Uniform titles are unique titles assigned to all manifestations of a musical work. They serve several purposes, including to:
Group together variants of a work under a title unique to that work
Variants of Bizet's Carmen:
Carmen. (this is the complete opera)
Carmen. Selections ("highlights" on a CD)
Carmen. German & French (a printed score with the sung text in two languages)
Carmen. Libretto. German & English (text only in two languages, no musical notation)
Carmen. Danse boheme; arr. (in this case, one aria arranged for trumpet solo)
Identify works with generic names
Some titles for the same Beethoven violin sonata:
Violin Sonata opus 24
Sonata no. 5 : for piano and violin
Sonata in F major
"Spring" Sonata
use: Sonatas, violin, piano, no. 5, op. 24, F major
Identify works published in multiple languages
The Rite of Spring
Le Sacre du Printemps
Frühlingsopfer
use: Vesna sviashchennaia (the title in Stravinsky's original Russian is preferred)
You will see a work's uniform title at the top of the SearchWorks record; you may click on it to find more entries for that work. The format filter will allow you to limit to scores or recordings. Composer/uniform title combinations also display as links when they are added titles in a SearchWorks record.