Title pages

The WWP encodes title pages with the titleBlock element, which has the same content model as the TEI element titlePage, but can appear within front and back. titleBlock has the following type attribute values: “titlePage”, “halfTitle”, “captionTitle”, and “colophon”. titleBlock may contain more or less than a full page, as appropriate. If title page information spans two or more pages, it should be encoded within a single titleBlock element, with pb elements indicating the page breaks. If blank pages or other document parts intervene, however, it may also be encoded as multiple titleBlock elements.

Note that when transcribing the title page, differences in the size of different lines or words may be helpful in determining the boundaries between text elements, and deciding what structural markup best suits each piece of the title page. However, such size information is not actually recorded. Spacing between letters within words is regularized to zero (so that a title printed “A N A D D R E S S” would be transcribed simply

titlePart rend="case(allcaps)"An Address/titlePart

In the case of an instance of the title for the whole document appearing as a header immediately preceding the text, without the accompanying information of a title page - depending on the context, this title type should be encoded either as a head for the appropriate div, or as a titlePart type="halftitle".

The following are the standard components of an ordinary title page; however, they may not all appear and they may appear in any order.

1. The document title

The title of the document can occur at any point, wherever it appears on the page, within titleBlock. The document title gets the wrapper titlePart for any part of the title; therefore if the title is broken up on the title page, there can be multiple instances of titlePart.

2. The document author and other forms of responsibility

Any statement made on the title page about any of the document’s creators or transmitters (except for the printer and publisher) should be encoded with respLine. Within respLine, specific references to the author or other producer (editor, translator, etc.) of the document should be encoded with docRole, which has multiple type attributes (author, publisher, translator, printer). The personal name of such a participant, if it appears, should be encoded with persName, orgName, name (etc.) as appropriate. For more information, see “Respline, Byline, and Authorship”.

3. Epigraphs and other miscellaneous items

Quotations which appear on the title page should be encoded with epigraph. Representational images on the title page should be encoded with figure. Nonrepresentational images should be encoded with &ornament;. Information about the edition (e.g. “Second edition, with corrections”) should be encoded with docEdition.

4. The document imprint

The document imprint includes all information pertaining specifically to the printing and production of the text. This information is all enclosed within a docImprint element, which is a required element within titleBlock. Reference to the place of publication (i.e. the city) is encoded with pubPlace, with placeName nested inside as necessary to encode specific place names. We do not use address anywhere within the publication information. If the address of the publisher is given (i.e. a more specific location within the publication city) we encode it with placeName. The date of publication is encoded with docDate, with the ISO standard date in the value attribute (see “Dates”). docDate can be a direct child of titleBlock itself. The printer, publisher, and bookseller are encoded with docRole, with a persName element nested inside. The price of the book, if it appears within the imprint, is encoded with docSale. (See below for more on docSale.)

5. The imprimatur

The imprimatur is a statement indicating that the book was legally licensed and given official permission to be printed. This statement comes in many forms; some of the most common are: Imprimatur, Cum privilegio, Licensed, With Permission. The imprimatur should be encoded with imprimatur.

6. The document price

If the price of the book is printed on the title page, it should be encoded with docSale, which can be a direct child of titleBlock and may occur directly on the title page, or within docImprint if the price information is embedded within the phrasing of the imprint. We do not use docSale for information about where the book is sold, unless this is integrated with the pricing information.