---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Laval Hunsucker <amoinsde(a)yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 2:53 PM
Possibly some of you will be interested in this recent
news, here in the wording of the announcement on
the website of the Thomas J. Watson Library of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art :
"Bibliography of the History of Art Discontinued
Please note that the Bibliography of the History of Art
(BHA) is being withdrawn from distribution, and will
no longer be available after March 31st, 2010. The
Getty Research Institute is no longer able to support
the database and no new owner could be found."
ProQuest's description of this database, by the way :
"Published by the Getty Research Institute of the J. Paul
Getty Trust and the French Institut de l’Information
Scientifique et Technique du Centre National de la
Recherche Scientifique (INIST-CNRS), the Bibliography
of the History of Art (BHA) is the most comprehensive
art bibliography available worldwide, covering European
and American visual arts from late antiquity to the present."
Sic transit . . . .
- Laval Hunsucker
Breukelen, Nederland
Dear all,
Ms. Iatrou has asked me to post this message on her behalf.
Best,
Rhea
From: Michelle Iatrou [mailto:liatrou@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 12:28 AM
To: Lesage, Rhea
Subject: For the cohst-list
Dear Rhea,
I think it will be appropriate to celebrate the 25th of March 1821, if you can post the following enquiry:
What do we know about the philhellene Daniel Zuinn? He did a translation (most probably a partial translation not the whole poem), of the Hymn to Liberty by Dionysios Solomos, his translation can be found in the book "To kleidi tou Hellenos en Amerike". Can we post his translation? Its existence it is known in the Greek bibliography but we do not know the test.
Today 23rd of March, at the Hellenic American Union the presentation of a disc of all the works by Sophocles will be given. I hope you can open the attachment.
I am wishing you and all the members of the cohst-list a happy Easter
Michaela Iatrou
Kalamos Books has just changed the operation and layout of the web site at
www.kalamosbooks.com (using a new hosting service)
Please feel free to send your comments on its appearance functionality and
content.
One improvement is the access to specific topics though the many "category"
headings.
Your feedback will be much appreciated as I will try to make it as easy as
possible to
browse, search and use (and to buy !) books.
Thank You / Evcharisto
June S
=============================
June Samaras
KALAMOS BOOKS
(For Books about Greece)
2020 Old Station Rd
Streetsville,Ontario
Canada L5M 2V1
Tel : 905-542-1877
E-mail : kalamosbooks(a)gmail.com
www.kalamosbooks.comwww.kalamosbooks.com <goog_1269041748241>
http://kalamosb.alibrisstore.com/<%20http://kalamosb.alibrisstore.com/>
http://www.antiqbook.com/books/bookseller.phtml/kal
I am an idiot. I sent this message by mistake to the MGSA list. I am
completely embarrassed.
But here is the message for those not on that list.
Karen
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Karen Green <klg19(a)columbia.edu>
Date: Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 9:58 AM
Subject: CU responses to LC transliteration changes
To: mgsa-l(a)uci.edu
The letter I sent to my faculty and the responses thus far:
>From Karen Green to Hellenic Studies Faculty:
Dear MGSers,
I wanted to share with you a letter my Harvard colleague, Rhea
Karabelas-Lesage, recently wrote to Robert Hiatt at the Library of
Congress. It had come to her attention, quite by accident, that LC was
making changes in the transliteration tables for Modern Greek without
bothering to consult any librarians in the field. These changes resembled
ones proposed back in 2004, which our little band of librarians had managed
to nip in the bud.
Since we already run into problems with librarians and scholars
transliterating Greek quite differently, I thought you would be interested
in the possibility of it becoming even more challenging to search CLIO or
other catalogs using Greek transliteration. I also thought that scholars'
reactions, if unfavorable, might carry more weight than library colleagues'
views.
Here is Rhea's letter:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Bob:
Robert Rendell (Columbia), representing the PCC Task Force on Non-Latin
Script Cataloging Documentation, recently contacted the Consortium for
Hellenic Studies Librarians (CoHSL) listserv asking for input about the use
of diacritics in the vernacular. He followed up with a draft for the
documentation they will use, with examples. He referred to the 2009 revision
of the modern Greek tables, and his examples eliminated the initial "h" for
the rough breathing.
