Texts Level: Generic Title
Definition: Term that indicates a category of books, rather than a specific text.
Comment: Use English (mainly) and include adjectives or other qualifiers, remembering that the signifying term should come first (because of the alphabetization of the Browse List). The field may be used to characterize generally a codex that contains a large number of texts when you know that you don't have time to list each one individually (but please do plan on coming back to the record and expanding it as much as possible; otherwise the texts remain in limbo). In practice, the entry in this field is seldom, if ever, italicized.
The field will be of particular use for stating the type of archival document; if the type of document isn't known, use the word "Document" alone. Latin is the normal form for naming (by incipit) certain types of documents or laws: "Vidimus"; "Inspeximus"; "Circumspecte agatis"; "Quo warranto."
Note that with Version 9 of DS-Access, the online presence of both the Title and the Generic Title fields is meshed, whether a user searches via the Simple or Advanced search form, or whether he uses the Browse List for Titles. The only implication of this that a text that bears an entry in each field will appear twice in the Browse List (this isn't a problem, it's simply an observation).
Example:
- Alchemical compilation
- Antiphonal
- Bible
- Bible, N. T., Luke
- Book of Hours, use of Rome
- Calligraphy
- Cartulary
- Computistic treatises
- Florilegium
- Humanistic miscellany
- Indenture
- Instructions to the Ambassador to the Court of Spain
- Lease
- Marriage contract
- Medical recipes
- Missal
- Pastoral materials
- Payment order
- Portolan chart
- Receipt
- Report on the Conclave electing Alexander VII
- Wycliffite tracts
Properties: Data type: text. Field size: 255 characters.
Required?: No, as far as the database is concerned, but in fact one of the four necessary fields for text identification (author/title/generic title/incipit)
