I think I may have been using an old search interface, not id.loc.gov.
http://authorities.loc.gov/

On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 11:27 AM, Keith Jenkins <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> 1 and 2 probably represent two different geographic levels with the
> same name.  There is a township (county subdivision) called
> Springfield, which also contains a "city" called Springfield.
>
> If you are planning to generate LCSH placenames, one thing to note is
> that LCSH typically uses old-style state abbreviations ("Mass.",
> "Pa.") instead of the more common postal abbreviations ("MA", "PA").
>
> I thought there might be some way to use id.loc.gov but for some
> reason none of your example LCSHeadings show up in a search for
> "springfield" -- maybe place headings are not comprehensively included
> in id.loc.gov?
>
> Keith
>
>
> On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 11:02 AM, Ethan Gruber <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I've just about completed a new XForms-based interface for querying
> > geonames.org to populate the <geogname> element in EAD.  An XML
> > representation of a geographical place returned by the geonames APIs
> > includes its name, e.g., Springfield, country name, and several levels
> > administrative names (Sangamon County, Illinois).  Is there some sort of
> > official way of textually representing a place?  In LCSH, one finds:
> >
> > 1 Springfield (Bucks County, Pa.)
> > 2 Springfield (Bucks County, Pa. : Township)
> > 3 Springfield (Burlington County, N.J.)
> >
> > Why 1 and 2 are distinct terms in LCSH, I don't know.  The mode for
> dealing
> > with American place names seems to be "[name of place] ([administrative
> name
> > - lower level], [administrative name - upper level])".  For a European
> city,
> > we find "Berlin (Germany)"
> >
> > Are these examples in LCSH the most common way to textually record
> places,
> > or are there other examples I should look at?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Ethan
> >
>