[DCRM-L] How many commas when listing things?

[Tony Curwen]

Dear colleagues,

Try posting this question on the EXLIBRIS list and watch the ensuing  
passionate discussion about the pros and cons of penultimate commas!  This  
problem has been chewed over and pronounced upon ever since the Fowlers  
(and probably before them) down to Lynne Truss and maybe since.

AACR2 1.1B1 reads "Transcribe the title page exactly as to wording, order,  
and spelling," [note that comma after 'order'!] "but not necessarily as to  
punctuation and capitalization."  Has AACR2 anything more to say about  
serial commas or similar fine points of punctuation apart from the  
extensive references to prescribed punctuation and also resulting double  
punctuation?  And if so, where, please?  I must admit that I haven't read  
the Rules closely from cover to cover for a long time.

My instinct would be to follow an unwritten rule: When transcribing,  
transcribe! -- unless there are good reasons not to do so.

A handful of French web pages I have looked at suggest that they use  
commas to separate terms in a list EXCEPT when the last two are separated  
by a conjunction.  However, I neither know whether there is an official  
ruling from the Académie Française about that, nor have access to "Normes  
de catalogage" (AFNOR, 2005).

Best regards

Anthony G. Curwen
Aberystwyth, Wales

P.S.  Do those accented/modified characters transmit properly?



On Sat, 19 Apr 2008 23:11:57 +0100, Laurence S. Creider  
<lcreider at lib.nmsu.edu> wrote:

> Deborah,
> For American using AACR2 for English language works, the rule is in the
> Chicago Manual, 6.19 under serial comma.  I have no idea what to do about
> French since I do not have access to AACR2 from home.
>
> Larry
>
>
> On Sat, April 19, 2008 3:58 pm, Deborah J. Leslie wrote:
>> Not a rare materials question, but I hate to bother Autocat with this
>> and am hoping someone knows off the top of their head. Where is the
>> instruction to put a comma after the penultimate name/word in a list?
>> E.g.:
>>
>> Title page: Marlowe, Shakespeare et Webster
>> Transcription: Marlowe, Shakespeare, et Webster
>>
>> I also seem to remember that there is a different instruction for
>> British cataloging agencies; they would not include the comma. Any help
>> or advice would be much appreciated.
>>
>>
>> __________________________
>> Deborah J. Leslie, M.A., M.L.S.
>> Head of Cataloging
>> Folger Shakespeare Library
>> 201 East Capitol St., S.E.
>> Washington, D.C. 20003
>> 202.675-0369
>> djleslie at folger.edu | http://www.folger.edu
>>
>>
>>
>
>