What is the “English Title” field for when a ‘Book’ is added?
I mean, I assume it’s for the translation of a non-English title… but why?
That’s correct. I thought it could be helpful on pages like this:
But I’m really not sure. It’s easily changeable. What do you think?
I think it’s worth having a common site language - this being a website based in a Western country (I assume, I assume the US) it’ll be English.
With a common language, it would make searching for a book easier if a non-English language book was being added and I needed to know if it was already present. If the only submission/s so far were in languages other than the language of the book I was adding, I’ll probably miss it.
Having the title in English (the Common Site Language) means I have to only know the English title, or translate it if I don’t know, and that’ll get me closer.
Take as an example a recent addition by @BadMoon - Vier Hochzeiten und ein Todesfall - books - ctlgs
A search for “Four Weddings and a Funeral” doesn’t find it, and I’d never think to search for it in German.
@Burnett I’m definately not against it, your answer confirmed what I was suspecting. It’s just I wanted to be sure, since technically, a book has no English title until it has been translated. But it’s actually supposed to be only the translation of the original title, right? Not the title of an English language edition (if there is one)?
@xceque That makes sense. But the book is always in the language in which it came into existence, doesn’t it? One might have editions in various languages, tied to that book.
Plus, if the field for “English Title” is meant for the translation of the original language title, it might differ from the title of an actual English language edition or the translation of a different non-english title (or the source material like in this case of a novelization). Vier Hochzeiten und ein Todesfall is a great example, since it translates to Four Weddings and one Bereavement, instead of Four Weddings and a Funeral.
Well, we’re at the stage where we’ll need to make some rules about this sort of thing, or it’ll be all Wild West around here…
I’d say the Book title (that is, the Title field of the Book data entity) should be entered in the language of first publication. If that’s not English, then the ‘English Title’ field should be the title it’s known by in English. If there’s no accepted English title, or you don’t know it, a translation of it. Someone else could come along later and fix a mistranslation.
I think it might be beneficial to have multiple Title fields against a Book, with a connected Language field for each. Perhaps with English the only mandatory one. Each time a different language Edition is added, the Book can be updated to add the title in that language. So all the titles known for that Book can be found in a search which returns one Book. Otherwise we’ll end up with multiple Books for the same thing in different languages.
I don’t know how feasible that is, though. Maybe it’s not a good idea… I’ve only just thought of it 
Other thoughts are welcome.
@BadMoon correct, that was my intention with adding the English Title field.
Shall I take a stab at documenting the Contribution Guidelines? I will make it a wiki post in the forum here so it can be updated and improved by others (maybe not all, just a select few, or myself at first).
@xceque One can already see the different titles due to the editions listed beneath. Not sure if I fully understand the added value of those titles listed on the Book entry itself.
While I kind of agree with
I’d say there might be exceptions (It - books - ctlgs)
@Burnett Contribution Guidelines, yes please!
Well, it was about being able to link up those titles before Editions are added - if someone adds alternate titles for a book to a Book before Editions are added, it’ll make the correct Book easier to find. But you’re probably right to doubt. I thought about it for another three milliseconds and I think that the scenario where someone knows the various language titles of a book and decides to add them before the Editions are added is going to be too fringe to make it worthwhile.
We are going to end up with multiple Books for the same title in different languages. It will take users being alert to it to link them up if they find them.
And also yes to some rude guidelines!
Some sort of Wiki that we can work on would be great! There’s so much knowledge that it would be great to capture. For example, a good explanation of Cataloging in Publishing data. I always have trouble remembering which is the Library of Congress Catalog Number vs. Call Number vs. all the other numbers that get used in the US.
Also, in the UK the British Library also provides CIP data (currently adding this as “other”, as no identifier type has been added for this data yet).
@Burnett I just realized, that the “Original Title” field doesn’t exist here anymore and was erased from the imported Editions!?
The original titel is crucial information, if provided on the actual item it should be possible to be entered. And no, the ‘Book’ is no equivalent substitute, since original titles might vary over the years (Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None” would be a prominent example).
