By way of background, the "double punctuation" was made a part of the ISBD a few years ago in order to accommodate systems that automatically supply prescribed punctuation between areas of description. It was felt that it easier to do this than expect an algorithm to examine the field and decide if the period was part of the data, as in an abbreviation, before adding the period, space, dash, space or just a space, dash, space. In other words, they wanted to make it so that the systems that were adding the punctuation were not "wrong." (Some of these systems are more faithful to ISBD display in their public catalogs than the North American systems I am familiar with.) I see no reason for human catalogers to create double punctuation, and LC-PCC PS for 1.7.1 doesn't call for it either. I suppose one could argue that someone examining an ISBD description in a language with which they were totally unfamiliar would not know if a string of letters followed by a single period at the end of an area was an abbreviation or not, but at least in this part of the world, we're not going to worry about that.
------------------------------------------ John Hostage Senior Continuing Resources Cataloger // Harvard Library--Information and Technical Services // Langdell Hall 194 // Cambridge, MA 02138 host...@law.harvard.edu +(1)(617) 495-3974 (voice) +(1)(617) 496-4409 (fax) > -----Original Message----- > > Hi all, I've got a question regarding ending punctuation in the 250 field. > RDA D.1.2.1 indicates that in ISBD display, an full stop would be added after > an edition statement, even if the statement ends in an abbreviation: > > 3rd ed.. -- > not > 3rd ed. -- > > LC-PCC Policy Statement for 1.7.1 says: "If either field 245 or 250 does not > end in a period, add one." > > Am I correct in my thinking that the implication of this policy statement is > that > if an edition statement ends in an abbreviation, a second period would NOT > be added? In other words, which of the following is expected in a PCC > record?: > > 250 ## $a 3rd ed.. > or > 250 ## $a 3rd ed. > > [Note: the examples are predicated on the abbreviation being found and > transcribed as is from the resource]. >
