[DCRM-L] Reconsidering digraphs (fwd)

[Jain Fletcher]

Hello,
   I do hope that some of the members of the long-ago DCRB revision team 
will be speaking up about this, but Bob's well-stated and logical response 
here is exactly what I remember Suzy Taraba and Steve Young explaining to 
us in the RB Cat'g class at Rare Book School back in the early 90s.  I had 
the great good fortune of taking that class immediately after DCRB had been 
published.  Suzy and Steve were fresh out of the revision experience and 
gave us many insights into the thinking behind many of the changes.  I have 
always been extremely grateful for that timing, because it has helped me 
understand the new rules so much better.  I agree with this point, BTW, 
that in these cases, the letters are just ligatures used by printers for 
the same reasons as "st", "ct", etc.    <---- "pun" optional with this last 
one.
								--Jain

------------ Forwarded Message ------------
Date: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 9:25 AM -0700
From: Robert Maxwell <robert_maxwell at byu.edu>
To: dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu
Subject: RE: [DCRM-L] Reconsidering digraphs


I'd like to hear the reasoning for why digraphs are "content" rather than
"form."

The only argument I can think of is that they might actually be considered
separate letters, i.e., "oe" is not considered two letters stuck together,
but a single letter.

I can speak with some authority that this is *not* the case in Latin. "oe"
and "ae" are diphthongs, i.e., two separate vowel letters pronounced in one
syllable, and if the two letters are stuck together they are simply
ligatures, no different from ct and st (which can also be two letters
pronounced in a single syllable). "oe" and "ae" are not considered separate
letters in Latin.

Nor are they, as far as I can tell, in French. At least in my dictionary,
"oecumenique" is filed directly after "odyssee" and "oeuvrer" just before
"off", i.e., at least so far as filing is concerned, they are considered
ligatures, not a separate letter. I would think if they were considered a
separate letter they would be filed somewhere else, perhaps after all the
other Os. It is true that "oe" in this dictionary is printed as an oe
ligature. But I would consider that form, not content. I cannot speak for
Scandinavian languages.

Furthermore, as far as I know all systems file the MARC ae and oe as though
they were separate letters. This of course could be changed but it would
result in an extreme amount of confusion I should think for our users, so I
have my doubts that the custom of filing them as though separate letters
will ever change.

Until hearing further argument I think they are ligatures, i.e., form,
rather than content, at least in most cases.
Bob

Robert L. Maxwell
Special Collections and Ancient Languages Catalog Librarian
Genre/Form Authorities Librarian
6728 Harold B. Lee Library
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
(801)422-5568




__________________________________________________
From: dcrm-l-admin at lib.byu.edu [mailto:dcrm-l-admin at lib.byu.edu] On Behalf
Of Deborah J. Leslie Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 7:33 AM
To: dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu
Subject: [DCRM-L] Reconsidering digraphs




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





---------- End Forwarded Message ----------



Jain Fletcher
Head, Collections & Technical Services Division
Department of Special Collections
Young Research Library - UCLA
Box 951575
Los Angeles, CA   90095-1575

v: (310) 794-4096
f: (310) 206-1864
e: jfletchr at library.ucla.edu