Well yes, the practice of "title case" is English-centric, it is definitely not the practice in French or Italian, (nor any of the Romance languages, I think). Imposing title case on those languages would definitely seem odd to speakers of those languages, and would be an annoying, albeit minor, barrier to the reuse of records for copy cataloguing.
Pat Pat Riva Coordonnatrice section des monographies Direction du traitement documentaire de la collection patrimoniale Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec 2275, rue Holt Montréal (Québec) H2G 3H1 Téléphone : 514 873-1101 poste 3624 Télécopieur : 514 873-7296 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.banq.qc.ca -----Message d'origine----- De : Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] De la part de Greta de Groat Envoyé : 23 janvier 2008 15:53 À : RDA-L@INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA Objet : Re: [RDA-L] Sentence case vs. Title case [was: [RDA-L] Measuring quality of cataloguing] I guess title case would actually be "The Road to Perdition" (smile) but your point is well taken. Though libraries seem to be in the minority for English language, what are citation practices in other countries? I've been working a lot lately with opera record labels, and i notice that titles in Italian and French seem to actually follow English sentence case (and of course German is just the opposite!). As usual, one size doesn't fit all! I'm wondering, how much do we really need to care about this? Even current rules are difficult to apply if you are not well versed in the language in question (a large percentage of the questions my assistant asks are about capitalization, so it seems something we spend an inordinate amount of time on for little benefit that i see) Greta de Groat Stanford University Libraries Quoting Martha Yee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > Our current methods of title transcription (capitalize only the first > word, and any proper name) convey more information than standard > citation capitalization does, since in a transcribed title you can > tell which words are proper names and which are not. It is not > uncommon for this practice to render the meaning of a film title or > television title less ambiguous. For example, 'The road to Perdition' > indicates that Perdition is the name of an actual town, while 'The road to > perdition' would not convey that meaning... > > Martha > > %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% > > Martha M. Yee > Cataloging Supervisor > UCLA Film & Television Archive > 1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd. > Los Angeles, CA 90038-2616 > 323-462-4921 x27 > 323-469-9055 (fax) > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Email at work) > > Campus mail: > 302 E. Melnitz > 132306 > > http://myee.bol.ucla.edu (Web page) > > > %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% > > > "You have a dollar. I have a dollar. We swap. Now you have my dollar > and I have your dollar. We are not better off. You have an idea. I have an > idea. > We swap. Now you have two ideas and I have two ideas. Both are richer. > When you gave, you have. What I got, you did not lose. That's > cooperation"-Jimmy Durante quoted in Schnozzola, by Gene Fowler, 1951, p. > 207-208. > >
