The only "canonical form" that I know of is to follow what is in a library name authority file, such as the Library of Congress name file. You can find it at:
http://authorities.loc.gov/ If you search on "Adobe" you see a long list that includes Adobe Creative Team, Adobe Systems, and others. If you look in the left-hand column there you will see a red button that says either: Authorized heading, or References. A "reference" is a heading that is not preferred, but would instead lead to the Authorized heading: Adobe Systems Inc. --> see: Adobe Systems The format of the data isn't ideal, so it can be difficult sometimes figuring out what goes with what. This database will probably also answer your other question about pseudonyms. Currently, the Anglo-American libraries (US, Canada, UK, Australia) follow a set of rules that record "real" names and pseudonyms as separate entries. The idea is that each name represents a "persona" and that most of the time people who are looking for things are aware of the persona (Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll) so this is what they are likely to look for. They may not know the person's real name. If you want to check a wider range of name databases, there is a combined database called the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) at http://viaf.org Many national libraries contribute to that, and you may find names that aren't available from the Library of Congress. You will also see that in some countries different choices are made about how to record a name. VIAF brings them all together -- and gives them a VIAF identifier which I hope we will be able to use in the future to make the catalog more global. If you don't find what you are looking for in these databases (I didn't find Adobe Development Team) then you have to make a decision on your own. The entries in the database may serve to give you a pattern to follow. Note that there are other communities creating name files, in particular there are some academic projects connecting names from academic article databases to actual persons. I don't have these at my fingertips, but they probably cover the OL books as well as the library name databases do. kc Quoting Tom Morris <tfmor...@gmail.com>: > Below are some examples of potential merges for corporate authors. Is > there any place that describes whether or not these should be merged > and what the canonical form should be? If there's no standard, do > folks want to weigh in on what they think the right thing to do is? > > Tom > > Adobe Systems Inc. > Adobe Development Team > Adobe Creative Team > > U.S. Government > USGPO [ie. US Government Printing Office] > > Rand McNally and Company. > Rand McNally Staff > > IEEE Vehicular Technology Society > IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference > Ontario) IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (48th : 1998 : Ottawa > > Delorme Publishing Company > DeLorme Mapping Company > [Corporate name change] > > Texas Instruments > Texas Instruments Engineering > > Dorling Kindersley Inc. > Dorling Kindersley Ltd > DK Publishing > [Combination of different subsidiaries, plus a name change over time] > _______________________________________________ > Ol-discuss mailing list > Ol-discuss@archive.org > http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-discuss > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to > ol-discuss-unsubscr...@archive.org > -- Karen Coyle kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet _______________________________________________ Ol-discuss mailing list Ol-discuss@archive.org http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-discuss To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to ol-discuss-unsubscr...@archive.org
