FW: Topic 4. Transcription

[Patrick Russell]

Hi all:

I think Elzabeth summarizes the practical issues well.

I must confess my own preference is "leave it like it is" including; if on
t.p. it is upper case, simply change to lower case. 

I myself I think its less confusing to "leave it like it is" in the 245,
and use a 246 to facilitate "searching" on "modern" spelling.

However, this is a bit more complicated than the example suggests.  what
about Latin? Again, I say leave as is "IUDEX" becomes "iudex" whatever
"printer practice may be.   I am aware that some find this not acceptable,
contrary to sound descriptive principles, whatever.  But then there is the
controversial "IUDEX" becomes "judex," etc., a linguistic/stylistic problem. 

We need also however to look at further at: How do our transcriptions
affect filing in an on-line environment?  While use of both 245 & 246, and
uniform title (240 or 7xx$t) helps greatly in searching, the fact remains
that the present i/j u/v rules create really messy files. Uniform titles
most definitely are necessary, and some examples might help. But they do
not solve the problem. Since most systems I know of use 245 as  their
primary arrangement for "title" this means that title displays are often
hopelessly arranged.  This is in part due to various "transcription
systems" used over time.  But present dcrb does not help.  

At issue here in part is: should 245 be a "transcription," or something
else? What else in the case of typographic conventions, variations in
alphabet used, stylistic practices?  The spirit and purpose of dcrb tends
toward "transcription," but how can we respect that while facilitating
display in machine environments?

Patrick

At 07:56 AM 1/18/99 -0800, Elizabeth Robinson wrote:
>Hello, folks
>
>I have received one response so far to the message below. I need to
clarify that when I say "Leave it like it is" I mean leave the *rule* (0H)
as it is. Also I need to say that the options as I have them listed below
address both the notion of transcription unto itself and the notion of
which MARC field to put what in.
>
>Finally, my one response so far suggested we also discuss the double
punctuation option (rule 0E, p. 4, 3rd paragraph). The question is, I
believe, should we leave this as-is (i.e. an option) or make double
punctuation the rule. Would we then offer ISBD only/single punctuation  as
an option?
>
>--Elizabeth A. Robinson
>  Principal Rare Book Cataloger
>  Huntington Library
>  erobinson at huntington.org
>
>
>
>----------
>From: 	Elizabeth Robinson[SMTP:erobinson at huntington.org]
>Sent: 	Friday, January 15, 1999 10:15 AM
>To: 	'DCRB-L'
>Subject: 	Topic 4. Transcription
>
>Hello.
>
>The topic I am working on (as regards revision of DCRB) is the
transcription rules. The chief one seems to be the i/j and u/v issues, so I
will start with that. However, if there are other transcription issues we
need to discuss, please let me know.
>
>The rule in question for i/j, etc. is 0H which currently instructs
catalogers to first try to determine a pattern of usage and then use the
table within the rule as last resort. This is for conversion between upper
and lowercase.
>
>As I see it, the options are:
>
>1. Leave it like it is.
>
>	EX.  245 10 Advice from a country judge.
>	
>		[Printed as: ADUICE FROM A COUNTRY 		IUDGE]	
>
>2. Leave it like it is and add a statement to enter a 246 (variant of
title) in the manner in which printed (which is what many libraries do
already):
>
>	EX. 245 10 Advice from a country judge.
>	      246 3_ Aduice from a country iudge
>
>3. Do a vice versa: 245 as printed and 246 as conversion.
>
>	EX. 245 10 Aduice from a country iudge.
>	      246 3_ Advice from a country judge
>
>Are there other problematic transcription areas we need to discuss?
>
>Thanks.
>
>--Elizabeth A. Robinson
>  Principal Rare Book Cataloger
>  Huntington Library
>  erobinson at huntington.org
>
>
>
>
>