multilingual computing: request for non-expert comments

[Kevin Hawkins]

** Article on Slavic multilingual computing: request for comments on preprint by non-experts **

Colleagues:

Vol. 5, no. 1/2 of Slavic and East European Information Resources (SEEIR) ( http://www.stanford.edu/~rondest/SEEIR/ ), a journal for librarians working in the field of Slavic and East European studies, will be a special issue entitled "Virtual Slavica: Digital Archives, Digital Libraries".

I have been asked to write an article on confusing aspects of using Slavic scripts and computers but have been struggling with how to best present this information.  It began as a prescriptive tutorial, but I have been rewriting it -- unfortunately with very little time left -- as a FAQ (a popular Internet genre consisting of a somewhat organized list of frequently asked questions and answers to them) with a bit of prescriptivism.  Since I now claim to be addressing frequently asked questions, I figure that it would be sensible of me to check with Slavists of all types (librarians, teaching faculty, and others who might read this article) to see if I have indeed addressed your frequently asked questions.

I would be grateful to hear from you as well if you feel I have misrepresented any technical matters or would like to offer any editorial advice.  While the journal is read mostly by Slavic librarians, I see the target audience as non-expert computer users as a whole, especially since I hope to continue to revise this text and republish it online for the benefit of others.  So comments from non-librarians are definitely welcome.

Text in square brackets needs to be fleshed out, and highlighted text needs to be verified.  That is, it's not a complete draft of the text.

The preprint is available at http://www.umich.edu/~kshawkin/preprints/20040919.rtf .

Please let me know if you have any questions.  I look forward to hearing from you by Friday if at all possible.  Thanks in advance,

Kevin Hawkins
http://www.umich.edu/~kshawkin/

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