[DCRM-L] Diacritic transcription in DCRMR

[Robert O. Steele]

Hello,

I note with some surprise that the draft edition of DCRMR includes the
option of adding diacritics where they are not present on the piece at
hand. Granted, this is in the limited situation of converting from upper to
lower case, but I think it introduces potential confusion for researchers
trying to distinguish between states or issues… or even editions, in the
case of anonymous and clandestine but oft-reprinted works, such as some
French Revolutionary pamphlets.

I have attached the detailed response I posted as feedback on the Public
Review of DCRMR site. Please feel free to comment.

The main points: 1) Since the rule is optional, I will not know which rule
you are applying, so I will not know if what you saw is really different
from what I see on the piece in hand. 2) The rule only applies to case
conversion, so in French EDITION can be édition, but not Édition. Why? 3)
The “pattern of the text” in early modern spelling can be difficult to
discern without some advanced knowledge, so I suspect anyone applying the
rule will merely add diacritics where they would be expected in modern
usage, which in my opinion is the equivalent of correcting spelling rather
than using [sic].

Thanks for any feedback you might have.

Robert O. Steele

Cataloging Librarian

Jacob Burns Law Library

George Washington University
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