RDA-L readers, The language of the cataloging agency is English. Some agencies might have more than one language of cataloging, but I don't know if that's permissible or advisable within an individual record. In a private response, someone said to put the summary in quotation marks. But I don't know if it is a quotation or not. The summary was already in the record when I first accessed it. Yes, if you can read the summary then you can read the book, and vice versa. That doesn't help the selector (whether librarian or patron) who doesn't read the language of the summary or book but must nevertheless decide, from the record, whether the book is of interest.
I did not delete the summary field from the OCLC master. Nor did I replace it with what Google Translate came up with. My own translation would be an improvement on that, but I shouldn't boast so much, and didn't do it. And it doesn't bother me :-) though it will likely bother someone. - Ian Ian Fairclough - George Mason University - ifairclough43...@yahoo.com
