CCO and Descriptive Titles for Photographs

Compliant

Title: Aerial view of the construction site for the Boston Public Library Johnson building, October 1969 (full record can be viewed here)

This photo, found in the Boston Public Library's collection on Massachusetts' Digital Commonwealth website, follows the CCO rules for descriptive titles. The record states that this title was supplied by the cataloger, indicating the photo had no title on the photo or available from an authoritative source, so the title is a constructed, descriptive title of the type called for in CCO rule 1.2.2.2.2. As allowed for under that rule, the title refers to the subject of the photo (construction site of the Boston Public Library Johnson building) and the form of the photo (aerial view). It may be argued that this is not a "concise" title, as called for in CCO rules 1.2.2.1 and 1.2.2.2.2, but given the subject matter, I think this may be as concise as the title could be and still function according to the rules set out in CCO. (Note: It appears that this title does follow the capitalization rules called for under CCO rule 1.2.2.1, but finding a descriptive title that did follow the capitalization rules was difficult and I finally gave up.)

Non-compliant

Bad title: Construction. Inside group (full record can be viewed here)

New title: Tour of Construction Site at the New Main Library, Newton, Massachusetts

This photo, found in the Newton Free Library's collection on Massachusetts' Digital Commonwealth website, does not follow the CCO rules for descriptive titles. The record states that this title was supplied by the cataloger, indicating the photo had no title on the photo or available from an authoritative source, so the title is a constructed, descriptive title of the type called for in CCO rule 1.2.2.2.2. However, this title does not adequately describe the photo. It fails to clearly identify the subject, the materials, the form, or the function of the work. The initial term of the title, "construction," seems to indicate an activity that will be depicted in the photo, but this is misleading; the second term of the title, "inside group," makes sense will you see the photo (it is a group of people inside), but is vague and meaningless when viewed simply as a part of the title.