I have discussed this one with The Man Who Wrote the Book. He, like the rest of us, inherited a database which is inconsistent at many points, and the prevailing philosophy was and is not to worry much about inconsistencies which don't affect access. For whatever reason, a policy of NOT capitalizing (ha-)arets was chosen.
If at this point in history we want to change that policy and do what seems to me to be more in accord with the capitalization appendix of AACR2, we can. Is everyone on this list willing to sign on? This is not the type of problem that global change (not available in Paul Maher's day) can solve very well, since not all ha-aretses are ha-Aretses. If we want to capitalize, I suggest we agree to change older records on an as-encountered basis. And if you change an LC record on this point, please report if for bibliographic file maintenance. Joan >>> Jasmin Nof <j...@umd.edu> 4/30/2009 6:30 PM >>> looking at AACR2r, appendix A.15, there is an example "the Continent (i.e., Europe)". wouldn't this imply that, in cases where arets is being used specifically to refer to israel, it should be cap'd? such as in the conference heading for Kinus madaʻi ba-nośe Bate-ha-keneset ba-arets uva-tefutsot ba-ʻet ha-ʻatiḳah (n 88119147). most of the titles in lc are lowercased (e.g. lccn89104902, lccn88134654 [sorry, the lc opac seems to be down so i can't get the links]), but there are a few that are cap'd. what am i missing? thanks, jasmin
