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Publisher Field

Field name: Your choice (default = “Publisher”)

DC Element: Publisher

The name of a person or organization responsible for making the resource available. For resources originally created here on campus the publisher could be your UW department. The Publisher field could contain the name of the original publisher of a text or image derived from a published source like a book or journal. The UW Libraries has also mapped the place of publication or the location of a photography studio to DC Publisher.

Examples of field names:

  • Publisher
  • Place of Publication
  • Studio Name
  • Studio Location

Examples of data:

  • Smith, John
  • University of Washington. Dept. of Botany
  • United States–Washington (State)–Seattle

Recommended format:

  • Lastname, Firstname (for personal names)
  • Country–State or Province–City (for geographic locations)

If there is more than one name in the field, separate by <br>:

  • McGraw Hill Inc.<br>Libraries Unlimited
  • Use a consistent form for names (same name, same form). See controlled vocabularies below.

Recommended controlled vocabulary:

For personal or corporate names:

  • Library of Congress/National Authority File (LCAF): List maintained by LC and other libraries. This is the largest file of names (over 4 million) and covers names from many different subject areas and disciplines. It is also the authority file used by the UW Libraries Catalog and all UW Libraries digital projects. You can find authorized forms of names in the Library of Congress Authorities by doing a Name Authority Heading search.
  • Union List of Artist Names (ULAN): Vocabulary maintained by the Getty Research Institute. The ULAN “contains around 220,000 names and other information about artists. The coverage of the ULAN is from Antiquity to the present, and the scope is global. The scope of the ULAN includes any identified individual or “corporate body” (i.e., a group of people working together) involved in the design or creation of art and architecture.”

For locations:

  • Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): List maintained by LC and other libraries. This is a large file that contains many geographic headings. It is also the authority file used by the UW Libraries Catalog and many UW Libraries digital projects. You can find LCSH terms in the Library of Congress Authorities by doing a Subject Authority Heading search. The UW Libraries digital projects have used a format different from normal LCSH format for geographic locations to improve keyword access. We have used a Country–State or Province–City hierarchical format, but the names used in each part of the hierarchy are taken from LCSH.
  • Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN): “The TGN is a structured vocabulary containing around 1,000,000 names and other information about places. The TGN includes all continents and nations of the modern political world, as well as historical places. It includes physical features and administrative entities, such as cities and nations. The emphasis in TGN is on places important for art and architecture.”
  • GEOnet Names Server: This database is maintained by the National Imagery and Mapping Agency and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (US BGN). The database contains names for 3.5 million geographic features (countries, cities, rivers, mountains, etc.) The coverage is worldwide, excluding the United States and Antarctica. For geographic names in the U.S. and Antarctica go to the U.S. Geographical Survey’s Geographical Names Information System which contains almost 2 million geographic feature names.