<html>
<body>
Dan,<br><br>
The University of Notre Dame Library catalogs on OCLC so I am unable to
use vernacular scripts there and have to transliterate title, imprint
etc. Our OPAC is an Aleph 500 system, and I can enter the Hebrew
and Cyrillic characters for title, imprint, series, and signatures in 880
fields. As long as Unicode values are used for the vernacular
letters in the catalog record, any one with a unicode font that has these
letters will be able to read them with a web browser that is unicode
compliant. It has been my experience that some of the
transliterations are more difficult to display properly than the
vernacular scripts. The Times New Roman unicode font has the
characters for Hebrew, Greek, and Cyrillic alphabets, but the font lacks
the unicode characters: left ligature half and right ligature half.
As a result, the display of Russian words is problematic because one has
to make frequent use of these ligature marks to represent three Russian
letters: ts, iu, and ia. <br><br>
Regarding the Hebrew characters without Roman alphabet equivalents:
I assume you mean Aleph and Ayn although the symbols that are used to
represent them are not superscripts. On OCLC, one simply uses
the ALA character set to enter the rough and smooth breathing marks
(unicode: 02BC (modifier letter apostrophe) and 02BB (modifier letter
inverted comma)) in order to represent these two letters. One
can insert those characters for signatures the same way you do for
transliterations of titles. . Similarly, for the miagkii znak
and twerdy znak (soft and hard sign) in Russian, which are transliterated
by single and double prime (unicode 02B9 and 02BA). These are again
unicode values so users should be able to see them as long as they have
a font with these characters. <br><br>
So, I don't think recording signatures in the vernacular script or in
transliteration should pose any more difficulties than recording title,
series, and imprint information in the vernacular and/or
transliteration. One uses the same set of letters and diacritics or
symbols. <br><br>
Joe<br><br>
At 04:34 PM 1/18/2005, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font face="arial" size=2 color="#0000FF">Very
interesting, Joe, and it may work. I can't help being a little concerned
for those libraries that do not have systems with the capability of
reproducing non-Roman alphabet characters. That's most of us, of course.
Although I could record Hebrew characters in signatures in both our
electronic catalog (VIRTUA), and on RLIN, I don't, out of deference to
the majority of libraries which do not have these capabilities. We use
our Hebrew character capabilities only for title and publisher/printer
information, and then only in tandem with transliterated fields. I also
would wonder about how to handle two of the Hebrew alphabet characters
that have not been assigned any equivalent in the Roman alphabet,
according to the ALA-LC Romanization tables. These cnaracters are
breathings, rahther than stops, and are noted only with superscript
diacritical marks. This would likely result in a totally unreadable
signature count for many libraries whose systems also have difficulty
with diacritics from other systems. It appears that the ALA romanized
Russian alphabet also has a couple of such characters. How would you
handle hard and soft signs, or are they normally not used in Russian
printers' alphabets? <br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#0000FF">I agree that it might be
helpful to distinguish in some way between upper and lower case
characters in signatures, assuming that a default would be given, since,
as I have already mentioned, Hebrew does not distinguish between upper
and lower case.<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#0000FF">Dan Rettberg<br>
Rare Book and Manuscript Bibliographer<br>
Klau Library<br>
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion<br>
Cincinnati, Ohio<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#0000FF"><a href="mailto:drettberg@huc.edu">drettberg@huc.edu</a><br>
</font> <br>
<br>
<dl>
<dd><font face="tahoma" size=2>-----Original Message-----<br>
<dd>From:</b> Joseph Ross
[<a href="mailto:Joseph.T.Ross.40@nd.edu" eudora="autourl">mailto:Joseph.T.Ross.40@nd.edu</a>]<br>
<dd>Sent:</b> Monday, January 17, 2005 12:19 PM<br>
<dd>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>
<dd>Subject:</b> RE: [DCRM-L] : 7B9 Signatures in non-roman
alphabets<br><br>
</font>
<dd>Dan,<br><br>
<dd>I would like to clarify my recommendations for revision of the Delta
version of DCRB(M). I am not recommending using "Latin
capitals for what would appear to be the closest corresponding character
within the alphabet employed for signatures" as you wrote in your
note below. I am recommending using a transliteration of the
letters in a non-Roman alphabet by using the ALA/LC transliteration
tables when and only when one cannot record the letter in the original
script</b>. Catalog users should be familiar with the LC
transliteration tables, which are also being used for the titles and
authors in the catalog record. I want also to be able to
distinguish upper and lower case in the alphabet under consideration,
where these alphabets allow such a distinction. Signature notes
