Hahn, Harvey wrote:
>>Surely *the* most anachronistic exercise is ISBD punctuation.  This
>>was stupid in the original version of MARC and makes even less sense
>>over the years.

[a significant amount of history snipped which underscores the point
that ISBD punctuation is for catalogue cards and wishful thinkers]

> It's probably possible to strip out current punctuation (ISBD prescribed
> or older styles) between subfields, but I doubt anybody's (LC, OCLC,
> etc.) ever going to do it unless there's a groundswell for change in how
> catalogs should display data.  As I said earlier, it should really be up
> to the display software (whether a cataloging editor or an OPAC) to
> insert separating punctuation "on the fly" if desired.

... and the net effect is that we end up doing all sorts of hacks to
re-normalize the data.  The madness must stop!

Roy, is there a bandwagon that I can get on?

Walter