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At 09:10 AM 2/22/2005, Michael North wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font face="arial" color="#0000FF">I
agree with Robert Maxwell that these are form rather than content.
Especially as we look at incunables, there are dozens of ligatures we
might want to include, turning the whole thing into a big mess. I
would like all of these digraphs to be spelled out as separate letters;
and the more universally and uniformly this is done, the easier searching
will be across our catalogs. For instance, how will most American
users search for an "æ" in an OPAC- especially when they're at
home using a catalog remotely? What if the ligature is used on one t.p.
by one printer, then not used somewhere else for another edition of the
same work? There are uniform titles, but I would hate to throw that
into the mix every time there is a title with a potential ligature in
it.<br>
</font></blockquote><x-tab> </x-tab>We
long ago agreed, as I recall, that rules should not be dictated by what
any particular system was or was not able to do. Some systems will
treat a digraph search and a separate letter search with equal
efficiency. But collecting a very large search result is not very
useful if one cannot identify what one has retrieved. The aim for
searching is surely to identify particular works, and the more
conventional alterations one makes to the title page, the more difficult
identification of a particular work or edition becomes. <br><br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>I agree
with Manon Theroux's comment that any rules which provide less adequate
transcription than AACR2 violate our effort to provide as much
transcription as possible for rare materials.<br><br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Juliet
McLarlen <br><br>
<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""> <br>
<font face="arial" color="#0000FF">I would keep the exceptions for
Scandinavian languages, which I believe put their non-Roman vowels at the
end of the alphabet in their dictionaries, following the assumption that
those searching for Scandinavian materials can type these letters into a
search bar. I don't know enough about how the French are dealing
with
</font><font face="arial">œ</font><font face="arial" color="#0000FF"> in
the online environment- what are the doing at BnF?<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" color="#0000FF">Just my two centimes.<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" color="#0000FF">Michael <br>
</font> <br><br>
<font face="arial">Michael J. North, northm@mail.nlm.nih.gov<br>
Head of Rare Books & Early Manuscripts<br>
History of Medicine Division<br>
National Library of Medicine<br>
8600 Rockville Pike<br>
Bethesda, MD 20894<br><br>
(301) 496-9204 * fax (301) 402-0872<br>
<a href="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd">http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd</a></font><br><br>
<font face="arial">National Institutes of Health<br>
Department of Health and Human Services <br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>-----Original Message-----<br>
<dd>From:</b> Deborah J. Leslie
[<a href="mailto:DJLeslie@FOLGER.edu" eudora="autourl">mailto:DJLeslie@FOLGER.edu</a>]
<br>
<dd>Sent:</b> Tuesday, February 22, 2005 9:33 AM<br>
<dd>To:</b> dcrm-l@lib.byu.edu<br>
<dd>Subject:</b> [DCRM-L] Reconsidering digraphs<br><br>
<dd>Dear cataloging colleagues,<br>
<br>
<dd><font face="arial"> <br>
</font><br>
<dd><font face="arial">This weekend four of the five DCRM(B) editors are
meeting at the Folger for intense editing sessions. I’m happy to report
that so far we’re making good progress, but find there is an issue we
want to re-open, and request guidance from the larger community. It has
to do with the separation of ae and oe digraphs, or “ligatures” as the
rules call them. Please keep in mind that we are not speaking of
decorative ligatures, such as ct’s and st’s as a single type-body. We are
only speaking of two letters written as one. <br>
</font><br>
<dd><font face="arial"> <br>
</font><br>
<dd><font face="arial">As far as we can discover, AACR2 gives no guidance
on digraphs. (One of us thought she had found an AACR2 instruction to
separate all ligatures, but now cannot find it and wonders if she
imagined it.) LCRI 1.0E says to separate ligatures into their component
letters, but makes exceptions for modern French and Scandinavian, in
which oe and ae are to be transcribed as a single character. DCRB adds
Anglo-Saxon and ancient Scandinavian languages to the exception list.
<br>
</font><br>
<dd><font face="arial"> <br>
</font><br>
<dd><font face="arial">The current draft of DCRM(B) has simplified the
instruction: separate all ligatures into their component letters, no
exceptions. But we feel we need to reconsider that instruction given our
desire to make the transcription more precise in terms of content. AE and
oe digraphs have always been part of the MARC character set. We realize
we are having a hard time justifying the separation of digraphs in
transcription. <br>
</font><br>
<dd><font face="arial"> <br>
</font><br>
<dd><font face="arial">An instruction to transcribe all digraphs as
digraphs, in any language at all, goes against the grain of experience
for many of us. The ESTC, on the other hand, has been transcribing
digraphs as such all along. We need to winnow out the aesthetic arguments
and focus on what we are trying to accomplish with transcription. (All
other things being equal, aesthetic arguments count, but only if all
other things really are equal). <br>
</font><br>
<dd><font face="arial"> <br>
</font><br>
<dd><font face="arial">At its most basic level, the DCRM transcription
principle is to transcribe the content, but not the form, of printed
text. Thus, we retain archaic and incorrect spellings, but normalize
capitalization and line endings -- the former being content, the latter
form. The digraph question comes down to this: do digraphs represent
content (does their joining together actually create a new letter) or do
they represent form (just a conventional way of writing these
combinations of letters)? We as a group are leaning more toward the
consideration of digraphs as content. What do you think? <br>
</font>
<dd> <br><br>
<dd><font face="arial">_________________________________<br>
<dd>Deborah J. Leslie, M.A., M.L.S.<br>
<dd>Head of Cataloging<br>
<dd>Folger Shakespeare Library<br>
<dd><a href="mailto:djleslie@folger.edu">djleslie@folger.edu</a></font><br>
<dd><font face="arial"><a href="http://www.folger.edu/" eudora="autourl">http://www.folger.edu</a><br>
</font><br>
<dd><font face="arial"> <br>
</font>
<dd> <br>
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