Assigning TYPEs to DIVs

The function of DIV types
Examples of DIV types
Use of N

1. The function of DIV types

Question: I'm not very clear on the function of DIV types when the printed book itself is already clearly structured with headings, contents pages, etc. I've often been reflecting a heading with a DIV type, so that if the heading says chapter I'll call the DIV a chapter too; if there's no heading I'd probably call it something like part. But in the second case it would seem to be more helpful to give some idea of what the part contains.

Conclusions about DIV types:

(a) That they are primarily useful for navigation in a book and understanding of it, and only secondarily useful as a means of searching or of limiting searches. The main reason that they are not more useful for retrieval is the lack of control on the vocabulary used for TYPEs. If we could establish greater control, either ourselves or by use of an external controlled vocabulary, we could improve the reliability of TYPEs for retrieval. We've made some efforts on this, at least with regard to frequently recurrent features (imprimatur, letter, poem, tract, play, sermon, license, publisher's catalogue, errata, title page, half title, appendix, preface, to the reader, encomium, etc.)

(b) That the usefulness for navigation is to some extent potential rather than real because much of the information is suppressed in the current interface. But imagine an alternative interface. Imagine one, for example, in which HEADs are suppressed, but TYPEs and Ns are always displayed. We would like the book to be navigable and intelligible in that form of display as well.

So ignore the presence of headings, and the quirks of the current display, to a large extent in deciding how much detail to give in the TYPE and N.

(c) That the hierarchical ordering of the DIVs allows information about the parent to inform our understanding of the siblings. This means that if it is obvious from
the parent (and/or the N values) what the parts are, and there is no convenient name for the subordinate parts, one may take the subordinate div as relative to the
superordinate DIV.

E.g. <DIV1 TYPE="index">
          <DIV2 TYPE="part" N="A">
          <DIV2 TYPE="part" N="B">
       </DIV1>

makes perfect sense. There is no need to invent, say <DIV2 TYPE="lettered part of index">. The obverse is also true, however: if the superordinate DIV does not supply much information, then a greater burden is placed on the subordinates to do so.

E.g. <DIV1 TYPE="miscellany">
<DIV2 TYPE="part"
<DIV2 TYPE="part"

is less useful than

So think of the intelligibility of the outline as a whole when trying to decide how much detail to give at any particular DIV level.

(d) That a DIV should be typed more distinctively insofar as it is useful (in making the structure of the book intelligible) to distinguish DIVs from one another in the same book. The vague bit here is 'useful': it is probably more useful in *retrieval* to use more generic terms (e.g. poem and hymn, rather that epic, epode, ode), but probably more useful in *analysis* to use the more specific terms. And sometimes it seems more useful in navigation to slide over slight differences in the interests of grouping like things with like. Do we want to say:

<DIV1 TYPE="poems">
    <DIV2 TYPE="part">
    <DIV2 TYPE="part">
    <DIV2 TYPE="part">
       <DIV3 TYPE="section"
       <DIV3 TYPE="section"

All represent the structure intelligibly, but the last clearly gives the best 'flavor' of the structure and allows much more intelligent navigation.

Maybe we might want to think about including multiple keywords. We already do that in some of our phrasal type: TYPE="list" vs.
TYPE="list of ships"; "list" is included in both. But we could expand this, to say:

(e) Finally, the question of all-in-one DIV1s. Actually, this is perhaps really two questions: what to do when the body is essentially undivided, and the DIV1 is only a formality, i.e. <BODY><DIV1>..[no divs]..</DIV1></BODY>; and what to do when there is a DIV1 coterminous with <BODY>, but it is itself further subdivided. In the latter case, the subordinate DIVs potentially pass some information back up to the parent.

        TEXT
          SERMON
          SERMON
          SERMON
          MASQUE
          JEST
          POLEMICAL TRACT
        /TEXT

obviously says more than

TEXT / TEXT

But in either case, the TYPE of the toplevel DIV1 is something a little different from the other DIVs, since it has no sibling and bears in only a limited vertical way on the structure of the whole. Its structural role is essentially always 'the whole thing'. For that reason, and also the practical one that is even more difficult to genre-type whole books than it is to structure-type parts of books, and that the genre-typing of whole books is more the responsibility of cataloguers creating catalogue records than it is ours, I have been reluctant to include much specific TYPing of the all-inclusive DIV1, and recommended that in most cases one simply uses TYPE="text".

