Fwd: Romanization in bibliographic records: draft report

[Allen W Thrasher]

This may be of interest to list members.  I'm sorry, I should have thought to forward it earlier.  The deadline for comments was yesterday, Dec. 8, but I suspect that it won't really be all that strict.  

I think omitting romanization makes non-Roman materials more exotic and therefore likely to be left out of account when people are doing research.  I also think it makes the records and the books easier to deal with both for the librarian and for the researcher.  Not just author and title, but place, publisher, and series should be romanized, to make it easier to order a copy from the publisher if one can't get one from the library system.

Allen

Allen W. Thrasher, Ph.D.
Senior Reference Librarian
Team Coordinator
South Asia Team, Asian Division
Library of Congress, Jefferson Building 150
101 Independence Ave., S.E.
Washington, DC 20540-4810
tel. 202-707-3732; fax 202-707-1724; athr at loc.gov
The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Library of Congress.

>>> "Patton,Glenn" <pattong at OCLC.ORG> 11/25/2009 9:58:25 AM >>>

Forwarded on behalf of the ALCTS Non-English Access Working Group on
Romanization, with apologies for multiple postings ...

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Rendall [mailto:rr2205 at columbia.edu] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2009 5:24 PM
To: nonenglishaccess at ala.org
Subject: [nonenglishaccess] Romanization in bibliographic records: draft
report

Colleagues,

Please forgive duplication and forward this announcement as appropriate.

The ALCTS Non-English Access Working Group on Romanization invites 
comment on its draft report, posted at:

http://connect.ala.org/node/88651

The Working Group was established by the ALCTS Non-English Access 
Steering Committee to examine the current use of romanized data in 
bibliographic and authority records and to recommend whether 
romanization is still needed in bibliographic records.  This draft 
report was developed by the Working Group in collaboration with the 
members of its open discussion forum on ALA Connect.

The Working Group will submit its final report to the Steering Committee

on Dec. 15, 2009.  Comments are requested by Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2009 and 
may be sent to rr2205 at columbia.edu.

Thank you,

Robert Rendall
Chair, ALCTS Non-English Access Working Group on Romanization

-- 
Robert Rendall
Principal Serials Cataloger
Original and Special Materials Cataloging, Columbia University Libraries
102 Butler Library, 535 West 114th Street, New York, NY 10027
tel.: 212 851 2449  fax: 212 854 5167