[Heb-NACO] Romanization policy on class K books done at LC

[Kuperman, Aaron]

Last year at the AJL Cataloging Committee I was asked to look into LC's views on possible changes in Romanization.  My interest is motivated by some factors particular to working for the Law section, rather than the IJ section. In particular we have a policy that strongly encourages 505 fields, and that as the only cataloger working in Hebrew in my section I am desperate  for ways to copy Israeli descriptive cataloging (which makes wonderful contents notes, but only in Hebrew).

Beacher Wiggins encouraged me to explore ways to catalog more efficiently.  David Reser told me that the rules currently allow 5xx fields in the "vernacular" (Hebrew script in our case) without parallel Romanized fields. While the current LC OPAC will not display a Hebrew field unless there is a Romanized field linked to it, that only applies to the "Full record" (the "nice" view) and not to the MARC display, and the news LC OPAC displays unlinked 5xx fields without a problem. In all situations, the 5xx fields are fully searchable. While I'm not pleased at varying from the policies followed by the IJ section, I feel that any users capable of reading the work can also read a Hebrew script contents note, and the time savings make it worthwhile.

On records I do (classed in K, primarily in KBM or KMK), there will appear unlinked 5xx fields.  These will usually be contents notes (in the 505) or "quoted" notes in the 500 - and will normally get there by "cutting and pasting" from Israeli records in OCLC or MALMAD. For a genuine compilation, for which RDA virtually mandates a contents note, if I can't find one to copy and it is too long to do manually,  we will attach a non-searchable pdf of the table of contents if possible.

Any further reductions in Romanization (I personally favor limiting it to the 245 $a and the headings under authority control), would involve changes to existing rules, and involvement of PSD and perhaps the Joint Steering Committee (though in the current environment, catalogers can initiate major changes, e.g. the change in treaties initiated by AALL).  I suggest that the Hebraica cataloging community might consider if less Romanization would result in cheaper cataloging without impacting on users, but as  a law cataloger who  merely "moonlights" doing Hebrew that is not something I can personally address.

Aaron

Aaron Kuperman, LC Law Cataloging Section.
This is not an official communication from my employer

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