[DCRM-L] FW: Greek signatures

[Joseph Ross]

The best solution for Greek signatures is, of course, to record them in 
the Greek script.  One can do that on OCLC if one has a Unicode 
character map to copy the letters into the record.  The tool I like to 
use is BabelMap, which is available on the web.  (One could also copy it 
from a word processor into OCLC.) The Greek character set is a part of 
the MARC 8 repertoire and may thus be used in the records.  OCLC just 
does not provide an easy method for entering the characters.

One could use the names of the letters, but for consistency sake, I did 
not think it advisable.  The names of the letters for Greek are 
well-known, and the Hebrew names also to a certain degree.  Church 
Slavonic also has names of the letters, but they are not well-known 
enough that one would want to use them in recording a signature.  It 
also makes a very long, cumbersome signature statement to use the names 
of the letters. 

As Deborah has pointed out, if you are transliterating the letters, you 
must indicate in the signature statement which letters are 
transliterations of Greek characters.  "a-g [superscript 8] (in Greek 
characters)."

Joseph Ross
University of Notre Dame


Robert Maxwell wrote:

> For some reason this message didn't make it through to the list ...
>
>  
>
> 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: Will Evans [mailto:evans at bostonathenaeum.org]
> Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 9:15 AM
> To: dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu
> Subject: Greek signatures
>
>  
>
> At the risk of sounding like a Monday morning quarterback, I'm a 
> little puzzled by rule 7B9.9. The item I have in hand has the 
> preliminaries signed in Greek characters and the bulk of the text 
> signed in Roman characters. As we all are now at the mercy of OCLC, 
> which does not include Greek characters in its ALA set of diacritics 
> and special characters, I'll end up with the following signature 
> statement:
>
>  
>
> a-g[superscript 8] A-2H[superscript 8]
>
>  
>
>  
>
> I find this is confusing. I guess I can add a note indicating which 
> characters are in Greek, but this requires extra work.
>
>  
>
> Out of curiosity was a scheme of [alpha], [beta], [gamma], etc. ever 
> considered?
>
>  
>
> Best,
>
>  
>
> Will
>
>  
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Will Evans
> Rare Materials Catalog Librarian
> Biography & History Bibliographer
> Boston Athenaeum
> 10 1/2 Beacon Street
> Boston, MA 02108
>
> Telephone: (617) 227-0270, ext. 243
> Fax: (617) 227-5266
> http://www.bostonathenaeum.org/
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>  
>
>  
>
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