Re: [RDA-L] Transcription and spacing

2013-05-29 Thread Heidrun Wiesenmüller

Mac wrote:


Heidrun said:


The other day, we were discussing the rules for transcription in 1.7. We
wondered how exact an exact transcription has to be according to the
standard rule of RDA. When it says as it appears on the source, does
this also refer to spacing?

We assume spacing is like capitalization and punctuation, determined by
best practices as opposed to data source.   (I say best practices as
opposed to rules because RDA has so many options).


I also think there is no point in exactly copying spacing as it is found 
on the source. I can't see any advantages for our users, but rather a 
number of disadvantages (Bernhard has already mentioned inconsistent 
indexing).


Actually, there is a draft for a German policy statement for 1.7.3, 
which essentially says to follow best practices when it comes to 
spacing, explaining which these are for a number of cases (for a 
German-speaking environment). But there was concern that such a policy 
statement might not be in accordance with the standard rule of RDA to 
copy things as they appear on the source. Admittedly, the wording of 
RDA makes such a reading possible, especially as there is an exception 
for capitalization in 1.7.2, but none for spacing.


My problem now is that it's really difficult to find out the true 
intention of RDA in this respect (perhaps only the JSC can shed light on 
this), or at least the common practice of RDA users in the 
Anglo-American world. This is why I've asked the question here. I've 
checked various documents like the global workflows and the LC training 
materials, but couldn't find any reference to this question. The 
examples in RDA are no real help as well, without a scan of the title page.


So, even if perhaps you think this is a non-issue, as Bernhard put it, 
I'd still be very glad to get some more opinions on the matter, either 
confirming or correcting my assumption that spacing is not routinely 
copied as it appears on the source. If you think the topic is not 
interesting enough for sharing on the list, please send me a mail off-list.


Heidrun


--
-
Prof. Heidrun Wiesenmueller M.A.
Stuttgart Media University
Wolframstr. 32, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany
www.hdm-stuttgart.de/bi


[RDA-L] Transcription and spacing

2013-05-28 Thread Heidrun Wiesenmüller
The other day, we were discussing the rules for transcription in 1.7. We 
wondered how exact an exact transcription has to be according to the 
standard rule of RDA. When it says as it appears on the source, does 
this also refer to spacing? There is one explicit rule for spacing 
(1.7.6), but this only covers initials and acronyms.


Consider the following examples:

Resource 1 has (somewhere in the title proper or other title information):
1925 - 1988

Resource 2 has (somewhere in the title proper or other title information):
1745-1910

Would you transcribe first year space hyphen space second year in the 
first case, and first year hyphen second year in the second? Or would 
you rather regularize this according to ordinary writing conventions and 
give both time intervals in the same way?


A similar example would be this:

Resource 1 has (somewhere in the title proper or other title information):
§ 211

Resource 2 has (somewhere in the title proper or other title information):
§14

Again the question: Would you make a difference here in transcription?

Thanks for your help.

Heidrun



--
-
Prof. Heidrun Wiesenmueller M.A.
Stuttgart Media University
Wolframstr. 32, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany
www.hdm-stuttgart.de/bi


Re: [RDA-L] Transcription and spacing

2013-05-28 Thread Bernhard Eversberg

28.05.2013 08:28, Heidrun Wiesenmüller:

The other day, we were discussing the rules for transcription in 1.7. We
wondered how exact an exact transcription has to be according to the
standard rule of RDA. When it says as it appears on the source, does
this also refer to spacing? There is one explicit rule for spacing
(1.7.6), but this only covers initials and acronyms.

Consider the following examples:

Resource 1 has (somewhere in the title proper or other title information):
1925 - 1988

Resource 2 has (somewhere in the title proper or other title information):
1745-1910

Would you transcribe first year space hyphen space second year in the
first case, and first year hyphen second year in the second? Or would
you rather regularize this according to ordinary writing conventions and
give both time intervals in the same way?



Well, I see the only importance of this in indexing:

a) 1745-1910 is one (hyphenated) title word, 1939 - 1945 makes two.
   (Does RDA say anything about observing a difference between
   hyphen and dash?)

b) If you have a title string index for browsing or left-anchored
   searching (agreed, no one wants that any more), then there will
   likely be a chaos at points like 1914 or 1939.

If the consensus is that these matters don't matter, then it is
a non-issue. (For de-duplication matching, you will mostly strip all
apaces out before you compare titles.)

It is, by the way, unfortunate that RDA says absolutely nothing about
the requirements and issues of indexing. Or does it? The result will
be, as with AACR2, that local specifications will diversify and throw a
spanner into the works of federated searching and webservices for
accessing other catalogs.
(German RAK, by the way, had ordering rules. These were beneficial
for the problems mentioned in that they resulted in more harmonious
specifications in that regard.)

But as said above, as nobody wants these indexes any more, forget about
all this and avoid counterproductive pedanticism where it has no
impact on Access.

B.Eversberg


Re: [RDA-L] Transcription and spacing

2013-05-28 Thread Dan Matei
-Original Message-
From: Bernhard Eversberg e...@biblio.tu-bs.de
Date: Tue, 28 May 2013 08:55:42 +0200

 
 b) If you have a title string index for browsing or left-anchored
 searching (agreed, no one wants that any more), then there will

Hm...

How very useful are those indexes for autocomplete, i.e. for the engine to 
predict a phrase (mainly these days when we have to type with 1-2
fingers :-)

Dan



--
Dan Matei
director, Direcția Patrimoniu Cultural Mobil, Imaterial și Digital [Movable, 
Intangible and Digital Heritage Department] (aka CIMEC)
Institutul Național al Patrimoniului [National Heritage Institute], București 
[Bucharest, Romania]
tel. 0725 253 222, (+4)021 317 90 72; fax (+4)021 317 90 64, www.cimec.ro