Metadata correction proposals

General

• running a search on Œhypocrite¹ and found the following: ³Search ALL TEXT in NIV ³APPLICTION² instead of ³Application²
• Please add common abbreviations in parenthesis after publisher names (JPS, PBI...). This simplifies library filtering and collection rules considerably.

Incorrect Types

Missing indexes

• A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature is missing English Headwords.

Languages

• There exists in our system a method for inputting second or third language aliases to books. This is terrible, because language aliases are also functional and this input has no method of earmarking which should be the “main” language alias. The “main” language alias has to match the mark-up baked into the resource for the text to display properly and for certain internal tools to work. Thanks to this, I am very cautious about fixing language errors. It’s really a change that requires a re-evaluation of all of the book’s code, and perhaps a full resource update. And multiple language aliases for a single book will rarely, if ever, be implemented (I know we have a few in the legacy resources. I fear to touch them). ~Hayley Price

• The Apologies of Justin Martyr, to which is Appended the Epistle to Diognetus needs Greek added to Language
• The Book of Tobit (1878) and Two Unknown Hebrew Versions of Tobit (1897) – these both have Language:English, but that’s incorrect. The first should be English;Chaldee;Hebrew and the second should be English;Hebrew.
• The Heidelberg Catechism: the German Text, with a Revised Translation and Introduction: German - should have language:German
• Lexicons with a Language other than English - remove from Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, Abridged BDB
• Old Testament Greek Pseudipigrapha with Morphology needs Greek added to Language
• Pirke Avot: Timeless Wisdom for Modern Life: Hebrew Text needs Hebrew added to Language
• Works of John Owen: Volume 17 - language should be “Latin; English” not just Latin; the sermons and discourses are in English

Title Capitalization Errors

Individual Resources or groups of resources

• Apostolic Fathers - all versions need the original authors added to the Author column, like the ECF now have
  • Try again, please. You only fixed Holmes, not Lake, Lightfoot or Brannan.
• Book of Common Prayer - short title default should be BCP; it’s currently blank
• The Harvard Classics 33: Voyages and Travels - missing original authors (and the whole series needs to be checked for consistency)
• Interpreting the Gospel of John: A Practical Guide (Gary Burge, 2nd ed.) – cover image doesn’t match that shown on the Logos website; it’s the cover image of the first edition

• Lexham Septuagints - Rahlfs and Swete should be added to the author column for the versions based on their editions
• Our Lord: An Affirmation of the Deity of Christ - author’s name should be spelled out: William Childs Robinson (not Wm., even though it’s spelled that way inside the book); website has it correctly

Special Process Books (Perseus, Vyrso)

• We have a couple of different production workflows for different product lines, and they involve different metadata curation methods.
  • Perseus books were done en masse using metadata from an existing database, with the original databases’ formatting and standards. While I sometimes make updates to Perseus books to fix unambiguous errors, the “differing standards” problems are “known issues”, and outside of the realm of my spot-checking.
  • Vyrso books go through a special “tradebook” process that involves less functionality tagging (which winds up determining the display of metadata fields with functionality associated with them) and less polish to the metadata fields in general. They’re also more difficult to fix, as they’re listed in a different database than the Logos Editions that I officially manage. I can fix genuine errors, but like Perseus, some Vyrso issues are just “known issues”. ~Hayley Price

• Perseus Resources - some resources have pubdate: not following the usual convention of giving a four-digit year but give other date formats, this defies sort or select operations
• Perseus Resources - some resources have empty pubdate: field
• [Vyrso] Josh McDowell’s Unshakable Truth Journey Growth Guides for Adults, hyphen inconsistencies in the titles (Inspired, Created, and Broken all have single hyphen with spaces around it; Forgiven has single hyphen with no spaces around it; Sacrifice, Growing, and Resurrected all have — (em dash) with no spaces around it); not a big deal for functionality but looks sloppy when these titles are grouped together in library)

Missing Series

• Belief in the Word: Reading the Fourth Gospel, John 1–4, Signs and Shadows: Reading John 5–12 and Glory Not Dishonor: Reading John 13–21 should be part of the same series (perhaps call it “Reading John”?).
• Walk Genesis!, Walk Exodus!, Walk Leviticus!, Walk Numbers! and Walk Deuteronomy! should be part of the same series (perhaps call it “Walk!”?).
• Whilst not technically part of a series, it might be helpful to add each of Peter A. Stevenson’s commentaries into a series.

Author Inconsistencies

• E. A. Abbott == Edwin A. Abbott
• Ronald B. Allen == Ronald Barclay Allen?
• Thabiti Anyabwile == Thabiti M. Anyabwile? (possibly a moot point; see above re: Glory Road)
• J. Barton == John Barton?
• Raymond Brown == Raymond Edward Brown? (also the names of the two collections of his books refer to him as Raymond E. Brown)
• T. A. Buckley == Theodore Alois Buckley?
• Cicero == M. Tullius Cicero
• Arnold Dallimore == Arnold A. Dallimore?
• Wayne Grudem == Wayne A. Grudem (seems to be Logos vs. Vyrso with/without A.)
• Raphael Holinshed == Raphaell Holinshed (see http://community.logos.com/forums/t/74373.aspx )
• à Lapide, Cornelius == should be sorted on L, not C
• Peter Leithart == Peter J. Leithart?
• D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones == Martyn Lloyd-Jones
• Myron Penner == Myron Bradley Penner?
• Stuart Sacks == Stuart D. Sacks?
• Philip Sidney == Sir Philip Sidney?
• Gordon Smith == Gordon T. Smith
• Derek Thomas == Derek W. H. Thomas?

