[DCRM-L] Reconsidering digraphs

Tue Feb 22 16:56:42 MST 2005



At 09:10 AM 2/22/2005, Michael North wrote:
>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.
         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.

         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.

         Juliet McLarlen


>
>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 œ in the online 
>environment- what are the doing at BnF?
>
>Just my two centimes.
>
>Michael
>
>
>Michael J. North, northm at mail.nlm.nih.gov
>Head of Rare Books & Early Manuscripts
>History of Medicine Division
>National Library of Medicine
>8600 Rockville Pike
>Bethesda, MD  20894
>
>(301) 496-9204 * fax (301) 402-0872
><http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd>http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd
>
>National Institutes of Health
>Department of Health and Human Services
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Deborah J. Leslie [mailto:DJLeslie at FOLGER.edu]
>Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 9:33 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
><mailto:djleslie at folger.edu>djleslie at folger.edu
>http://www.folger.edu
>
>
>
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