Numeric Character References

Background

Numeric Character References (or, NCRs) are common markup constructs used in markup languages like HTML and XML, where a sequence of characters will be rendered as a single character. NCRs are structured as ampersand ( & ), pound sign ( # ), lowercase letter x, four-position Unicode character code, and a trailing semicolon ( ; ). For example, च . This policy is about the use of NCRs in MARC cataloging records in Alma.

Policy Statement

Catalogers most often use NCRs in the context of non-Latin scripts. Catalogers may supply parallel non-Latin fields only for scripts supported by OCLC. These are:

• MARC-8 scripts (subsets of UTF-8 characters, so they are also compatible with UTF-8 Unicode): Arabic, CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean), Cyrillic (within the MARC-8 character set), Greek, or Hebrew scripts.

• UTF-8 Unicode only scripts: Armenian, Bengali, Cyrillic (outside the MARC-8 character set), Devanagari, Ethiopic, Syriac, Tamil, or Thai scripts. These scripts are not included in MARC-8.

All settings for Alma should be UTF-8 Unicode. NCRs should NOT be used to create non-Latin scripts for scripts not supported by OCLC. Examples include Georgian, Khmer, and anything else not listed above. 

Exceptions to this policy may be made in the case of large record sets provided by vendors, but CSU Libraries must make a commitment to using the available records that most closely adhere to this policy in such cases. See OCLC Connexion Client guide International Cataloging: Use Non-Latin Scripts for more details. 

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