@BadMoon you’re right. There was an “original title” field on the works (now books) that mistakenly did not get imported. I can bring this back. Would that mean we don’t need the “english title” field?
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Well, that’s depends, since an original title would not always be an English one.
My problem with the “english title” field is that I just can’t fully grasp it’s purpose.
It’s content doesn’t appear in searches, so it doesn’t help finding a specific Book. If an english language edition exists, that title already appears on the Book page.
A literal translation of the original title might have some information value, especially if there is no English edition or it differs from the translated editions title. But if it’s decided to go the latter way, I think we should stick with ‘literal translation’ and not some ‘commonly/ widely known/ established title’, like we had with the unfortunate Four Weddings and a Funeral case.
I’d be willing to bet this is an extremely simple thing to implement. If the English Title field (if present) appeared against the Book’s title in a search result (Book-wide global search and edit form lookup), would that help you consider it useful?
Only once one is added. The English Title would help in that first addition. It would help about as much as a literal translation, at least. It would also be a good thing to present as a piece of information about the Book on its page ie, "Also known in English as " etc.
If I’m not mistaken, I think @BadMoon is thinking it ought to appear on an Edition..? - it’s something that can be printed on a book.
Yes of course, I actually mentioned them not appearing on the imported Editions. How could a Book have an Original Title other than it’s own? Well, except for some rare exceptions such as “And Then There Were None” as mentioned above.
By the way, is it common for US editions of translated works to mention the original language title on the copyright page?
At this point, even searching for the Book title doesn’t lead to an edition (with a different title) tied to said Book, but I have no clue how easy or difficult it is to implement such things. But I’m curious if the search results are going to be different once the Original Title field is back on.
I’m actually quite torn about the English Title field but at this point, I kind of tend to the side of it’s being more or less superfluous.
As it seems, most users that are not native English speakers have little to no difficulties in adding non-English editions and / or Books, shouldn’t we expect the same abilities from the average native speaker? 
In my experience, on average, native English-speakers have far more difficulty with non-English languages than non-English-speakers or non-native English speakers have with languages that are not their own and not English. There are a disproportionate number of native English-speakers who are even crap at English, never mind not-English 
Anyway, from my perspective, if I had a book in a language that doesn’t use the Latin alphabet, I’d definitely struggle to search for it. And the site needs to be easy to use, so whatever makes it easier is good. Even catering for the complete idiot Englishman! 
I can’t answer this, I have relatively few US editions.
That is actually the main point pro English Title for me too.
I don’t have that many translated English books (I prefer to read in original language or in Finnish whenever possible), but based on my US copies: older books are less likely to have it than newer books. But not even all new books have it.
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I dug into the old Bookogs database backup and confirmed that original_title exists on about 15% of the edition records, and original_language on about 35%. So these fields can definitely be restored.
One thing I noticed though: in the old system, original title was stored on the edition rather than the book (abstract work). But the original title is really a property of the work itself — it doesn’t change from edition to edition.
Would it make more sense to put original title (and original language) on the book entity instead? That way it’s defined once and shared across all linked editions, rather than duplicated or filled in inconsistently.
Separately — English Title can be made searchable. That’s on my list.
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The original title given on a specific edition might vary to the Book title.
Example: the 1964 Book “Day of the Arrow” was filmed as “Eye of the Devil” in 1966, subsequently it was reissued as a tie-in under the movie’s title. The first German edition (1969) states “Eye of the Devil” as the original title, most likely the manuscript the publisher got was titled as that, since it was commonly used at that point.
Plus, on rare occasions, even the title of the Book might change (Agatha Christie - And Then There Were None vs. Ten Little…).
But of course those are exceptions, in general, the Original Titel for an edition should be the the title of the Book.
Original Language makes sense on both, Edition (at least if it’s a translated work) & Book but the Original Title is what is credited on the Edition and it should be possible to enter it as it appears (including typos and other mistakes).