Dear Colleagues:
I am forwarding the clarification response that I received from Bob Hiatt this morning,
which indicates that LC's intention is indeed to split the file according to whether
an item is written in polytonic or monotonic Greek. He provides 2 examples that I think
give all the basis we need to argue for absolute rejection of the new tables!
Rhea
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Miller Hiatt [mailto:rhia@loc.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 7:04 AM
To: Lesage, Rhea
Cc: Barbara B Tillett
Subject: Re: FW: FW: Greek transliteration
Rhea:
The intent is that if the rough breathing sign is present in the
script, it gets romanized as "h." This would apply to polytonic Greek
whenever the resource was published. The note simply provides guidance
when one cannot ascertain from the resource whether it is monotonic or
polytonic. Since the reform took place in 1982, that date is used as the
dividing line to help make a decision. As for an example, check out n
81003348 (Ērakleion (Greece). It is currently written Ηράκλειον
without the rough breathing mark. Therefore the heading was revised to
Ērakleion (Greece) with reference from the form that used the rough
breathing mark: Hērakleion (Greece). This same treatment applies also
to the Nome of Ērakleion--n 97069944 (Ērakleion (Greece : Nome)). On
the other side of the coin, look at n 97052790 (Dēmotikē Pinakothēkē
Hērakleiou) which retains the romanization for the rough breathing mark
because the usage in this 1994 resource is clearly noted as polytonic.
On this particular record, only the reference from the place has been
revised to reflect the revised heading for the place. I hope this
provides what you needed.
Bob Hiatt
Policy and Standards Division
Robert M. Hiatt
Senior Cataloging Policy Specialist
Policy and Standards Division
Library of Congress
Washington, D.C. 20540-4305
Voice: (202) 707-5831
Email: rhia(a)loc.gov
Fax: (202) 707-6629
>> "Lesage, Rhea"
<karabel(a)fas.harvard.edu> 3/23/2010 3:50 PM >>>
Bob:
In order for Harvard to send a response to the proposed tables we would
like to have answers to the questions below.
Thank you,
Rhea
-----Original Message-----
From: Lesage, Rhea
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 4:49 PM
To: 'Robert Miller Hiatt'
Cc: 'Barbara B Tillett'; Lesage, Rhea
Subject: RE: FW: Greek transliteration
Bob:
Thank you for your email and sending the LC statement to the various
lists. The deadline is tight but I am certain you will hear from the
constituency.
According to the statement: “The only change to the previous table
(other than the separation of ancient and medieval Greek from modern
Greek) was the full adoption of monotonic Greek as promulgated in 1982,
thus eliminating the former practice of romanizing a rough breathing
sign whether present or not in the script. Elimination of this practice
meant there would be an impact on headings. The division envisioned that
headings would be revised as necessary on the first occurrence of
cataloging a resource in monotonic Greek. As is the policy (AACR2, 24.2C
and LCRI 24.2C), headings romanized from languages having undergone
orthographic reform are revised to reflect the new orthography with
reference from the form in the old orthography.”
The revised table "Notes" on the LC website seem to contradict this
statement: "If it is not evident whether the text to be romanized is in
polytonic or monotonic orthography, examine the rest of the item. If
that provides no information, consider an item issued before 1982 to be
in polytonic, and an item issued in 1982 or later to be in monotonic."
--The way I understand this is that we should add the h if the item is
written in polytonic Greek. Is this correct?
With this in mind, the statement that we can revise headings as
necessary on the first occurrence of cataloging in monotonic is
confusing. What do you mean by this? It would be helpful for us to have
concrete examples to understand what kind of work this will take going
forward if the new table were to be adopted.
Sincerely,
Rhea
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Miller Hiatt [mailto:rhia@loc.gov]
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 9:47 AM
To: Lesage, Rhea
Subject: Re: FW: Greek transliteration
Rhea:
This message has caused quite a stir here and has resulted in a
statement from the Library which is being posted on several lists,
including CoHSL. I'm attaching the statement in a Word file.
Bob Hiatt
Policy and Standards Division
Robert M. Hiatt
Senior Cataloging Policy Specialist
Policy and Standards Division
Library of Congress
Washington, D.C. 20540-4305
Voice: (202) 707-5831
Email: rhia(a)loc.gov
Fax: (202) 707-6629
>> "Lesage, Rhea"
<karabel(a)fas.harvard.edu> 3/4/2010 3:29 PM >>>
Dear Bob:
Robert Randell (Columbia), representing the PCC Task Force on Non-Latin
Script Cataloging Documentation, recently contacted the Consortium for
Hellenic Studies Librarians (CoHSL) listserv asking for input about the
use of diacritics in the vernacular. He followed up with a draft for the
documentation they will use, with examples. He referred to the 2009
revision of the modern Greek tables, and his examples eliminated the
initial “h” for the rough breathing.
We (the membership of the CoHSL) were caught completely by surprise.
