Attention/Help - Library Catalog Problem with Translated Cyrillic Words

[Brewer, Michael]

All,

I am working on getting some data to send to Innovative (the maker of our
catalog software/search interface at the University of Arizona Library. They
are often called "Triple I" ) so that they can fix a problem I have
uncovered concerning searching transliterated Cyrillic words using the
Keyword search. Those of you that work at Universities that use this library
catalog/search software, take note. You may want to check with your library
contact to make sure they are aware of this problem and have them bring the
issue up with Innovative. This may result in them more quickly addressing
the problem.

If your library does not use this catalog software/search system, you may
not want to read the rest of my lengthy post. However, if you are a
Bulgarian or Old Russian specialist, please see my request at the end of
this post.



The Problem:

In short, the Keyword search does not recognize words that have certain
diacritic marks (in Cyrillic these are the macron, left and right ligatures,
the hard and soft signs, and, I think, the right hook). These diacritics do
not display in the web version of the catalog, and are only visible as
numbers within brackets on the MARC record, so you have to know where they
would generally be. To review the Library of Congress Transliteration
tables, go to http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html
<http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html>

Because these diacritcs may be used to transliterate several other languages
(Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, non-Slavic Cyrillic languages, etc.), the problem is
not be limited to Slavic. Because I am only familiar with Slavic languages,
I have only been able to test these. (Other characters that the catalog may
not recognize are alif, ayn, the dot below, the double dot below, the circle
below and others. Check the transliteration tables for the various languages
[at the end of each table] to see which diacritic marks and so called
"special characters" transliteration for that language uses.

The Request:

Those of you have use the Innovative catalog and who have proficiency in
other languages, I would encourage you to test the search system to see if
the KEYWORD search is returning all relevant titles. It is difficult to do
this comprehensively without also having access to a telnet version of the
catalog (so that one can see the MARC record with the numeric
representations of the diacritics), and it might be wise to talk to your
library liaison about this. Even without access to the telnet version,
however, you can still get a good sense of whether or not the catalog is
searching properly.

How to do it:

To check the search system, think of a word, the transliterated form of
which would have one of the diacritics in it, think of a title that would
have that word in it and search for that title using the TITLE search (if
you have trouble thinking of a title that might have the word in it, you can
use WorldCat's keyword search to locate one that your library owns. The
WorldCat search system does not have problems recognizing these diacritics.
Using an Innovative catalog to search by KEYWORD, because of the problems I
listed above, is not reliable). After you find the title in the catalog
using the TITLE search, then search the same title using the KEYWORD search.
If it comes up using the KEYWORD search, chances are that the KEYWORD search
is recognizing the diacritic. (To be absolutely sure one must go into the
telnet version of the catalog, and search for the title and view the MARC
record which shows the diacritics as numbers within brackets, ex. {234}.
This is necessary as catalogers may occasionally not insert these numbers or
may insert the incorrect number).

As I mentioned, I have already determined that the following
diacritics/special characters are not recognized by Innovative's search
system:

Soft sign {167} (unless at the end of a word)

Hard sign {183}

Macron {229}

Ligature, first half {235}

Ligature, second half {236}

I do not yet know if the following diacritics/special characters used in
transliterating Cyrillic characters are recognized:

Candrabindu {239}

Right hook {241}

For you Bulgarian and Old Russian specialists, I have two questions I need
answered to help me in isolating if these diacritics are searching
correctly.

1) In the Library of Congress Transliteration system for Bulgarian, one
(very rarely, I suppose) comes across something called a candrabindu (sort
of a breve with a dot resting in it) used along with a "U" to represent an
older character (can't remember what it's called, but its the one that looks
like a "zh" ? with a hat on it (and without the upper middle line). Because
of my sketchy knowledge of Bulgarian, I haven't been able to come up any
words (or title) that would have this character in it so that I see whether
or not the search system recognizes it. Can anyone supply me with some words
(or better yet, titles) that would have this letter in them?

2) Second question. A similar letter/character (the one that looks like a
capital "A" with an extra, middle "leg") also occurs in older Russian texts.
This character is represented in transliteration as an "E" with a "right
hook." Would any of you Old Russian specialists know of any words in which
this character would occur and which might be in the title of a book held in
a large academic library?

If you have questions about the transliteration and my weak attempts at
describing it, go to

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I need to get some data together to
send to Innovative so that they can recognize and remedy this problem.

For those unaffected by this problem, I apologize for the lengthy post.

Michael Brewer

Michael Brewer
Slavic & German Studies Librarian
Fine Arts/Humanities Team
University Library, A210
1510 E. University
P.O. Box 210055
Tucson, AZ 85721-0055
(520) 621.9919  FAX: (520) 621.9733

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                  http://home.attbi.com/~lists/seelangs/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------