We (the membership of the CoHSL) were caught completely by surprise. (Even
LC employees who handle Greek were unaware of a change.) Rendell explained
that he was told that the change was proposed in the 2009 summer issue of
the Cataloging Services Bulletin with a call for comments by December 1,
2009. Unfortunately, this announcement did not reach those of us who deal
with modern Greek. The new table separates the polytonic and monotonic
orthography and advises catalogers to add the "h" for rough breathing in the
polytonic and drop it in the monotonic, but to include it if it was
published prior to 1982. This is confusing even to the most fluent of Greek
speakers. If I understand the new table correctly, this means that the
files will be permanently split. So even if there were funding (and
realistically, there is not) for a retrospective conversion project, it
would be of no value. With the new tables, public services staff will have
to educate the users to, at minimum, double search in order to be sure they
are covering all the possibilities. For example, a patron is looking for a
book by the (H)etaireia (H)ellenikou Logotechnikou kai (H)istorikou
Archeiou, entitled (H)istoria tes (H)ellados. He or she would need to search
the author and title minimally twice, but actually would need to search
additional combinations with and without the H's depending on whether the
"Hetaireia" was established before or after 1982, and then, whether the book
was written using the polytonic or monotonic orthography.
This change will have an impact on our acquisitions, cataloging and database
management staff at a time when they are already stretched: double and
triple searching, training, understanding and then explaining the
differences between the monotonic and polytonic orthography, and finally, if
this is the plan--changing several thousand authority records and their
bibliographic counterparts. With regard to authority work, has LC run
reports for the number of corporate bodies that have the words Hetaireia
and/or Hellenike? What is LC's plan for the authority file? What kind of
guidance will you provide for the library community as they try to cope with
this change?
Changing the rough breathing mark rule constitutes a major change to
cataloging modern Greek. Since we have not received an official
announcement from LC regarding the date that the change will take effect,
does this mean the matter still open? I am forwarding below the message that
I sent in December 2008 when I was contacted about possible changes to the
tables. As I mention below, our goal should be to simplify rather than
complicate. In 2004 and again in 2008, I offered both you and Barbara
Tillett my assistance in taking a leadership role in working with the rest
of the community to effect changes to the tables. Once again, I would like
to proffer you my help in making changes that would make sense, be cost
effective, and most importantly, help the users of our systems. The change
as it stands now, and how most of us are reading it, is disruptive,
confusing and will be expensive to implement--with absolutely no added value
to our users. I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
Rhea
Rhea K. Lesage
Head and Bibliographer for Modern Greek
Modern Greek Section
Collection Development
Widener Library Room G60
Harvard College Library
Cambridge, MA 02138
USA
(office) 617.495.3632
(facsimile) 617.496.8704
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hiatt's response was to open up the discussion for feedback until March 31
2010. If you have any thoughts you'd like to offer, or quotes you'd like to
have included in our response, I hope you won't hesitate to let me know.
Best,
Karen
>From Neni Panourgia:
Dear Karen,
This is a battle that I, personally, have been fighting with scholars in
Modern Greek Studies since the early '80s. In my own publications
I keep all diacritical marks.
The issue is deeply political. There are scholars who maintain that keeping
the marks is an implicit acceptance of the diachronic existence of
Greek language. There are others (I among them) who want their readers to be
able to decipher what the original word that they are using is
in Greek. Therefore, as Rhea correctly writes, Hetaireia can never be
correctly deciphered if it is spelled as Eteria. I would be willing to
contribute
to this in any way that you would want me to. Karen and Vangelis might have
a different position on this.
All best and thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Neni
>From Karen Van Dyck:
Dear Karen,
I too agree about keeping Greek transliteration as consistent as possible.
Thanks so much for sharing Rhea's letter with us. Whether or not we use the
old LC transliteration system or the monotonic MGSA one in our own
publications is another matter where different subjects may demand different
decisions, but when it comes to cataloguing I can't imagine switching from
one system to another post 1982 is going to help anyone find Greek books. I
am including Mark [Mazower] and Christina [Philliou] in this discussion
since they too may have some input.
Thanks,
Karen
>From Evangelos Calotychos:
We are all in agreement. belatedly, Vangelis
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Karen Green
Ancient & Medieval History and Religion Librarian
Graphic Novels Librarian
Columbia University
New York NY 10027
212-854-3031
klg19(a)columbia.edu
--
Karen Green
Ancient & Medieval History and Religion Librarian
Graphic Novels Librarian
Columbia University
New York NY 10027
212-854-3031
klg19(a)columbia.edu
Fending Off Digital Decay, Bit by Bit
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/books/16archive.html
By PATRICIA COHEN
Published: March 15, 2010
Among the archival material from Salman Rushdie currently on display
at Emory University in Atlanta are inked book covers, handwritten
journals and four Apple computers (one ruined by a spilled Coke). The
18 gigabytes of data they contain seemed to promise future biographers
and literary scholars a digital wonderland: comprehensive, organized
and searchable files, quickly accessible with a few clicks.
But like most Rushdian paradises, this digital idyll has its own set
of problems. As research libraries and archives are discovering,
“born-digital” materials — those initially created in electronic form
— are much more complicated and costly to preserve than anticipated.