Nevertheless, this is something that we can perhaps really do something about if we wanted to. We would need a list of genre terms that are simple, few,
distinctive, and inclusive enough that their application should be straightforward in most cases. And they should represent so far as possible the actual classification that contemporaries would have used. E.g.:

    POEM
    PLAY
    LETTER
    BALLAD
    ROYAL PROCLAMATION,
    EPISCOPAL PROCLAMATION,
    PARLIAMENTARY PROCLAMATION,
    WRIT
    CHRONICLE (different from history?)
    TRACT
    TREATISE (how does distinguish a treatise from a tract?)
      SCIENTIFIC TREATISE
      ALCHEMICAL TREATISE\
      OPTICAL TREATISE
      THEOLOGICAL TREATISE
    MISCELLANY (but what about collection?)
    ALAMANAC (but what about emphemeris?)
    POLEMIC

We could do this, but someone would have to find and decide on the scheme. And if we wanted to have multiple keywords, we might want to use a different tagging scheme altogether, and add tags to the TEXT tag rather than TYPEs to the DIV1.

    E.g. <TEXT>
         <KW>DRAMA</KW><KW>TRAGEDY</KW><KW>MASQUE</KW>
         <BODY>

rather than

or <TEXT>
<KW>POLEMIC</KW><KW>LETTER</KW>

rather than
<TEXT><BODY><DIV1 TYPE="polemical open letter">

The latter would confuse the navigation function. Perhaps this kind of generic or subject indexing is really a different kind of thing from the navigational TYPing
and in fact would interfere with the latter in some cases.

So the suggestion is: use a very limited list of controlled genre terms for the all-in-one DIV1; use only one (except perhaps with parenthetical qualification), and otherwise use TYPE="TEXT".

2. Examples of DIV types

Of the 22,000 TYPEs in two months' files, PFS made the following changes in DIV types:

*TYPE="argument" -> summary
*TYPE="bible verse examination" -> type (in the theological sense,
   in a book discussing the "types of Christ")
*TYPE="biogrpahy" -> biography
*TYPE="catalogue" -> list of ... (wardens, substances, materia medica) |
   publisher's advertisement
*TYPE="contents" -> table of contents | summary of contents
*TYPE="ditty" -> song
*TYPE="editions of books cited" -> list of editions cited
*TYPE="imprint" -> colophon
*TYPE="index of chapters" -> table of contents
*TYPE="life" -> biography
*TYPE="list of contents" -> table of contents
*TYPE="listing of conspiratours" -> list of conspirators
*TYPE="meane" -> mean
*TYPE="measures" -> list of weights and measures
*TYPE="names of authors" -> list of authors
*TYPE="poem for the author" -> encomium
*TYPE="poem for the composer" -> encomium
*TYPE="poem in figure" -> concrete poem
*TYPE="poem to the author" -> encomium
*TYPE="synopsis" -> summary
*TYPE="table of Ireland" -> index of Ireland
*TYPE="table of Scottish people and places" -> index of Scottish persons
    and places

***

In Hooke's Micrographia (account of investigations with
a microscope), changed

<DIV2 TYPE="section"><HEAD>Observ. VII. ...</HEAD>
<DIV2 TYPE="section"><HEAD>Observ. VIII. ...</HEAD>
etc.

to
<DIV2 TYPE="observation" N="7"><HEAD>Observ. VII. ...</HEAD>
<DIV2 TYPE="observation" N="8"><HEAD>Observ. VIII. ...</HEAD>

etc.

And in long summary at end (in <BACK>), changed

<DIV1 TYPE="summary">
<DIV2 TYPE="item">
<DIV2 TYPE="item"> etc.

<DIV1 TYPE="summary of observations">
<DIV2 TYPE="observation" N="1">
<DIV2 TYPE="observation" N="2">
etc.

