Mike, 

Your "hyphen" is our "dashes". I can see where the RDA wording is confusing. Since the LC practice was documented in AACR rules many years ago you can imagine that for a long time the only way to create a "hyphen" was to use two dashes together, or "double dashes". And so, that actual form of the symbol "stuck" and continues to be the accepted way of representing a hyphen to separate the pair of coordinates on either side of the forward slash. So, what you see regularly in OCLC copy is correct in form, at least according to decades of practice, and I'd just follow along and not worry about the use of "hyphen" in the RDA instruction. 

Paige Andrew 
Maps Cataloging Librarian 
Penn State University 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Michael Chopey" <[log in to unmask]> 
To: [log in to unmask] 
Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 9:27:23 PM 
Subject: Hyphen(s) in statement of coordinates (255 $c) 

My apologies if this has already been asked and answered ... I wasn't able to find to anything about it in the list archives. 

The instruction in RDA for recording longitude and latitude at 7.4.2.3 says "Separate the west and east coordinates with a hyphen and the north and south coordinates with a hyphen . Do not use a space before or after the hyphen ." 

But I've yet to see anyone do that! In all the RDA records I've seen that have coordinates in a 255, they are always separated by two hyphens as in AACR2 (which called for a dash instead of a hyphen (3.3D1)). I just now looked a random sample in OCLC of about 100 LC RDA records for CMs published in 2014 or 2015, and every single one of them that had coordinates in a 255 $c used two hyphens to separate the east and west and the north and south. 

That of course looks very natural and correct to me, but I can't find an LCPCC PS or any statement elsewhere in RDA overruling the instruction in 7.4.2.3 to use one hyphen. 

In Mary's and Paige's and Susan's excellent RDA and cartographic resources , they state the RDA instruction from 7.4.2.3 verbatim (in quotes), but all of their examples show two hyphens. 

I would appreciate it if anyone could shed some light on this! 

Aloha, 
Mike 

Michael A. Chopey 
Catalog Department 
University of Hawaii at Manoa Libraries 
Honolulu, HI 96822 

phone (808) 956-2753 
fax (808) 956-5968