[DCRB-L] RE: Cataloguers' conversion of uppercase I, J, U, V in pre-modern usage

[Deborah J. Leslie]

Mr Dillon raises an interesting point. Although the DCRM Conference Working Group 2 (that dealing with transcription of early letter forms) did not consider the issue, and although Brian is correct that our current rare book cataloging rules instruct us NOT to add diacritics not present in the source, we do run up against the upper/lower case discrepancy issue. Certainly if we were transcribing a word or name from lower-case on t.p. with no diacritics, we would not add them. [This is a _transcription_ field after all; of course any headings added to the record would have the established form of the name with diacritics and all.] But what if we were transcribing a word in all caps with no diacritics, but the lower-case text uses diacritics, why is there a difference in principle between adding diacritics to the transcription and using the lower-case practice of IJUV?

In contrast, the rules for modern book cataloging (AACR2) do call for the addition of diacritics in transcription consonant with the conventions of the language. 
___________________________
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 (p)
202.675-0328 (f)
djleslie@folger.edu
www.folger.edu


-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Hillyard [mailto:ab224bh@nls.uk] 
Sent: 22 May 2003 12:48
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: Cataloguers' conversion of uppercase I, J, U, V in pre-modern usage


On this there has been no proposal to depart from the existing DCRB 0H
"In general do not add accents and other diacritical marks that are not
present in the source", which is also the instruction in ISBD(A), rev.
ed. 0.6.

Brian Hillyard

-- 

Dillonbook@aol.com wrote:
> 
> While we're at it, I'd like to know what 'the rules' are for supplying
> diacritics (accents) where they don't appear on titlepages (because they're set in
> display-type) but would appear in 'ordinary' upper-and-lowercase text.
> 
> Suppose, for example, that a titlepage gives an editor's name as "LA
> BEDOLLIERE" but from other sources and/or commonsense we know that it's really "La
> Bédollière".
> 
> Jay Dillon

-