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
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