ANSEL Designated/Invoked by Two Bytes, Not One
Received via e-mail this morning.
This is a clarification of information on the newly assigned escape sequence for designating and invoking ANSEL, the Extended Latin character set used in MARC 21.
The email notification of the escape sequence assigned to the extended Latin set (ANSI/NISO Z39.47) provided information about the final character of the escape sequence only, which was identified as hexadecimal 45 (the uppercase letter "E"). The text of the registration itself, however, indicates that final part of the escape sequence for ANSEL is actually two bytes, hexadecimal 21 ("!") followed by hexadecimal 45 ("E"). Although "E" is the final character, it appears that the pair hex 21 45 ("!E") would need to be used in MARC 21 records to designate and/or invoke ANSEL. This is important with regard to the application of ISO 2022 which specifies the technique for using escape sequences to change character sets. ISO 2022 does not indicate that the final portion of the escape sequence is restricted to a single character. Please make note of this clarification when implementing any escape sequences to designate and/or invoke ANSEL (ANSI/NISO Z39.47)
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