Help:Cataloging

Put notes here to help with describing the cataloging of texts:

Cataloging Guidelines for the Rinchen Terdzod

• Titles of Individual Texts:
  • No usage of Tibetan title markers, such as 'zhes bya ba bzhugs so', 'bzhugs', and so forth.
  • For works that don't have formal titles, I either use the first line of the work, often up until the Tibetan syllable 'ni' or if that isn't appropriate I create a tentative title from the left front and back side margins and add a statement in the archivist notes to the effect of, “This work has no title, so the one given here, which is taken from the margins, is for cataloging purposes only.”
  • When inputting the title into the citation I remove any gter shad, such as colons, that might be in the Unicode.
• Titles of Treasure Cycles:
  • Use full names of treasure cycles when inputting on the content page, rather than abbreviated titles that are often found in the margins. In other words, “klong chen snying gi thig le,” rather than “klong chen snying thig” or “klong snying.” Don't worry about recording the abbreviated versions of the titles on the contents page, as they will be inputted as part of the back left margins on the notes page.

• Authorship:
  • I generally assign authorship to the figure responsible for the decoding of the treasure. This means that I most commonly assign authorship to the Terton in the case of, for example, the root treasure or gter gzhung. However, in case when somebody other than the terton has decoded the treasure, I assign the decoder as author and the revealer as the terton.
  • The 'yi ge pa' is recorded as the scribe.
  • The 'bsgrigs pa' is recorded as the editor
  • In the case of a composed work (i.e. not a treasure) that lacks an authorship statement, I use the terton's name in the citation on the first item page, but leave the author blank on the second authorship page.
  • In the case of works that are basically arrangements of treasures, the authorship is assigned to the one responsible for the current version of the text. In other words, if somebody creates a sadhana by extracting from the root treasure, they would be assigned authorship of the sadhana, while the revealer of the treasure would be labeled as the terton.
  • For the “author of the source text,” I have been recording the individual that is responsible for the work that the terton revealed. In other words, this would be somebody like Yeshe Tsogyal that takes credit in the treasure's colophon for writing down the text. So, even though they might credit the content of the work to somebody like Guru Rinpoche, the fact that they wrote the text down is why they are being recorded as the author of the source text.
  • Individuals other than the author that are mentioned as being involved with the work, or the teachings contained therein, prior to concealment such as various disciples of Guru Rinpoche, are recorded as 'associated people'
  • When there are more than one work grouped under a single title and all of the works seems to be on an equal footing, in that they are of similar length, given similar billing, and so on, I will record multiple authors in the citation and authorship spaces. However, if a shorter work is tacked onto the end of a much longer work, the latter author is recorded as a contributor.
  • When there are more than one Terton, as in the case of rediscovered treasure or yang gter, the original terton is recorded first followed by the re-discoverer.
• Colophons:
  • Unless the colophon comes on the last page or likewise at the very end of the text, page numbers should be recorded along with the colophon.
  • Multiple colophons numbered 1, 2, etc. indicate several smaller works included under a single title.
  • Treasure colophons and Revealer colophons are recorded separately, along with any other distinctions, such as changes in author or for editors, printers, etc.
  • In terms of examples, I have been using the following labels (with wiki coding) depending on the circumstances:
• First colophon:
• First colophon page 15:
• Treasure colophon:
• Revealer colophon:
• Author colophon:
• Editor colophon:
• First colophon (treasure) page 10:
• First colophon (revealer) page 11:

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