Abstract
ABSTRACt Full-text digital libraries (DL) like the HathiTrust open new analytic opportunities for digital humanists and those studying language-specific corpora such as late imperial Chinese books. These analyses rely on DL metadata records to contextualize and validate findings. However, historic Anglo-American cataloging practices introduce difficulties. Our comparative case study of HathiTrust MARC records for Chinese (1,534), English (25,866), and German (7,872) books (the 1500s–1700s) reveals significant problems: data spread across fields; essential data lacunae; lack of normalization; and information transcribed from sources without translation nor explanation. Cataloging practices need updating to support scholars working with Chinese and other Asian materials.
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