will be meaningful only to bibliographers and individuals interested in
early printing. I think most of these people are fairly well
educated and will know that "g" is not the seventh letter of
the Greek, Hebrew or Cyrillic alphabet, and will look up a chart of the
alphabet if he/she does not know the alphabet.<br><br>
<dd>I don't have an objection to using the names for the Greek and Hebrew
letters, but I would prefer consistency, i.e., use the names for the
Russian alphabet as well. I think it is more work to record the
names than to record the transliteration of the letters. It also
makes for a very long note when one has a lengthy series of
signatures. When one is recording the pre-1917 Russian alphabet, I
don't know if one can expect that catalog users will be familiar enough
with the names of letters that are no longer used in the Russian
alphabet. If one used the transliteration, the catalog user could
simply look up the transliteration table to find the letter that is being
transliterated. <br><br>
<dd>My main objection, however, with the delta version of
DCRB(M) is the recommendation for signatures in Russian, viz. record the
signature as an Arabic numeral corresponding to the number of
gatherings. Early Russian books frequently do use the letters of
the Old Church Slavic alphabet for numbers. If one sees
a signature note in Arabic numerals, the natural assumption is that the
signatures are given in Old Church Slavic alphabetic numeration, not the
pre-1917 alphabet or the Old Church Slavic alphabet. One really has
no way of knowing what letters are indicated in the signature if one just
records the number of gatherings. One also loses the distinction
between upper and lower case alphabets and the number of series of the
alphabets. Too much is lost in this way of recording these
signatures. After looking at the complexity of the signatures in
early Russian imprints, I am more convinced of this than ever. We
need to convey to people who have an interest in early imprints how the
signatures are given as precisely as possible. I think we should
transliterate the letters in all non-Roman alphabet signatures when we
cannot give the letters in the original script. When the signatures
are given by letters representing numbers, then use Arabic numerals in
brackets and indicate this in the qualification after the word
Signatures, i.e., Signatures (in Old Church Slavonic alphabetic
numeration) or Signatures (in Hebrew alphabetic numeration). <br>
<br>
<dd>I hope this clarifies my position, and I hope the committee will take
these concerns into account in their discussions of this rule.<br><br>
<dd>Joe Ross<br>
<dd>Rare Books Cataloger<br>
<dd>University of Notre Dame<br><br>
<dd> At 03:01 PM 1/12/2005, Rettberg, Dan wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<dd><font face="arial" size=2 color="#0000FF">Joseph--<br>
</font>
<dd> <br>
<dd><font face="arial" size=2 color="#0000FF">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.<br>
</font>
<dd> <br>
<dd><font face="arial" size=2 color="#0000FF">Dan Rettberg<br>
<dd>Rare Book and Manuscript Bibliographer<br>
<dd>Klau Library<br>
<dd>Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Rellgion<br>
<dd>Cincinnati, Ohio<br>
</font>
<dd> <br>
<dd><font face="arial" size=2 color="#0000FF"><a href="mailto:drettberg@huc.edu">drettberg@huc.edu</a></font>
<dl>
<dd><font face="tahoma" size=2>-----Original Message-----
<dd>From: Joseph Ross
[<a href="mailto:Joseph.T.Ross.40@nd.edu" eudora="autourl">mailto:Joseph.T.Ross.40@nd.edu</a>]
<dd>Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 5:34 PM
<dd>To: 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
<dd>Subject: Re: [DCRM-L] Discussion questions posted: 7B9 Signatures in
non-roman alphabets<br><br>
</font>
<dd>Deborah and list members,<br>
<dd>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>
<dd>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>
<dd>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>
<dd>1) Give the letters in the original alphabet (as Bowers
recommends)<br>
<dd>2) Alternatively, where this is not possible, transliterate the
letters according to LC romanization.<br>
<dd>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>
<dd>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>
<dd> 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>
<dd>Again, I hope others will comment on this, and I would like to learn
the result of any discussion at the midwinter meeting.<br>
<dd>Thanks for your attention,<br>
<dd>Joseph Ross
<dd>Rare Books Cataloger
<dd>University of Notre Dame<br>
<br>
<dd>At 04:34 PM 1/7/2005, Deborah J. Leslie
wrote:<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<dd>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>
<dd>
<dd><font color="#610095"><a href="http://www.folger.edu/bsc/dcrb/dcrmtext.html">http://www.folger.edu/bsc/dcrb/dcrmtext.html</a></font>
<dd>
<dd>________________________________<br>
<dd>Deborah J. Leslie, M.A., M.L.S.
<dd>Head of Cataloging
<dd>Folger Shakespeare Library
<dd>201 East Capitol St., SE
<dd>Washington, DC 20003
<dd>202.675-0369
<dd><a href="mailto:djleslie@folger.edu">djleslie@folger.edu</a>
<dd><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
<dd> </blockquote></blockquote>
</dl>
</dl></blockquote></body>
<br>
</html>