Dear Colleagues,
Bob Hiatt, Senior Cataloging Policy Specialist from the Cataloging Policy and Support
Office(CPSO)of the Library of Congress, at Barbara Tillett's (Chief, CPSO) request,
has been in touch with me about revisiting the transliteration issue, specifically, the
rough breathing mark. I told him that I would bring the discussion to the list, since it
does continue to be a problem. Modern Greek has been a monotonic language since the
government decree in 1982. We are now well past its 25 year anniversary and as time passes
there are new generations of native-speaking Greeks who have no idea whether a word had a
daseia in the days of polytonic Greek. I can certainly understand LC's desire to
eliminate this anachronistic rule.
Please note that the above query comes from LC. Below I am proposing that we think about
the whole issue of transliteration as a group, especially if there is going to be a change
on the rough breathing mark issue. Such a change will require retrospective conversion
projects so perhaps we should take the time now to look at the bigger picture.
Transliteration of modern Greek in library catalogs is a problem since the ALA/LC table
does not match the rest of the international community. As libraries are looking at new
discovery platforms in order to facilitate users' access to the catalog while giving
them "Google-like" searching, it might be appropriate for us to consider using
internationally accepted standards. Now that many of us have begun cataloging in the
vernacular using parallel fields, I've seen some records in OCLC in which the
transliterations are so far off that I can't recognize what scheme they have used.
Some contributors appear to have already eliminated the "h" for the rough
breathing. As more international libraries are loading records into OCLC I expect that
this problem will continue to grow.
I would like to propose that we come together as a group and decide how we want modern
Greek to be transliterated going forward. Since the rough breathing mark issue needs to be
dealt with,
1.Should we then consider a proposal to radically change the table to the International
Standards Organization (ISO843,1997 version) which has a letter for letter
transliteration? (With *no* exceptions, as the previous LC change proposed) This
would enable us to download bibliographic information from publishers and libraries in
Greece thus helping us in the speedy cataloging of these materials.
2.To our Greek colleagues, what scheme would you like to see libraries outside of Greece
adhering to? Would this be helpful to you and your work?
3.What will this mean in terms retrospective conversion projects?
4.Finally, think about the pros and cons of:
a. elimination of the rough breathing mark rule
b. full adoption of the ISO843 scheme
and PLEASE communicate them to this list!
For a review of various transliteration schemes, I refer you to Thomas T. Pedersen's
very helpful table and web site:
http://transliteration.eki.ee/pdf/Greek.pdf
http://transliteration.eki.ee/
I would like to encourage discussion on this list first before posting this to any other
list. Please do forward this message to people that you think will add to this discussion
and encourage them to join our list serv:
http://lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/cohsl-list
Many thanks!
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