Electronically produced drafts, correspondence and editorial comments,
sweated over by contemporary poets, novelists and nonfiction authors,
are ultimately just a series of digits — 0’s and 1’s — written on
floppy disks, CDs and hard drives, all of which degrade much faster
than old-fashioned acid-free paper. Even if those storage media do
survive, the relentless march of technology can mean that the older
equipment and software that can make sense of all those 0’s and 1’s
simply don’t exist anymore.
Imagine having a record but no record player.
All of which means that archivists are finding themselves trying to
fend off digital extinction at the same time that they are puzzling
through questions about what to save, how to save it and how to make
that material accessible.
“It’s certainly one of those issues that keeps a lot of people awake
at night,” said Anne Van Camp, the director of the Smithsonian
Institution Archives and a member of a task force on the economics of
digital preservation formed by the National Science Foundation, among
others.
Though computers have been commonly used for more than two decades,
archives from writers who used them are just beginning to make their
way into collections. Last week, for instance, the Harry Ransom Center
at the University of Texas, Austin, announced that it had bought the
archive of David Foster Wallace, who committed suicide in 2008. Emory
opened an exhibition of its Rushdie collection in February, and last
year, not long before his death, John Updike sent 50 5 ¼-inch floppy
disks to the Houghton Library at Harvard.
Leslie Morris, a curator at the Houghton Library, said, “We don’t
really have any methodology as of yet” to process born-digital
material. “We just store the disks in our climate-controlled stacks,
and we’re hoping for some kind of universal Harvard guidelines,” she
added.
Among the challenges facing libraries: hiring computer-savvy
archivists to catalog material; acquiring the equipment and expertise
to decipher, transfer and gain access to data stored on obsolete
technologies like floppy disks; guarding against accidental
alterations or deletions of digital files; and figuring out how to
organize access in a way that’s useful.
At Emory, Mr. Rushdie’s outdated computers presented archivists with a
choice: simply save the contents of files or try to also salvage the
look and organization of those early files. Because of Emory’s
particular interest in the impact of technology on the creative
process, Naomi Nelson, the university’s interim director of
Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, said that the archivists
decided to try to recreate Mr. Rushdie’s writing experience and the
original computer environment.
Mr. Rushdie started using a computer only when the Ayatollah
Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa drove him underground. “My writing has got
tighter and more concise because I no longer have to perform the
mechanical act of re-typing endlessly,” he explained during an
interview while in hiding. “And all the time that was taken up by that
mechanical act is freed to think.”
He added: “I had this kind of fetish about presenting clean copy. I
don’t like presenting my publisher with pages with lots of
crossings-out and scribbling. So I would be manic at the end of typing
a page where actually I didn’t want to change anything, not at all.”
Some of the early files chronicle Mr. Rushdie’s self-conscious
analysis of how computers affected his work. In an imaginary dialogue
with himself that he composed in 1992 when he was writing “The Moor’s
Last Sigh,” he wrote about choosing formatting, fonts and spacing: “I
am doing this so that I can see how a whole page looks when it’s typed
at this size and spacing.
“Oh, my God, suppose it looks terrible?”
“Oh, my God, yeah. And doesn’t this look wrong?”
“Where’s the paragraph indent thing?”
“I don’t know. I will look.”
“How about this? Is this good for you?”
“A lot better. How about fixing the part above?”
At the Emory exhibition, visitors can log onto a computer and see the
screen that Mr. Rushdie saw, search his file folders as he did, and
find out what applications he used. (Mac Stickies were a favorite.)
They can call up an early draft of Mr. Rushdie’s 1999 novel, “The
Ground Beneath Her Feet,” and edit a sentence or post an editorial
comment.
“I know of no other place in the world that is providing access
through emulation to a born-digital archive,” said Erika Farr, the
director of born-digital initiatives at the Robert W. Woodruff Library
at Emory. (The original draft is preserved.)
To the Emory team, simulating the author’s electronic universe is
equivalent to making a reproduction of the desk, chair, fountain pen
and paper that, say, Charles Dickens used, and then allowing visitors
to sit and scribble notes on a copy of an early version of “Bleak
House.”
“If you’re interested in primary materials, you’re interested in the
context as well as the content, the authentic artifact,” Ms. Farr
said. “Fifty years from now, people may be researching how the impact
of word processing affected literary output,” she added, which would
require seeing the original computer images.
It may even be possible in the future to examine literary influences
by matching which Web sites a writer visited on a particular day with
the manuscript he or she was working on at the time.
Michael Olson, the digital collections project manager at Stanford
University, said that the only people who really had experience with
excavating digital information were in law enforcement. “There aren’t
a lot of archives out there capturing born-digital material,” he said,
referring to the process of extracting all data accurately from a
device.
