Heidrun Wiesenmüller wrote: > I find it hard to believe that RDA expects catalogers to be > able to describe complicated symbols in any number of foreign > languages. > The LC-PCC PS for 1.7.5 has taken care of the problem by stating: > "Substitute in the language of the context the word, phrase, etc., that > is the obvious spoken/written equivalent (if unknown in the language of > the context, use English)". Well, this is certainly a sensible way of > doing it, but it still seems to go against RDA.
This seems to be entirely in keeping with the principles of RDA. Bear in mind that you don't use the language of the *resource* but the language of the rest of the element being recorded. If it's the TITLE that has the symbol, and the title is in English, use an English word or phrase in place of the symbol; if the title is in German, use a German word or phrase, etc. Regardless of the language of the resource itself. (For example, the resource could be in German, with an English title proper.) This is not at all unlike supplying a variant access point replacing an ampersand with a word. If the title is in English, you would replace the ampersand with "and"; if the title is in German, you would replace the ampersand with "und". In any catalog, it would look kind of funny (to me, at least) to see an access point such as "Advise und consent", "Advise et consent", "Advise y consent", etc. instead of "Advise and consent". Kevin M. Randall Principal Serials Cataloger Northwestern University Library [email protected] (847) 491-2939 Proudly wearing the sensible shoes since 1978!
