Knowledge representation of the visual image of a title page

Abstract

This article reports on a study of 203 title pages as the source of information for descriptive cataloging, and bibliographic data on the title pages as written language artifacts having their own visual characteristics. Bibliographic data on the title pages are regarded as visual objects, and are examined in terms of the characteristics of individual bibliographic elements and those of separations between elements. Visual properties used in analysis consist of both primitives and coordinates. A separation is identified by changes in primitives or the existence of coordinates between two elements. Three most important elements on the title page found in the study are title proper, author, and publisher. Two most important visual properties that constitute a separation between two bibliographic elements are changes in type-size and the existence of space. Frame structure representations at various level of abstraction are suggested for a prototype title page in terms of the inclusion of bibliographic elements and the visual properties. This study provides the potential knowledge for an expert system for descriptive cataloging, and a conceptual framework for future investigations of cataloging standards and codes. © 1991 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.