Located in Silicon Valley, Stanford has received a lot of born-digital
collections, which has pushed it to become a pioneer in the field.
This past summer the library opened a digital forensics laboratory —
the first in the nation.
The heart of the lab is the Forensic Recovery of Evidence Device,
nicknamed FRED, which enables archivists to dig out data, bit by bit,
from current and antiquated floppies, CDs, DVDs, hard drives, computer
tapes and flash memories, while protecting the files from corruption.
(Emory is giving the Woodruff library $500,000 to create a computer
forensics lab like the one at Stanford, Ms. Farr said.)
With the new archive from David Foster Wallace, the Ransom Center now
has 40 collections with born-digital material, including Norman
Mailer’s. Gabriela Redwine, an archivist at Ransom, is impressed by
Emory’s digital emulation, but said the center was not pursuing that
kind of reproduction at the moment.
“Our focus is preservation and storage now,” she said. “Over the last
couple of years, we’ve been learning about computer forensics.”
The center is trying to raise endowment money to hire a digital
collections coordinator while Ms. Redwine works on preservation and
processing. In the meantime, most of the digital material is off
limits to researchers.
--
June Samaras
KALAMOS BOOKS
(For Books about Greece)
2020 Old Station Rd
Streetsville,Ontario
Canada L5M 2V1
Tel : 905-542-1877
E-mail : kalamosbooks(a)gmail.com
www.kalamosbooks.comhttp://kalamosb.alibrisstore.com/http://www.antiqbook.com/books/bookseller.phtml/kal
Subject: Reference Librarian for Special Collections
I am pleased to announce that after being vacant for over two years
and frozen for the last year, Princeton has renewed the search for
this position, which will report to me. I cannot say how important
and challenging this position is and what a great place Princeton is
to work with fabulous collections and great resources to support the
work of this person. You should feel free to contact me if you have
questions or want to suggest someone whom you believe would be
effective in this position: Minimum: $50,000.
http://library.princeton.edu/hr/positions/JobRefLibrnSpColl2008.html
Ben Primer
Associate University Librarian
for Rare Books and Special Collections
Princeton University Library
1 Washington Road
Princeton, NJ 08544-2098
Email: primer(a)princeton.edu
(609) 258-3242
(609) 258-2324 (fax)
--
June Samaras
KALAMOS BOOKS
(For Books about Greece)
2020 Old Station Rd
Streetsville,Ontario
Canada L5M 2V1
Tel : 905-542-1877
E-mail : kalamosbooks(a)gmail.com
www.kalamosbooks.comhttp://kalamosb.alibrisstore.com/http://www.antiqbook.com/books/bookseller.phtml/kal
Tony and Rhea, the attachment with Bob Hiatt's message did not come through
(I don't believe these lists can handle attachments). I'd be very
interested to read the Library's statement.
I think it's important that we involve faculty in this and not just restrict
our response to librarians. It increases the power of our voice
exponentially. I am sure that if I forwarded Rhea's beautifully-argued
message to Karen Van Dyck, Neni Panourgia, and Vangelis Calotychos here,
they would not only be aggressive in their own response but in marshalling
their colleagues. It is bad enough that catalogers and scholars have long
used different transcription models, which has often caused our faculty to
assume that we didn't own books that we in fact held. Adding this new
wrinkle might send them over the edge entirely.
Rhea, how do you feel about your LC message getting forwarded?
I'm sorry to be coming late to the party on this, by the way. I've been out
of the country since February 12th; I have followed the battle via email on
my BlackBerry but it was too difficult to respond that way.
Karen
On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 11:03 AM,
<cohsl-list-request(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu>wrote:
> Send CoHSL-list mailing list submissions to
> cohsl-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> http://lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/cohsl-list
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> cohsl-list-request(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> cohsl-list-owner(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of CoHSL-list digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. FW: FW: Greek transliteration (Oddo, Anthony)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 10:57:18 -0500
> From: "Oddo, Anthony" <anthony.oddo(a)yale.edu>
> Subject: [Cohsl-list] FW: FW: Greek transliteration
> To: "cohsl-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu"
> <cohsl-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu>
> Message-ID:
> <
> 0858210CEA871D4698679C52A2EAB1D62675EAED38(a)XVS2-CLUSTER.yu.yale.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1257"
>
>
> Hi,
> Rhea has asked me to forward this message to the list. I encourage
> you to read it and respond with suggestions to Rhea as soon as possible so
> as to get this issue from LC settled.
> Thanks,
> Tony
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lesage, Rhea [mailto:karabel@fas.harvard.edu]
> Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 10:31 AM
> To: Oddo, Anthony
> Subject: FW: FW: Greek transliteration
>
> Good morning Tony,
> Can you please forward this to the CoHSL list? It's not letting me send
> from home and I am home this morning. Many thanks!
