Heidi G. Lerner
Hebraica/Judaica Cataloger
Catalog Dept.
Stanford University Libraries
Stanford, CA 94305-6004
ph: 650-725-9953
fax: 650-725-1120
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
----- Original Message -----
From: David W Reser
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 7:02 AM
Subject: [PCCLIST] Announcement on non-Latin characters in name authority
records
Announcement on non-Latin characters in name authority records
The major authority record exchange partners (British Library, Library of
Congress, National Library of Medicine, and OCLC, Inc., in consultation with
Library and Archives Canada) have agreed to a basic outline that will allow for
the addition of references with non-Latin characters to name authority records
that make up the LC/NACO Authority File.
While the romanized form will continue to be the authorized heading (authority
record 1XX field), NACO contributors will be able to add references in
non-Latin scripts following MARC 21’s “Model B” for multi-script records.
Model B provides for unlinked non-Latin script fields with the same MARC tags
used for romanized data, such as authority record 4XX fields. Using Model B
for authorities is a departure from the current bibliographic record practice
of many Anglo-American libraries where non-Latin characters are exported as 880
fields (Alternate Graphic Representation) using MARC 21’s “Model A” for
multiscript records.
For the initial implementation period, the use of non-Latin scripts
will be limited to those scripts that are represented in the MARC-8 repertoire
(Japanese, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Persian, Hebrew, Yiddish, Cyrillic, and
Greek). Although the exchange of authority records between the NACO nodes will
be in UTF-8, LC’s Cataloging Distribution Service will continue to supply the
MDS-Authorities weekly subscription product in both UTF-8 and MARC-8 for some
period of time. It is expected that the use of non-Latin scripts beyond the
MARC-8 repertoire will be implemented in the future.
Guidelines for use by catalogers in formulating non-Latin
references for authority records are still in progress.
System vendors should be prepared to handle authority records with
non-Latin data no earlier than April 2008. Test files will be made available
prior to that time. Questions can be addressed to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
