[Heb-NACO] Romanization of non-Hebrew proper nouns

[Aaron Kuperman]

A similar question to the issue for Breslev/Braslav is raised whenever we
encounter a proper noun that is written in Hebrew without nekudot. I
recall a recent argument over the Italian/English forename "Mario" which
based on the internet is uniformly romanized, and I believe pronounced, by
users of that forename the same way it is written in Italian and English
-- yet according to current policy is romanized in catalog records as if
it was a Hebrew word, leading to a romanization that it unrecognizable.


Perhaps there should be a rule that non-Hebrew proper nouns should be
romanized based on how users routinely romanize them, rather than trying
to base a rule that applies Hebrew grammatical principles to non-Hebrew
words.

And yes, I am primarily a subject cataloger who believes access points
should reflect user needs rather than cataloger convenience (though in
some ways RDA is moving more in that direction, at least in theory, at
least according to Barbara Tillet).

Aaron Wolfe Kuperman
Library of Congress, ABA USPL, Law Cataloging Section



This is DEFINITELY NOT an official communication from the Library of
Congress.