Titelform

Titelform, literally "title form" in German, is a bibliographic concept referring to the standardized presentation of a work’s title in catalogs and metadata. It defines how a title is shown in a library record, and is distinct from the source title as printed on the publication or from colloquial usage. The Titelform is determined by cataloging rules and conventions, such as AACR2 and its successor RDA, and is intended to support consistent indexing, retrieval, and citation across libraries and databases.

In practice, the Titelform governs decisions about capitalization, punctuation, the treatment of initial articles (for example der/die/das in German, The, A, An in English), the handling of subtitles, and the inclusion or omission of diacritics and transliteration when the publication’s script differs from the cataloging language. It may also influence how translations or alternative titles are recorded.

In metadata workflows, the Titelform serves as the authoritative form used in the title statement of a record, while related fields may store variant titles, uniform titles, or former titles to aid discovery and matching. The exact implementation can vary by library system or national authority, but the overarching goal is consistent and reliable access to works regardless of the user’s editorial or linguistic background.

See also: bibliographic records, title proper, uniform title, cataloging rules, MARC.