> Rhea
> ________________________________________
> From: Lesage, Rhea
> Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 10:26 AM
> To: Lesage, Rhea
> Subject: FW: FW: Greek transliteration
>
> Dear Colleagues:
> Last Thursday I sent the message below to Robert Hiatt with a copy to
> Barbara Tillett. I just received this response. We have until March 31st to
> send our feedback. How shall we proceed?
> Rhea
> ________________________________________
> From: Robert Miller Hiatt [rhia(a)loc.gov]
> Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 9:47 AM
> To: Lesage, Rhea
> Subject: Re: FW: Greek transliteration
>
> Rhea:
>
> This message has caused quite a stir here and has resulted in a
> statement from the Library which is being posted on several lists, including
> CoHSL. I'm attaching the statement in a Word file.
>
> Bob Hiatt
> Policy and Standards Division
>
> Robert M. Hiatt
> Senior Cataloging Policy Specialist
> Policy and Standards Division
> Library of Congress
> Washington, D.C. 20540-4305
> Voice: (202) 707-5831
> Email: rhia(a)loc.gov
> Fax: (202) 707-6629
>
> >>> "Lesage, Rhea" <karabel(a)fas.harvard.edu> 3/4/2010 3:29 PM >>>
> Dear Bob:
> Robert Randell (Columbia), representing the PCC Task Force on Non-Latin
> Script Cataloging Documentation, recently contacted the Consortium for
> Hellenic Studies Librarians (CoHSL) listserv asking for input about the use
> of diacritics in the vernacular. He followed up with a draft for the
> documentation they will use, with examples. He referred to the 2009 revision
> of the modern Greek tables, and his examples eliminated the initial ?h? for
> the rough breathing.
>
> We (the membership of the CoHSL) were caught completely by surprise.
> (Even LC employees who handle Greek were unaware of a change.) Randell
> explained that he was told that the change was proposed in the 2009 summer
> issue of the Cataloging Services Bulletin with a call for comments by
> December 1, 2009. Unfortunately, this announcement did not reach those of us
> who deal with modern Greek. The new table separates the polytonic and
> monotonic orthography and advises catalogers to add the ?h? for rough
> breathing in the polytonic and drop it in the monotonic, but to include it
> if it was published prior to 1982. This is confusing even to the most fluent
> of Greek speakers. If I understand the new table correctly, this means that
> the files will be permanently split. So even if there were funding (and
> realistically, there is not) for a retrospective conversion project, it
> would be of no value. With the new tables, public services staff will have
> to educate the users to, at minimum, double search in order to be sure they
> are covering all the possibilitie
> s. For example, a patron is looking for a book by the (H)etaireia
> (H)ell?nikou Logotechnikou kai (H)istorikou Archeiou, entitled (H)istoria
> tes (H)ellados. He or she would need to search the author and title
> minimally twice, but actually would need to search additional combinations
> with and without the H?s depending on whether the ?Hetaireia? was
> established before or after 1982, and then, whether the book was written
> using the polytonic or monotonic orthography.
>
> This change will have an impact on our acquisitions, cataloging and
> database management staff at a time when they are already stretched:
> double and triple searching, training, understanding and then explaining
> the differences between the monotonic and polytonic orthography, and
> finally, if this is the plan-changing several thousand authority records and
> their bibliographic counterparts. With regard to authority work, has LC run
> reports for the number of corporate bodies that have the words Hetaireia
> and/or Hell?nike? What is LC?s plan for the authority file? What kind of
> guidance will you provide for the library community as they try to cope with
> this change?
>
> Changing the rough breathing mark rule constitutes a major change to
> cataloging modern Greek. Since we have not received an official
> announcement from LC regarding the date that the change will take effect,
> does this mean the matter still open? I am forwarding below the message that
> I sent in December 2008 when I was contacted about possible changes to the
> tables. As I mention below, our goal should be to simplify rather than
> complicate. In 2004 and again in 2008, I offered both you and Barbara
> Tillett my assistance in taking a leadership role in working with the rest
> of the community to effect changes to the tables. Once again, I would like
> to proffer you my help in making changes that would make sense, be cost
> effective, and most importantly, help the users of our systems. The change
> as it stands now, and how most of us are reading it, is disruptive,
> confusing and will be expensive to implement--with absolutely no added value
> to our users. I look forward to your reply.
