MARC21 260:
Issues to be Resolved in Hebrew Transcription in RLIN
For: The Hebraica Cataloging Team
By: Daniel Lovins
Date: 7/20/01
ISSUE #1:
According to AACR2 Appendix C.5D3, Arabic numerals are to
replace Hebrew ones when representing Hebrew dates in the
vernacular 260 field. Lenore Bell (Hebraica Team Leader at LC)
confirmed that this is indeed LC's practice. Yale Hebraica Team's
practice has been to preserve the Hebrew numerals for Hebrew dates. I believe that Leonard set this precedent intentionally:
the Hebrew form of the date is more intelligible to a Hebrew
reader than is its 'Arabic' representation. Still, aside from
Yale and YIVO, I'm not sure if other RLG libraries are doing this. Henceforth
we will follow the LC policy.
ISSUE #2:
According to LC, "All dates of publication,
distribution, etc. on both the Roman and the vernacular records
are recorded in the same direction and in the same sequence"
(Hebraica Cataloging, p. 39). My interpretation
of this sentence (confirmed by Lenore Bell) is the following:
"the order of dates in subfield 'c' is supposed to be the
same in both parallel fields, such that, for example, "743 [1932
or 1933]'" appears in this field direction (left-to-right)
and in this order both times, and such that the the Roman 260
ends with a bracket while the Hebraic field ends with a period (see
example below). While Yale practice had been to end both fields
with brackets, our new policy will be to
conform to LC's input conventions:
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ISSUE #3:
Lenore Bell informs me that "in the vernacular 260 field,
we use the roman character set to represent the date (numerals,
brackets, etc.) but when we get to the end punctuation (period),
we switch back to the Hebrew character set." However,
the RLG Information Center has been advising that the
Arabic numerals in the vernacular 260 are to be entered from
the Hebrew character set.
Yale practice: Enter data into vernacular 260 subfield 'c' from Roman character set.
Copyright 2001 Yale University Library
Last updated: 5/10/02
URL: http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/hebraicateam/260.htm