Publisher Inconsistencies

• The remaining listed publishers (as of 8/7/14) are intentional doubles. Here’s the logic behind them: There’s a value in standardizing publisher names down to one version, for the sake of an organized library. But there’s also a real value in keeping different iterations of publisher names separate, for the sake of cataloguing editions and citing books accurately. Older publishers especially altered their names all the time; similar to modern day law offices, the names could change every time a new partner joined the firm. My solution, as it was, was to treat every addition of a name or implied name—”& Son” or “& Co.” or whatever—as a new publisher name. This is the reason for most of the name duplicates below. This gets complicated and there are exceptions, though, such as the following cases:
• When there are just too many names. The publisher currently listed as ‘Longmans’ includes 14 variants with up to 5 proper names in a string. Sometimes the names are the same, and they just change the order in which they are cited. We combined them all for our collective sanity.
• When two related names are distinct legal entities. IVP and Inter-Varsity are the UK and US branches of a parent group, and they remain separate by choice. You’ll notice that books they publish internationally will list both publishers separately in the front matter. Macmillan and Macmillan Company is another publisher that duo-bills like this.
• When a publisher rebrands across the board. Given the way publishers rebrand, acquire each other, merge, and deploy or retract imprints, there is a potential danger to wind up standardizing everything into the same few, uninformative names. That’s why I prefer to stay a little redundant with the older publisher names, like George Bell and Sons, and to sometimes capture imprint names in the metadata rather than parent publishers (also, imprints get convoluted fast). This is also why publisher names aren’t standardized in the bibliographic citation fields. We want them to remain edition-accurate for users constructing academic reports. ~Hayley Price

• C. Scribner == Charles Scribner & Co. == Charles Scribner’s Sons?
• E. Dilly == Edward and Charles Dilly?
• G. Bell == George Bell and Sons?
• Ignatius - should be Ignatius Press (change needed on website as well)
  • This was intentional, part of an initial push to simplify publisher names down to the shortest possible versions. This became untenable when we noted it would result in too many publishers simplified down to the same name (Universities in particular draw a distinction between their own publications and the publications of their Presses). ~Hayley Price
• P. J. Kenedy == P. J. Kenedy & Sons?
• Robert Carter == Robert Carter & Brothers?
• Simpkin Marshall == Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.?
• William Hunt == William Hunt and Company?

Publication Date Inconsistencies

• Series:Lange’s Commentary most volumes reflect the Citation & epub date 2008, but 15 volumes have a date ranging from 1867 to 1900.
  • Lange’s! My ancient foe! I’ve swapped the odd-15 out back to 2008. Why 2008? Well, it has to do with reprint formatting and the materials we worked from when initially making these. You’d be amazed at how consistently we have debates about the proper handling of public domain resources, reprints, materials, and their metadata.

Citation Inconsistencies

• The problem of inconsistencies between footnote citations and general bibliographic citations should now be resolved. Please let us know if you’re still seeing instances of this.

Subject Inconsistencies

Title Inconsistencies

• Holman New Testament Commentary The Mark volume lost its Abbrev. Title “HNTC Mk” sometime after August 8, 2015!
  • Weeeeird. I can’t see this in my setup but I found the likely cause—Let me know if the problem is recurring. ~Hayley Price

Cover Images

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to change a book’s cover image once it has been published. The cover image visible in the info pane is embedded in the files, and cannot be replaced without creating new resource files. However, please keep telling us when you find cover images that are missing or incorrect! I promise you we are keeping this list, and are swapping out cover images when we can! ~HP

• Archaeology Odyssey - missing covers, despite them being in the resource
• Bible and Spade - missing covers, despite them being in the resource
• Bible Review - missing covers, despite them being in the resource
• Biblical Archaeologist missing covers, despite them being in the resource
• Biblical Archaeology Review is missing covers, despite them being in the resource
• A Commentary on the Vision of Zechariah the Prophet: Bible Text - a newsly published resource
• Discipleship Journal - missing covers, despite them being in the resource
• Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - cover image should be changed to the official one used on the product description page
• Handbook of Evangelical Theologians - cover image doesn’t match what’s on the website
• Hermeneia - the two volumes from Upgrade 2 (1 Enoch 2, Psalms 3) have cover images of a different size than the other volumes. The product page seems to indicate they should be the same size.
• The History of the English Baptists has cover images that prominently say 1811-1830 on them. This makes no sense as that’s not the period the books cover (which is about 1320-1663), nor the period during which the books were published (which was 1738-1740).
• History of Israel by John Bright needs to have cover art corrected (see ] for correct one; it is using this thumbnail version: ], which is also showing up on the website)
• Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation by CPH – missing cover image
• MacArthur’s New Testament Commentary series needs consistent cover images
• The Marrow of Modern Divinity - correct format on the product page, wrong format in the resource
• Memoirs of the Life and Writings of John Calvin Description and cover are for a book of the same name by a different author. (Author should be Mackenzie)
• The Minor Prophets by Hampton Keathley – missing cover image
• *Sir Robert Anderson Collection – missing cover images
• Studies in Revelation by J. Hampton Keathley, III – missing cover image