In Psalm commentary, changed

<DIV1 TYPE="biblical commentary">
<DIV1 TYPE="biblical commentary">
<DIV1 TYPE="biblical commentary">
<DIV1 TYPE="biblical commentary">
etc.

(which was no help to navigation)

<DIV1 TYPE="commentary" N="Psalm 34">
<DIV1 TYPE="commentary" N="Psalm 35">
<DIV1 TYPE="commentary" N="Psalm 36">
<DIV1 TYPE="commentary" N="Psalm 37"> etc.

Also, where two pages were missing, including the beginning of the notes on Psalm 103, closed a div and opened a new one, to make it clear
that the bit after the missing pages belonged to the commentary on Psalm 103, not 102. Also provided a heading for this section by
stealing a running header. (Don't be afraid to use running title as a clue to what kind of TYPE to assign to a division.) Like this:

<GAP DESC="missing" EXTENT="2 pages">
</DIV1>
<DIV1 TYPE="commentary" N="Psalm 103">
<PB ...>
<HEAD>The ciii. PSALM.</HEAD>
<P>...

***

Question: I've used "mittimus" as a DIV Type. Should I choose something simpler, like document?

On the one hand, 'mittimus' is what it is called in the book, and is an entirely legitimate term; on the other, it might be thought obscure enough to cause confusion as to what is being inserted. Since a 'mittimus' is a kind of writ, expand the TYPE and say TYPE="writ of mittimus" or TYPE="mittimus writ."

This is in general. Within this book, there is probably little need to be very specific, either with this document or with the other insertions, since they mostly have very specific heads that make it very clear what they are: <HEAD>Mittimus</HEAD> <HEAD>Examination and Confession</HEAD> etc. Since specificity would duplicate the info in the HEADs, you could get away with "document.".

***

Question: Should we distinguish publishers' and printers' lists of books with other things labeled 'Advertisement'?

Yes. Publishers' and printers' catalogues should be given TYPE="publisher's advertisement"; other kinds of thing headed "advertisement" should normally be given
some other TYPE, e.g. TYPE="notice" or TYPE="publisher to the reader" (etc.).

3. Shifting information from TYPE attribute to N attribute

In some cases it makes sense to shift information recorded in the TYPE attribute into the N attribute instead. This is easiest in cases like this:

TYPE="chapter 7" --> TYPE="chapter" N="7"

but we have also done it in slightly more dubious cases, where one has to supply a generic name for the thing in question, e.g.:

TYPE="Genesis" --> TYPE="book" N="Genesis"
TYPE="Exodus"   --> TYPE="book" N="Exodus"

[in publisher's book list:]

TYPE="folio"    --> TYPE="size" N="folio"
TYPE="octavo"   --> TYPE="size" N="octavo"
TYPE="quarto"   --> TYPE="size" N="quarto"

We have also removed some information from lower-level div types when it was implied by the superordinate div type. E.g.:

<DIV1 TYPE="exegesis of ten commandments">
<DIV2 TYPE="exegesis of first commandment">

became -->

<DIV1 TYPE="exegesis of ten commandments">
<DIV2 TYPE="commandment" N="1">

or even

--> <DIV1 TYPE="exegesis">
      <DIV2 TYPE="ten commandments">
          <DIV3 TYPE="commandment" N="1">

and

<DIV1 TYPE="treatise on the sacraments">
<DIV2 TYPE="exegetical discourse on baptism">

-->

<DIV1 TYPE="treatise on the sacraments">
<DIV2 TYPE="sacrament" N="baptism">

And in some cases we have changed the type from what we thought was incidental in distinguishing one part from another to what we thought was essential, e.g.:

<DIV3 TYPE="faults"><HEAD>Faults of the church of Rome</HEAD>
<DIV3 TYPE="corruptions"><HEAD>Corruptions of the church of Ephesus</>
<DIV3 TYPE="faults"><HEAD>Faults of the church of Galatia</HEAD>

became --->

<DIV3 TYPE="faults of the churches">
<DIV4 TYPE="church" N="Rome">
<DIV4 TYPE="church" N="Ephesus">
<DIV4 TYPE="church" N="Galatia">