Rfttitle

Rfttitle is a field-name variant used in OpenURL-based metadata to convey the title of a referenced resource. In many OpenURL workflows the title is transmitted as rft.title within the ContextObject’s referent description; some systems, scripts, or queries replace the dot with no separator and refer to this as rfttitle. The distinction is mostly about representation in different encoding contexts rather than a different semantic meaning.

In practice, rfttitle (or rft.title) forms part of the bibliographic metadata carried by OpenURL requests to link resolvers and discovery services. It can be the full formal title or a concise version used for matching, and is typically combined with other fields such as rft_id, rft_genre, and rft_jtitle to identify a resource. The title value is URL-encoded when transmitted, with spaces and special characters percent-escaped.

Use cases include resource discovery, where a resolver uses the provided title to locate holdings, and in analytics, where the title is used as a key for ranking or matching. Because OpenURL implementations vary, the exact syntax and presence of rfttitle may differ; consult the specific OpenURL profile or documentation for a given library system.

This article treats rfttitle as an informal designation for the OpenURL title field, emphasizing its role in identifying the resource’s title during linking and discovery processes.