>
> Sincerely,
> Rhea
>
> Rhea K. Lesage
> Head and Bibliographer for Modern Greek
> Modern Greek Section
> Collection Development
> Widener Library Room G60
> Harvard College Library
> Cambridge, MA 02138
> USA
> (office) 617.495.3632
> (facsimile) 617.496.8704
>
>
>
> From: Rhea Karabelas Lesage [mailto:karabel@fas.harvard.edu]
> Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 6:04 PM
> To: Robert Miller Hiatt
> Cc: Rhea Karabelas Lesage
> Subject: Greek transliteration
>
> Hi, Bob:
> Thank you for getting in touch about changes to the Greek tables, and for
> returning my call to discuss this over the phone. I wanted to give you my
> feedback and suggestions as a follow-up.
> First of all, we agree that respecting the "h" for the rough breathing mark
> that is no longer there, no longer seems to make sense and continues to be
> an out-dated practice. This system, however archaic as it may seem, is
> something we all seem to manage--there is a finite group of words that
> require the rough breathing. If it would help we could compile a list as an
> addendum to the existing tables. It should also be noted that there are
> still many modern Greek authors who intentionally write using polytonic
> Greek (which includes the rough breathing).
> Whatever decision is made we need to allow for this practice and prescribe
> how catalogers should handle it.
>
> My feedback on proposed tables:
>
> * I think teasing out the Ancient and Medieval tables is
> appropriate, as well as giving Coptic its own table.
> * The proposed table for Modern Greek (after 1453) appears to be
> taken from the ISO 843 1997 TR (transcription) and not from the ISO 843 TL
> (transliteration) table with a couple of exceptions: the I with a macron
> over it to represent eta and the O with the macron over it to represent
> omega. While the transcription table does an excellent job representing
> Greek as it sounds, it would require that the cataloger not just have a
> basic knowledge of modern Greek, but rather would require a high level of
> proficiency in the language. Even I, a proficient Greek speaker would need
> to constantly refer to the tables as I catalog. Of all our peer
> institutions, my cataloger is the only native Greek speaker. Our goal should
> be to simplify rather than to complicate. I think we should be thinking more
> in terms of how to take the existing tables, and work with the person whom I
> recommended at the University of Crete, Yannis Kosmas, who is confident that
> he could write a program that would respect the tables as they are now, and
> could do automated conversion
> to the roman script from the Greek. Most ILSs are now able to handle the
> various scripts and are actually cataloging in the vernacular. We are
> accepting copy but not doing original for the mere fact that the parallel
> fields will take more time that we cannot spare.
> If we could import Greek records and then press a button to create parallel
> transliterated fields this would be ideal.
> * Absent this possibility, and only if there is *truly* a need to
> change the table, I would suggest that we open the discussion up to the
> cataloging and modern Greek studies communities, and determine whether it
> makes sense to use the ISO 843 1997 TL table (not the TR). This will provide
> a letter to letter correspondence, for ease of automated reversal, but does
> not represent how the language sounds. I am not sure how the community would
> react to this proposal, but my guess is that they may support it if it
> complies to international standards. For the comparison of the ISO 843 TR
> and TL tables, I refer you to to Thomas T.
> Pedersen's transliteration web site, and specifically to his Greek tables
> where he compares various schemes:
> http://transliteration.eki.ee/pdf/Greek.pdf
> I hope this summarizes what we discussed and please let me know if you have
> any questions or if we need further discussion.
> Best wishes,
> 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
>
Harry, your message arrived about 10 minutes after I sent mine--thanks!
Karen
On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 12:57 PM,
<cohsl-list-request(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu>wrote:
> Send CoHSL-list mailing list submissions to
> cohsl-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> http://lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/cohsl-list
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> cohsl-list-request(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> cohsl-list-owner(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of CoHSL-list digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: Greek transliteration and LC (Harold Mciver Leich)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 12:56:36 -0500
> From: "Harold Mciver Leich" <hlei(a)loc.gov>
> Subject: Re: [Cohsl-list] Greek transliteration and LC
> To: cohsl-list(a)lists.fas.harvard.edu
> Message-ID: <20100308T125636Z_A99100120000(a)loc.gov>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> I sent the message from LC out about half an hour ago in the body of an
> email (not an attachment) ? let me know if you did not get it. Again I
> would like to emphasize that they want comments etc. by March 31, which is
> not that far off.
>
> Harry
>
> >>> Karen Green <klg19(a)columbia.edu> 3/8/2010 12:50 PM >>>
>
> Tony and Rhea, the attachment with Bob Hiatt's message did not come through
> (I don't believe these lists can handle attachments). I'd be very
> interested to read the Library's statement.
