RE: Non-Roman languages in OPAC

["Janet Fine" <janetrfine at hotmail dot com>]

6.27.05

Hi Michaela,

We have a large Persian Language collection and the transliterated entries 
displayed with boxes,spaces,  underscores, etc in place of the diacritics.  
I opened a call with the Help Desk and  they changed the  coding of the 
default webopac font to Unicode--the display of the transliterations is now 
much improved.  We also had to make sure that the browser default font on 
the workstations is set to Unicode (i.e. Ariel Unicode MS).  Hope this 
helps.

Janet Fine
Great Neck Library
159 Bayview Avenue
Great Neck, New York 11021

----Original Message Follows----
From: Michaela Brenner <brennerm at pdx dot edu>
Reply-To: IUG INNOPAC List <innopac at innopacusers dot org>
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: Non-Roman languages in OPAC
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 13:18:36 -0700

This email was cross-posted. My apology in case you got it more than once.



Dear colleagues,



I'd like to hear from everybody who is willing to share their experience 
with or has some thoughts about OPAC display, indexing and retrieval of 
non-Roman language material, for example Arabic, CJK, Hebrew, Russian, etc., 
in the vernacular script.

Please let me know about

- highlights and frustrations with your particular library system;

- what's working, what needs to be improved;

- whether you have indexed the vernacular script and how much work and money 
you had to invest in this venture;

- whether it was worth it (did you get positive feedback from 
users/others?);

- display problems and pleasures;

- whether you provide search capabilities in vernacular script on your 
library computers, i.e. the possibility to write in Arabic characters;

- everything else you'd like to share.



If possible, please include what library system you are using, what 
vernacular search options you are offering, the approximate number of items 
in this particular language, and the patrons this service is aimed at.



I'd greatly appreciate every response.


With best regards,

Michaela

--

Michaela M. Brenner
Cataloging and Database Management Librarian
Portland State University
503.725.5778



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Janet Fine
Department Head, Circulation Services
Great Neck Library
159 Bayview Avenue
Great Neck, NY 11023
(516) 466-8055 ext. 205