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<DIV><SPAN class=364494619-12012005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>Joseph--</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=364494619-12012005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=364494619-12012005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>Thanks
for coming at this problem from a different angle. I cannot comment on Russian,
since I don't know the language, and have only occassionly dealt with it in
alternative titles on Hebrew and Aramaic Rabbinic texts. When necessary, I have
enlisted my knowledge of the Greek alphabet combined with the assistance of LC
transliteration tables. I do believe, however that the Delta draft makes too
much of the use of Greek and Latin characters for both letters and numbers.
Trying to be too specific here only makes life difficult for the cataloger. As I
commented in my earlier response, the one good thing about the approach seems to
be in the fact that it is worded in such a way as to allow the cataloger to
determine for him/herself when it is more advisable to use Arabic numerals and
when the transliterated forms of the names of the characters. If I understand
your suggestion below, however, you would like to use Latin capitals for what
would appear to be the closest corresponding character within
the alphabet employed for signatures. I think this could only confuse
things even more, even as you suggest that a non Greek or Hebrew reader
might not realize that "G" stands for the third letter of the Greek or Hebrew
alphabets, and not the seventh letter, as in the Roman alphabet. The more I
think about it, I'ld like to stay with my current practice, which is to
transliterate the names of Greek and Hebrew characters used for signatures, and
to place them within brackets. Presumably, "limping along" with the assistance
of the Greek alphabet and the LC transliteration tables, I would do the same
with Russian characters used as signatures, if I encountered
them.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=364494619-12012005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=364494619-12012005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>Dan
Rettberg</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=364494619-12012005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>Rare
Book and Manuscript Bibliographer</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=364494619-12012005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>Klau
Library</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=364494619-12012005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>Hebrew
Union College-Jewish Institute of Rellgion</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=364494619-12012005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>Cincinnati, Ohio</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=364494619-12012005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=364494619-12012005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><A
href="mailto:drettberg@huc.edu">drettberg@huc.edu</A></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Tahoma
size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B> Joseph Ross
[mailto:Joseph.T.Ross.40@nd.edu]<BR><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, January 11, 2005
5:34 PM<BR><B>To:</B> dcrm-l@lib.byu.edu; DCRM-l@lib.byu.edu;
thollis@library.berkeley.edu; auc1@psulias.psu.edu; ranelsen@library.ucsd.edu;
russell.363@osu.edu; ElizRob@alum.emory.edu; jfletchr@library.ucla.edu;
jane.gillis@yale.edu; roperj@wfu.edu; joeas@goshen.edu; jxa16@psulias.psu.edu;
juliet@ucrac1.ucr.edu; lcreider@lib.nmsu.edu; manon.theroux@yale.edu;
nschneider@nypl.org; rbrandt@library.berkeley.edu; robert_maxwell@byu.edu;
slsf@udel.edu; Stephen Skuce; Deborah J. Leslie<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re:
[DCRM-L] Discussion questions posted: 7B9 Signatures in non-roman
alphabets<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>Deborah and list members,<BR><BR>The question
concerning non-roman alphabet signatures has not generated much discussion
here, and I regret that I cannot participate in the discussion at the
Midwinter meeting of BSC, but I wanted to offer a few more remarks to my
earlier comments.<BR><BR>If one were to follow the draft suggestion for
signatures in the Russian alphabet, viz., using numerals to represent
the gatherings, how can one differentiate between upper and lower case? I do
not know if it is common in Russian early-imprints to differentiate between
upper and lower case in signatures or not and because the letters are so
similar in upper and lower case, it is probably not the case that upper and
lower case cyrillic letters are used in signatures the way they are in
printing in the Latin alphabet. I hope someone more knowledgeable in
this area could comment, but certainly we need to allow for such a
differentiation in other alphabets "without conventional names for the
letters" for which, it is being recommended, signatures would be recorded as
numerals.<BR><BR>As I have mentioned in my e-mailed comments last week, I
think the best way of rendering these signaturesis in the original
script and for my own uses in our local database, I do that. Since we
catalog on OCLC, the Greek, Hebrew and Russian alphabets are not available for
insertion in the bibliographic records, and there I am reliant on
transliteration. My suggested revision would be: <BR><BR>1) Give the
letters in the original alphabet (as Bowers recommends)<BR><BR>2)
Alternatively, where this is not possible, transliterate the letters according
to LC romanization.<BR><BR>In the draft text, I would also like to recommend
that where the non-roman letters are used as numerals that this would be
indicated by a qualification after the word signatures, viz. Signatures
(in Hebrew alphabetic numeration) or Signatures (in Old Church Slavonic
alphabetic numeration) and the signatures could then be recorded as the
draft suggests by arabic numeration: 1-11 (superscript 4) or
whatever.<BR><BR>Just one final note: having read the question on signatures
as it is formulated for discussion in your attachment, I myself cannot
understand how a statement: Signatures (in Greek) : A-G (superscript 6) could
be understood as anything other than three gatherings of 6 leaves. If
the signatures are in Greek (would it be better to say Greek alphabet), how
could G be the seventh letter? Someone not familiar with the alphabets
may need to get a chart of the alphabet, but I think one could more
easily figure out what the signatures are by transliterating the letters than
by using numeric notations.<BR><BR> And personally, I do not see the
need to write out the names of the letters for Greek, Hebrew or Arabic even
though these have been given special treatment by using the names of the
letters rather than the transliteration of the letter or its numeric place in
the alphabet.<BR><BR>Again, I hope others will comment on this, and I would
like to learn the result of any discussion at the midwinter
meeting.<BR><BR>Thanks for your attention,<BR><BR>Joseph Ross<BR>Rare
Books Cataloger<BR>University of Notre Dame<BR><BR><BR>At 04:34 PM 1/7/2005,
Deborah J. Leslie wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=cite cite="" type="cite">Discussion questions for the
Bibliographic Standards Committee meeting in Boston next week are now linked
from the DCRM(B) draft main page, in a Microsoft Word version and an HTML
version. A record of the discussion will be contained in the minutes
for this meeting; I'll make an announcement when it's posted, a month or two
after the meeting. DCRM-L subscribers not attending the BSC meeting are
encouraged to engage in an online discussion of the questions or other
concerns.<BR> <BR><FONT color=#610095><A
href="http://www.folger.edu/bsc/dcrb/dcrmtext.html">http://www.folger.edu/bsc/dcrb/dcrmtext.html</A><BR></FONT> <BR>________________________________<BR><BR>Deborah
J. Leslie, M.A., M.L.S.<BR>Head of Cataloging<BR>Folger Shakespeare
Library<BR>201 East Capitol St., SE<BR>Washington, DC
20003<BR>202.675-0369<BR><A
href="mailto:djleslie@folger.edu">djleslie@folger.edu</A><BR><?xml:namespace
prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
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