>
Hi everybody. LC's Policy and Standards Division asked me to post this to the CoHSL list (it was sent as a Word attachment earlier today in a message from Tony Oddo). Please note the deadline of March 31, 2010, and the email address to which to send comments: policy(a)loc.gov
Best to all,
Harry
—---------------------
In light of the communications the Policy and Standards Division recently received, it is apparent the 2009 information concerning the revised tables was not widely seen, the division offers the following timeline. Several years ago the Policy and Standards Division (then called Cataloging Policy and Support Office) felt that it was time to revise the Greek romanization table to take into account fully the orthographic reforms that were promulgated in 1982. The office issued a draft revision in Cataloging Service Bulletin, no. 105 (Summer 2004). This draft did not meet with general approval and thus was abandoned. In Cataloging Service Bulletin, no. 124 (Summer 2009), two new draft revisions (Ancient and Medieval Greek and Modern Greek) were published with comments requested by Dec. 1 (p. 40). The drafts were also posted on the division’s Web site with a request for comments by the same date. Since the division received no comments, it was decided to post the tables as completed tables on the division’s Web site (http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html). During both draft revision periods, the division had contact with the head of Modern Greek at Harvard University Library. Although not enthusiastic about changes to the Greek table, she did understand the Library’s desire to reflect what appears on resources cataloged.
Romanization tables are normally approved by the American Library Association’s Committee on Cataloging: African and Asian Materials (CC:AAM). That committee has indicated it is not interested in tables dealing with other than languages of Africa and Asia. Since Greek is not an African or Asian language, the draft tables were not submitted to CC:AAM.
The only change to the previous table (other than the separation of ancient and medieval Greek from modern Greek) was the full adoption of monotonic Greek as promulgated in 1982, thus eliminating the former practice of romanizing a rough breathing sign whether present or not in the script. Elimination of this practice meant there would be an impact on headings. The division envisioned that headings would be revised as necessary on the first occurrence of cataloging a resource in monotonic Greek. As is the policy (AACR2, 24.2C and LCRI 24.2C), headings romanized from languages having undergone orthographic reform are revised to reflect the new orthography with reference from the form in the old orthography.
Because the 2009 draft tables were not widely seen, the Policy and Standards Division is willing to accept constructive comments on those tables through Wednesday, March 31, 2010 through the division’s email account: policy(a)loc.gov
Hi,
Rhea has asked me to forward this message to the list. I encourage you to read it and respond with suggestions to Rhea as soon as possible so as to get this issue from LC settled.
Thanks,
Tony
-----Original Message-----
From: Lesage, Rhea [mailto:karabel@fas.harvard.edu]
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 10:31 AM
To: Oddo, Anthony
Subject: FW: FW: Greek transliteration
Good morning Tony,
Can you please forward this to the CoHSL list? It's not letting me send from home and I am home this morning. Many thanks!
Rhea
________________________________________
From: Lesage, Rhea
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 10:26 AM
To: Lesage, Rhea
Subject: FW: FW: Greek transliteration
Dear Colleagues:
Last Thursday I sent the message below to Robert Hiatt with a copy to Barbara Tillett. I just received this response. We have until March 31st to send our feedback. How shall we proceed?
Rhea
________________________________________
From: Robert Miller Hiatt [rhia(a)loc.gov]
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 9:47 AM
To: Lesage, Rhea
Subject: Re: FW: Greek transliteration
Rhea:
This message has caused quite a stir here and has resulted in a statement from the Library which is being posted on several lists, including CoHSL. I'm attaching the statement in a Word file.
Bob Hiatt
Policy and Standards Division
Robert M. Hiatt
Senior Cataloging Policy Specialist
Policy and Standards Division
Library of Congress
Washington, D.C. 20540-4305
Voice: (202) 707-5831
Email: rhia(a)loc.gov
Fax: (202) 707-6629
>>> "Lesage, Rhea" <karabel(a)fas.harvard.edu> 3/4/2010 3:29 PM >>>
Dear Bob:
Robert Randell (Columbia), representing the PCC Task Force on Non-Latin Script Cataloging Documentation, recently contacted the Consortium for Hellenic Studies Librarians (CoHSL) listserv asking for input about the use of diacritics in the vernacular. He followed up with a draft for the documentation they will use, with examples. He referred to the 2009 revision of the modern Greek tables, and his examples eliminated the initial “h” for the rough breathing.
We (the membership of the CoHSL) were caught completely by surprise.
(Even LC employees who handle Greek were unaware of a change.) Randell explained that he was told that the change was proposed in the 2009 summer issue of the Cataloging Services Bulletin with a call for comments by December 1, 2009. Unfortunately, this announcement did not reach those of us who deal with modern Greek. The new table separates the polytonic and monotonic orthography and advises catalogers to add the “h” for rough breathing in the polytonic and drop it in the monotonic, but to include it if it was published prior to 1982. This is confusing even to the most fluent of Greek speakers. If I understand the new table correctly, this means that the files will be permanently split. So even if there were funding (and realistically, there is not) for a retrospective conversion project, it would be of no value. With the new tables, public services staff will have to educate the users to, at minimum, double search in order to be sure they are covering all the possibilities. For example, a patron is looking for a book by the (H)etaireia (H)ellēnikou Logotechnikou kai (H)istorikou Archeiou, entitled (H)istoria tes (H)ellados. He or she would need to search the author and title minimally twice, but actually would need to search additional combinations with and without the H’s depending on whether the “Hetaireia” was established before or after 1982, and then, whether the book was written using the polytonic or monotonic orthography.
