Re: [RDA-L] Transcription and spacing
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
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
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
-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
