The "double punctuation" in the latest revision of the ISBD was introduced to accommodate systems in certain other countries where ISBD punctuation has always been supplied by the system, not typed manually by catalogers. The argument was that it was too complicated to program systems to not add a period after "ed.", for example, but to add one in other cases. It was not argued that it somehow looked better or made more sense to the user. To my mind, this was privileging machine convenience before human readability, but I lost that argument.
That being said, I see no reason that those of us who use MARC 21 systems where we still have to manually input the punctuation should type in double punctuation. If an area ends in an abbreviation and we do not double the punctuation, there will be no harm done. In a system that does not add punctuation or only adds a dash between areas, the abbreviation will look fine with only one period. On the other hand, if the record is imported into a system that does supply punctuation and we have input two periods, they will end up with 3 periods. John Hostage, editor of the consolidated edition of the ISBD ------------------------------------------ John Hostage Authorities and Database Integrity Librarian Harvard Library--Information and Technical Services Langdell Hall 194 Cambridge, MA 02138 host...@law.harvard.edu +(1)(617) 495-3974 (voice) +(1)(617) 496-4409 (fax) > -----Original Message----- > From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access > [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of Fox, Chris > Sent: Monday, March 04, 2013 10:55 > To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA > Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Use of ISBD punctuation with RDA. And a workshop. > > Thank you, Mark, for sharing this document with us. For those of us > who don't have the ability (for a variety of reasons) to delve into the > minutiae of RDA, helps like the one you shared here are a huge > blessing. I've printed a copy to keep with my RDA materials, and I > know I will refer to it often. I had forgotten the whole "double > punctuation" thing, and hadn't been doing that up to now. It still > looks weird to me. If our patrons even notice, I imagine it will look > even weirder to them. > > Thanks again. > > Chris > > Chris Fox > Catalog Librarian > McKay Library > Brigham Young Univ.-Idaho > c...@byui.edu > > -----Original Message----- > From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access > [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of M. E. > Sent: Friday, March 01, 2013 4:48 PM > To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA > Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Use of ISBD punctuation with RDA. And a workshop. > > Ian Fairclough <ifairclough43...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > Will they need to know about periods at the end of fields, and ISBD > > punctuation? I doubt it. > > I agree. However, I still mention this to folks since I can't judge > who does or who doesn't care about this sort of thing. On the double > punctuation point in particular, I add that I don't lose any sleep if > there's a missing period. > > Below is a link to the cheat-sheet I created summarizing what end-of- > field punctuation looks like in RDA records, limited to the 245 through > 5xx fields. It's based on LC/PCC/MARC practice and colored by the > current edition of the ISBD. > > <http://goo.gl/p0pWp> > > -- > Mark K. Ehlert > Minitex > <http://www.minitex.umn.edu/>
