For updates and revisions to digital books, Getty Publications follows something like a traditional book publication model. Updates are made in regulated, formal batches as new editions and are always thoroughly documented in the publications’ repositories, as well as in the published Revision History included in each of the books. In this way, readers can be comfortable citing these digital publications, knowing that citation will be verifiable in the future. And internally, this policy helps us to manage the workflow on the book, avoiding a cycle of making continual updates to the books with each new desired correction.
Version Control
All Getty Publications digital publication files are hosted on GitHub, or a similar version control service. The repositories of all books that are published open access or Creative Commons licensed are made public at the time of publication if not before.
The main branch of a book’s repository is
protected and always reflects the current published version.
Any revisions branches will show corrections and
updates currently under consideration, or those made and
subsequently merged into the main branch as a new
edition.
Revisions branches are named as
revisions-to-first-edition,
revisions-to-second-edition, etc.
Publishing the Revisions History
All digital books are published with a Revisions History listing on the Copyright or About page, as in the example below. This history is updated with each new edition and should communicate the primary changes made. The list of changes need be only an overview, as complete details are always available in the code repository for the publication.
Any revisions or corrections made to this publication after the first edition date will be listed here and in the project repository at https://github.com/gettypubs/…, where a more detailed version history is available. The revisions branch of the project repository, when present, will also show any changes currently under consideration but not yet published here.
January 31, 2016
First edition
May 1, 2017
Second edition
• Minor text corrections
• Revised bibliographic info for Cats. 1–3
• Updated backend coding for interactive map
Policy on How Revisions are Made
Suggested revisions are welcome by email to pubsinfo@getty.edu, or via GitHub, by pull request on the current revisions branch or by posting an issue. We ask that the appropriate identifying information be included with suggestions, such as the URL to the page and a screenshot clearly indicating the proposed correction.
All new suggested content corrections—whether from public
submission, author request, or internal sources—are reviewed
by the book’s original project editor or the editor-in-chief.
When approved, changes are entered by them or the digital
publications team on the appropriate
revisions branch. This is an ongoing process, and
changes should be made with commit messages specific enough
for public understanding.
When a significant quantity or quality of corrections
accumulate, as determined by the editor, the current
revisions branch is merged into the
main branch to create a new edition of the book.
A corresponding update to the Revision History published in
the book should also be made at this time.
The digital publications team then ensures the new edition is deployed to the live site and distributed to the appropriate vendors as needed.
ISBNs and other identifiers are not changed with these revised editions. Only in cases of significant content changes, additions, or overhauls will we re-release the book with a new ISBN. And in these cases, the original edition will be maintained as a separate publication, not simply updated or overwritten.
Code Updates
Along with content corrections, there may also occasionally be
need to make updates to the code underlying a book. These are
done by the digital publications team, separate from any
active revisions branches, in consultation with
the project editor. Unless there are changes the content or
front-end structure of the book that would effect citation of
the book or reading of its content, these updates will not be
recorded in the Revisions History as such, but only in the
project repository.