MARC and Unicode normalization forms

[Karen Coyle]

Alistair had a large number of error messages about character set 
problems when he processed records from MARC through various steps into RDF:

WARN [main] (RDFDefaultErrorHandler.java:36) -
file:data/mods/part01-split16.mods.xml.rdf(line 249403 column 117): {W131}
String not in Unicode Normal Form C: "Musée bibliographique"

WARN [main] (RDFDefaultErrorHandler.java:36) -
file:data/mods/part01-split16.mods.xml.rdf(line 249340 column 184): {W131}
String not in Unicode Normal Form C: "Versuch einer kurzen Geschichte der
römisch-catholischen deutschen Bibelübersetzung"

While I can't explain why these particular examples get the error (and I 
will keep looking at it), I have some evidence that the MARC -> MARCXML 
program does not output Unicode Normal Form C. This causes display 
problems for some characters (although not, as far as I know, the ones 
in the examples). It is possible to translate the data into Form C if 
needed.

In any case, it looks like it isn't something that Alistair introduced 
with his code. If I can figure out for sure that it's a MARCXML issue, 
I'll suggest that code should be modified.

kc

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Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kco...@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596   skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
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