(Even LC employees who handle Greek were unaware of a change.) Randell
explained that he was told that the change was proposed in the 2009
summer issue of the Cataloging Services Bulletin with a call for
comments by December 1, 2009. Unfortunately, this announcement did not
reach those of us who deal with modern Greek. The new table separates
the polytonic and monotonic orthography and advises catalogers to add
the “h” for rough breathing in the polytonic and drop it in the
monotonic, but to include it if it was published prior to 1982. This is
confusing even to the most fluent of Greek speakers. If I understand
the new table correctly, this means that the files will be permanently
split. So even if there were funding (and realistically, there is not)
for a retrospective conversion project, it would be of no value. With
the new tables, public services staff will have to educate the users to,
at minimum, double search in order to be sure they are covering all the
possibilities. For example, a patron is looking for a book by the
(H)etaireia (H)ellēnikou Logotechnikou kai (H)istorikou Archeiou,
entitled (H)istoria tes (H)ellados. He or she would need to search the
author and title minimally twice, but actually would need to search
additional combinations with and without the H’s depending on whether
the “Hetaireia” was established before or after 1982, and then,
whether the book was written using the polytonic or monotonic
orthography.
This change will have an impact on our acquisitions, cataloging and
database management staff at a time when they are already stretched:
double and triple searching, training, understanding and then
explaining the differences between the monotonic and polytonic
orthography, and finally, if this is the plan-changing several thousand
authority records and their bibliographic counterparts. With regard to
authority work, has LC run reports for the number of corporate bodies
that have the words Hetaireia and/or Hellēnike? What is LC’s plan for
the authority file? What kind of guidance will you provide for the
library community as they try to cope with this change?
Changing the rough breathing mark rule constitutes a major change to
cataloging modern Greek. Since we have not received an official
announcement from LC regarding the date that the change will take
effect, does this mean the matter still open? I am forwarding below the
message that I sent in December 2008 when I was contacted about possible
changes to the tables. As I mention below, our goal should be to
simplify rather than complicate. In 2004 and again in 2008, I offered
both you and Barbara Tillett my assistance in taking a leadership role
in working with the rest of the community to effect changes to the
tables. Once again, I would like to proffer you my help in making
changes that would make sense, be cost effective, and most importantly,
help the users of our systems. The change as it stands now, and how
most of us are reading it, is disruptive, confusing and will be
expensive to implement--with absolutely no added value to our users. I
look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
Rhea
Rhea K. Lesage
Head and Bibliographer for Modern Greek
Modern Greek Section
Collection Development
Widener Library Room G60
Harvard College Library
Cambridge, MA 02138
USA
(office) 617.495.3632
(facsimile) 617.496.8704
From: Rhea Karabelas Lesage [mailto:karabel@fas.harvard.edu]
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 6:04 PM
To: Robert Miller Hiatt
Cc: Rhea Karabelas Lesage
Subject: Greek transliteration
Hi, Bob:
Thank you for getting in touch about changes to the Greek tables, and
for returning my call to discuss this over the phone. I wanted to give
you my feedback and suggestions as a follow-up.
First of all, we agree that respecting the "h" for the rough breathing
mark that is no longer there, no longer seems to make sense and
continues to be an out-dated practice. This system, however archaic as
it may seem, is something we all seem to manage--there is a finite group
of words that require the rough breathing. If it would help we could
compile a list as an addendum to the existing tables. It should also be
noted that there are still many modern Greek authors who intentionally
write using polytonic Greek (which includes the rough breathing).
Whatever decision is made we need to allow for this practice and
prescribe how catalogers should handle it.
My feedback on proposed tables:
* I think teasing out the Ancient and Medieval tables is
appropriate, as well as giving Coptic its own table.
* The proposed table for Modern Greek (after 1453) appears to be
taken from the ISO 843 1997 TR (transcription) and not from the ISO 843
TL (transliteration) table with a couple of exceptions: the I with a
macron over it to represent eta and the O with the macron over it to
represent omega. While the transcription table does an excellent job
representing Greek as it sounds, it would require that the cataloger not
just have a basic knowledge of modern Greek, but rather would require a
high level of proficiency in the language. Even I, a proficient Greek
speaker would need to constantly refer to the tables as I catalog. Of
all our peer institutions, my cataloger is the only native Greek
speaker. Our goal should be to simplify rather than to complicate. I
think we should be thinking more in terms of how to take the existing
tables, and work with the person whom I recommended at the University of
Crete, Yannis Kosmas, who is confident that he could write a program
that would respect the tables as they are now, and could do automated
conversion to the roman script from the Greek. Most ILSs are now able to
handle the various scripts and are actually cataloging in the
vernacular. We are accepting copy but not doing original for the mere
fact that the parallel fields will take more time that we cannot spare.
If we could import Greek records and then press a button to create
parallel transliterated fields this would be ideal.
* Absent this possibility, and only if there is *truly* a need to
change the table, I would suggest that we open the discussion up to the
cataloging and modern Greek studies communities, and determine whether
it makes sense to use the ISO 843 1997 TL table (not the TR). This will
provide a letter to letter correspondence, for ease of automated
reversal, but does not represent how the language sounds. I am not sure
how the community would react to this proposal, but my guess is that
they may support it if it complies to international standards. For the
comparison of the ISO 843 TR and TL tables, I refer you to to Thomas
T.
Pedersen's transliteration web site, and specifically to his Greek
tables where he compares various schemes:
http://transliteration.eki.ee/pdf/Greek.pdf
I hope this summarizes what we discussed and please let me know if you
have any questions or if we need further discussion.
Best wishes,
Rhea
Rhea K. Lesage
Head and Bibliographer for Modern Greek
Modern Greek Section
Collection Development Department
Widener Library
Harvard College Library
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617)495-3632
FAX (617)496-8704