CCS Cataloging Manual:Manual of Style

As of November 28, 2008, the rules on this page have been approved in concept by the SCRAP committee, but the exact wording is still being adjusted. Please use these rules. Please send any feedback to SCRAP.

The Manual of Style is a style guide for the CCS cataloging manual. Please follow it except where common sense and the occasional exception will improve an entry.

Naming conventions

Use the most easily recognized name

Whenever possible, an entry should use a name that will be most easily recognized, with a minimum of ambiguity and a maximum of clarity.

Use sentence case

Capitalize the first word in an entry name or section name. Do not capitalize the second and subsequent words unless they should normally be capitalized.

Singular vs. plural

Use singular forms of nouns for entries unless the entry deals with a small class of material or when the noun is always plural.

Use plural forms of nouns for categories, as they represent a group of things.

Avoid initial articles

Do not begin an entry or section name with an initial article.

Use gerund forms of verbs

Use the gerund (e.g. "editing" rather than "edit") of verbs unless there is a more common form that makes more sense in context.

First sentences

Content

The first sentence should begin with a simple declarative sentence that summarizes the entry's subject matter.

If possible, the page title should appear once in the first sentence.

Format

The first, and only the first, appearance of the page title should be in boldface.

Text formatting

Italics

Emphasis

Use italics rather than uppercase letters for emphasis in the body of entries.

Incorrect: Do Not Delete The Title Field.

Incorrect: Do NOT delete the title field.

Correct: Do not delete the title field.

Use italics sparingly to emphasize words. The more words you emphasize, the less effect each emphasis has on the reader.

Words as words

Use italics when referring to a word, letter, or string of words or letters as a word, letter, or string of words or letters.

Examples:

The term cataloging means "to catalog".

The most common letter in English is e.

Foreign terms

Use italics for foreign terms that are not commonly used in everyday English. For example: "Microfilm cataloging is a bête noire for many catalogers."

Do not use italics for loanwords and borrowed phrases that are in common use in English. For example: "Beta tapes cannot be played in VHS machines and vice versa."

Non-breaking spaces

A non-breaking space is recommending to prevent breaking apart elements of an expression that would be awkward on the beginning of a new line, such as 10 cm. This is done by using   instead of a space: 10 cm yeilds 10 cm.

Because multiple non-breaking spaces are not collapsed down to one space by web browsers, non-breaking spaces can also be used to force a certain number of spaces to display when not using <pre> markup or the example template.

Quotations

Use quotation marks for quotations of a sentence or two.

Use <blockquote>...</blockquote> for quotations of more than four lines or more than one paragraph. Surround each paragraph with <p>...</p>. Include the attribution for the quote in a separate paragraph inside the blockquote, starting with a — (&mdash;) without a trailing space.

Apostrophes and quotation marks

Use standard straight apopstrophes and quotation marks rather than curly quotes.

Acronyms and abbreviations

Except with the most-commonly-used acronyms and abbreviations (e.g. MARC, OCLC), generally use the spelled out form of a term the first time it appears in an entry, followed the acronym or abbreviation in parentheses. If the term is already in parentheses, use a comma and or instead of nesting parentheses.

Use standard English rules for plurals of acronyms and initialisms. In other words, generally use -s or -es and do not use an apostrophe.

Serial comma

Use a serial comma (also known as an Oxford comma or Harvard comma) immediately before the conjunction in a list of three or more items.

Dashes

En dashes

Use an en dash (–, entered as &ndash;) in the body text of entries as the typographical equivalent of the word through: Many libraries have fiscal years that run July–June.

Use a hyphen instead of an en dash in representations of MARC data: 504  Includes bibliographical references (p. 103-120).

Em dashes

Use an em dash (—, entered as &mdash;) in the body text of entries instead of a double hyphen (--).

Use a double hyphen instead of an em dash in representations of MARC data: 500  "Special 50th anniversary edition"--Cover.

Using color

Do not use color alone to convey information, as the information will not be accessible to people with color blindness or on black-and-white printouts. Using color may be desirable in some cases, but the information should still be accessible without it.

If color is required, try to choose colors that are unambiguous (such as orange and violet) when viewed by someone with red-green color blindness and do not use shades of red and green as color codes in the same example.

Invisible comments

Use <!-- and --> to flag an issue or leave a comment or instructions for other editors in the body text of an entry that should not be seen by the average reader.

Formatting MARC data

Referring to subfields

"Subfield a" vs. ‡a vs. |a

Excerpts

Include excerpts inline surrounded by <code>...</code>

Entire fields, multiple fields, and entire records

Use the example template to display longer examples of MARC data in a special box with a fixed-width font. Use the subfield template for all subfield codes.

{{example|text=504 Includes index.}}
displays as:

504  Includes index.

{{example|text=
100 1 Smith, John.
245 10 Baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie /{{subfield|c}}by John Smith.}}
displays as:

100 1  Smith, John.
245 10 Baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie /‡cby John Smith.

Formatting Unicorn data

Policy names

Format policy names in all uppercase letters, surrounded by <code>...</code>. Use <tt>...</tt> instead in table columns that include only the policy name.

Policy types

Do not capitalize the names of policy types, such as item type, item category 1, etc.

Redirection

Create a redirect page to an entry page for the following cases:

• From an abbreviation
• From a common misspelling
• From an alternative spelling
• From a plural when an entry title is a term that does not follow the standard conventions for plurals
• From a singular when a category title is a term that does not follow the standard conventions for plurals
• From a alternative term or phrase
• From a page title with other capitalizations when the page title contains mixed case other than the very first letter. (All page titles with all initial capitals or all lowercase letters except for the very first letter are found using a case-insensitive match when a searcher clicks the "Go" button, but mixed-case titles must found via "Go" using an exact case match.)

Be careful when creating a redirect category to a category page because the Mediawiki software does not prevent pages from being linked to the redirect category instead of the target category. This should not be a major problem in a minimal-access wiki like this one, but is something to watch out for.