publisher.name" field in GOKb. If you find that the KBART field contains imprints, you can rename it to the custom GOKb column "gokb.ti.imprint."