This change will have an impact on our acquisitions, cataloging and database management staff at a time when they are already stretched:
double and triple searching, training, understanding and then explaining the differences between the monotonic and polytonic orthography, and finally, if this is the plan-changing several thousand authority records and their bibliographic counterparts. With regard to authority work, has LC run reports for the number of corporate bodies that have the words Hetaireia and/or Hellēnike? What is LC’s plan for the authority file? What kind of guidance will you provide for the library community as they try to cope with this change?
Changing the rough breathing mark rule constitutes a major change to cataloging modern Greek. Since we have not received an official announcement from LC regarding the date that the change will take effect, does this mean the matter still open? I am forwarding below the message that I sent in December 2008 when I was contacted about possible changes to the tables. As I mention below, our goal should be to simplify rather than complicate. In 2004 and again in 2008, I offered both you and Barbara Tillett my assistance in taking a leadership role in working with the rest of the community to effect changes to the tables. Once again, I would like to proffer you my help in making changes that would make sense, be cost effective, and most importantly, help the users of our systems. The change as it stands now, and how most of us are reading it, is disruptive, confusing and will be expensive to implement--with absolutely no added value to our users. I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
Rhea
Rhea K. Lesage
Head and Bibliographer for Modern Greek
Modern Greek Section
Collection Development
Widener Library Room G60
Harvard College Library
Cambridge, MA 02138
USA
(office) 617.495.3632
(facsimile) 617.496.8704
From: Rhea Karabelas Lesage [mailto:karabel@fas.harvard.edu]
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 6:04 PM
To: Robert Miller Hiatt
Cc: Rhea Karabelas Lesage
Subject: Greek transliteration
Hi, Bob:
Thank you for getting in touch about changes to the Greek tables, and for returning my call to discuss this over the phone. I wanted to give you my feedback and suggestions as a follow-up.
First of all, we agree that respecting the "h" for the rough breathing mark that is no longer there, no longer seems to make sense and continues to be an out-dated practice. This system, however archaic as it may seem, is something we all seem to manage--there is a finite group of words that require the rough breathing. If it would help we could compile a list as an addendum to the existing tables. It should also be noted that there are still many modern Greek authors who intentionally write using polytonic Greek (which includes the rough breathing).
Whatever decision is made we need to allow for this practice and prescribe how catalogers should handle it.
My feedback on proposed tables:
* I think teasing out the Ancient and Medieval tables is
appropriate, as well as giving Coptic its own table.
* The proposed table for Modern Greek (after 1453) appears to be
taken from the ISO 843 1997 TR (transcription) and not from the ISO 843 TL (transliteration) table with a couple of exceptions: the I with a macron over it to represent eta and the O with the macron over it to represent omega. While the transcription table does an excellent job representing Greek as it sounds, it would require that the cataloger not just have a basic knowledge of modern Greek, but rather would require a high level of proficiency in the language. Even I, a proficient Greek speaker would need to constantly refer to the tables as I catalog. Of all our peer institutions, my cataloger is the only native Greek speaker. Our goal should be to simplify rather than to complicate. I think we should be thinking more in terms of how to take the existing tables, and work with the person whom I recommended at the University of Crete, Yannis Kosmas, who is confident that he could write a program that would respect the tables as they are now, and could do automated conversion to the roman script from the Greek. Most ILSs are now able to handle the various scripts and are actually cataloging in the vernacular. We are accepting copy but not doing original for the mere fact that the parallel fields will take more time that we cannot spare.
If we could import Greek records and then press a button to create parallel transliterated fields this would be ideal.
* Absent this possibility, and only if there is *truly* a need to
change the table, I would suggest that we open the discussion up to the cataloging and modern Greek studies communities, and determine whether it makes sense to use the ISO 843 1997 TL table (not the TR). This will provide a letter to letter correspondence, for ease of automated reversal, but does not represent how the language sounds. I am not sure how the community would react to this proposal, but my guess is that they may support it if it complies to international standards. For the comparison of the ISO 843 TR and TL tables, I refer you to to Thomas T.
Pedersen's transliteration web site, and specifically to his Greek tables where he compares various schemes:
http://transliteration.eki.ee/pdf/Greek.pdf
I hope this summarizes what we discussed and please let me know if you have any questions or if we need further discussion.
Best wishes,
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
