ArchivesSpace—Basic Text and Term Styles
Capitalization:
- Series and item record titles:
- Use sentence capitalization style
- Book titles, names, etc. are capitalized, but only the first word of “normal” text is capitalized
- E.g., “Charles W. Conn, Correspondence and notes concerning Like a Mighty Army publication”
- Use sentence capitalization style
- Collection titles are the same for the record titles, but traditional for the Finding Aid title
- “Forward in Faith collection” and "Forward in Faith Collection"
- Words to capitalize in general text boxes:
- Gospel (as a book in the NT)
- Scripture or Scriptures (as the Word)
- Satan
- Bible
- Fundamentalism (as a movement)
- Evangelicalism (as a movement)
- West (as in part of U.S. [the West])
- Pentecost, Pentecostal, Pentecostalism
- Words not to capitalize in general text boxes:
- gospel (as the message shared)
- scripture (as a passage)
- satanic
- biblical
- fundamental
- evangelical
- western (as in western culture)
- A.M. and P.M.: to be set in caps with no space in between.
- Audiotape, videotape, and photocopy are each one word.
- Hyphens, em dashes, and en dashes
- The hyphen is the shortest of the three and is used most commonly to combine words (making compounds such as “well-being,” for example) and to separate numbers that are not inclusive (phone numbers and Social Security numbers, for example). No space is placed before or after, except for hanging hyphenation, such as, “pre- and postmodern.” It is the key between the 0 and the = or the minus key on the number pad.
- The em dash is the mark most of us picture when we hear the term dash. It is significantly longer than the hyphen and is made by typing 0151 on the number pad while holding the Alt key. No spaces before and after.
- The en dash is slightly longer than the hyphen but not as long as the em dash. It is made by typing 0150 on the number pad while holding the Alt key. We use it most commonly within normal text to indicate inclusive dates and numbers: July 9–August 17; pp. 37–59.
- Note: there are other methods for entering the dash symbols if the keyboard you are using does not have a number pad…Google it, if needed.
- One space should follow sentence terminal punctuation (period, question mark, etc.)
- Centuries and decades should be spelled out in lowercase, as in twentieth century and during the sixties and seventies. If decades are identified by their century, figures should be used, as in the 1880s or 1990s (no apostrophes here).
- Names of states territories and possessions of the U.S. should always be spelled out in full when they stand alone. When they follow the name of a city or any geographical term in a block of text, they should also be spelled out in full.
- Exceptions:
- Library of Congress subject headings — Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.)
- in lists, bibliographies, tabular matter, and indices; use the two-letter, U.S. postal codes
- In object records, dates are to be entered in the “Expression” field, not using the numeral-based calendars (or it can be placed in both)
- Examples:
- January 1, 2001
- March 2001
- 2010
- undated
- If it is a range, it should be date, hyphen, date
- January 1, 2010-January 25, 2010
- 1906-1922
- 1906-
- When assigning a date to a publication, if a date has been determined by staff, instead of printed on an item, use square brackets around the date: [1980]
- Examples:
- Make sure there are no spaces at the end of record titles, names, etc. They are not discarded by the system and will show up before commas in finding aids, etc.