Bibliographic Standards Committee
Areas of targeted revision of DCRB (Deborah Leslie)
Continuing with the committee's decision at the 2002 Midwinter meeting to scale back a full re-write of DCRB, and concentrate instead on targeting and revising specific problem areas, these are certain problem areas I have identified.
Transcription issues
- Silent alteration in transcription of roman to arabic. Current status: The committee has agreed in principle that dates appearing in roman in the text will be transcribed in roman, with the arabic date following in brackets. The wording of rule needs to be worked out.
- I/J U/V transcription. Continuing discussion over this transcription method has continued in fits and starts over several years. It is time for us to figure out whether we want to keep it as is, or amend it, especially as the authors of the rare serials rules are awaiting this decision for incorporation into those rules. See thread on DCRB-L archives under subject "Transcription rules" and variants in January 1999 and June 1999.
- Transcription of ess-szet when printed with 'long s' and 'z' in ligature rather than the single printed b character.
- Revisit the instruction to silently omit dedications, statements of patronage, and statements of privilege (DCRB 1.A2), this practice having recently and publicly come under by fire by scholars and others. Cf. ExLibris thread on dedications from December 2001.
- Latin forms of place names. Consider expanding rule 4B3 to routinely add the modern equivalent. E.g. 260 Lugduni Batavorum [Leiden].
- Dashes. Need to provide instruction on whether to make distinction by length of dash, by number of individually visible dashes, or normalize all dashes.
- Addresses in imprints. Open for discussion the current preference to omit publishers' addresses (4C2) and for omitting all after the first publisher if they are numerous (4C6).
- Provide specific instruction on expanding initials in imprints to names.
- When and why to supply printing date to date of publication needs to be clarified. (AKA the larger issue of what the basic bibliographic record represents. This might flow from or into an appendix or discussion analogous to LCRI 1.0)
- Revisit the instruction on transcribing vs. supplying edition statements.
Collation
- Revisit the current instruction not to treat an added engraved t.p. as a plate (5B9), and what it means to "consider" something a plate, especially in reference to inserted letterpress tables.
- Provide explicit instruction for recording the physical description of volumes made primarily or entirely of plates.
- Revisit optional note for collation of multiple volumes (5B19).
- Provide instruction on recording signature statements in non-Roman alphabets, particularly Greek and Cyrillic. Current status: I have asked Dan Rettberg, an experienced rare Hebrew book cataloger, to devise a short statement of typical signing practices in Hebrew books, from which we can formulate a rule.
- Try to clarify instruction on recording unnumbered sequences. I have found that much confusion persists among students and new catalogers about how to count unnumbered sequences.
Other issues
- Decide whether to write something substantial for Area 6: series
- More specificity on fingerprint method to use?
- Rewrite 7C19 to clarify copy-specific "With:" notes vis-à-vis titles issued together. Rewrite the final example to encourage total count of pamphlets (e.g., No. 3 of 27 in a v. with binder's title: Brownist tracts, 1599-1644)
- Clarify definition of title page in glossary, particularly in distinction between "page," "leaf," and "recto of the leaf."