[DCRM-L] Reconsidering digraphs

[Deborah J. Leslie]

Dear cataloging colleagues,

 

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. 

 

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. 

 

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. 

 

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). 

 

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? 

 

_________________________________
Deborah J. Leslie, M.A., M.L.S.
Head of Cataloging
Folger Shakespeare Library
djleslie at folger.edu
http://www.folger.edu

 

 
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