UI synonyms: items, copies, and holdings

[Stephanie Leary]

As part of our discussion of synonyms for the editorial style guide in the September UI group meeting, the problem of items, copies, and holdings came up. I promised a separate discussion thread, and here it is.

Items, copies, holdings: discuss!

I thought we might start by documenting the places where these terms are used in ways that are confusing.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KNKQNYJdbHqIybQNt6DeoDh_YHU1IgtrROuPKeRxFiM/edit?usp=sharing

In particular, if there are any places where a navigation menu or bulk action says one thing and the destination screen says another, I'd like to make a note of that.

I do not have a strong opinion about copies vs. items. We use items all over the UI as a generic word for things that might be listed on a screen, which is fine as long as you're able to stay oriented in the context of the kinds of items you might be looking at. While copies is perhaps more specific to cataloging, I think it probably doesn't work well for all the things other than media that might get cataloged.

I do not love the fact that we have holdings and holds, which are two very different things with similar words, next to each other in some cataloging contexts. However, Angela pointed out to me that "holdings" is not a perfect synonym for items and copies: it refers to the call number record + the item record(s) attached to it. So, my next question for all of you: Is this a useful distinction?

What other problems relate to these three terms?

If you know of any previous documentation on this issue, or old listserv discussions or conference presentations that might be relevant, please drop a link! I know this question has been brought up before; I'm just not sure where.

Stephanie Leary
Front End Developer
Equinox Open Library Initiative
stephan...@equinoxOLI.org
https://www.equinoxOLI.org
phone: 877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)

[Terran McCanna]

I remember discussions about items vs copies a few years ago (I don't remember when/where because my brain is a sieve) and the consensus amongst both cats and non-cats was that items make more sense. It was changed in a lot of places in the UI, but it slipped by here and there. I expect there is an old LP bug and associated commit with a lot of the changes. 

I don't recall there being any discussion about "holdings" - but that is used in reference to the collection of items rather than the items themselves. 

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[Stephanie Leary]

Thanks, Terran!

Jennifer Weston found this discussion for us:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1538691

Lots of comments there, including a community survey that Kathy organized.

Jennifer also pointed out that this bug (just fixed) about terminology in the holdings editor is related:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1983424

Stephanie

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