Non-Roman Cataloging began contributing records with Russian scripts to WorldCat
Anna, our Slavic cataloger has made a successful move in providing Russian scripts in her original cataloging records. Thus, we the OSUL Cataloging Department Non-Roman Cataloging Section are now contributing Russian records with Russian scripts to the OCLC cooperative cataloging database, WorldCat, as well as to the libraries’ OPAC, OSCAR. This will better assist library users who are familiar with the language in finding what they are looking for, and improve access to our East European & Slavic Collection.
Our experiment with both OCLC Connexion and local OPAC Millennium system shows seamless display of Russian scripts on both staff and user interfaces. Users can also search our library catalog with Russian text (provided the computer has necessary fonts and IME* installed).
Here are two examples of OSU original record with Russian scripts:
The Ohio State University Libraries’ Cataloging Department has a long history in contributing Non-Roman bibliographic records to WorldCat with true vernacular scripts, including Arabic, Chinese, Hebraic, Japanese, and Korean. Recently, the Non-Roman Cataloging Section began to investigate on inputting Russian scripts in bibliographic records. We consulted other libraries who are doing this practice, experiemented with our OPAC system, and provided training to staff.
- We are mainly taking advantage of the Cyrillic MACRO developed by Joel Hahn; and if necessary, we use a virtual keyboard developed by the National Library of Russia, to input Russian texts by setting the Windows IME* into Russian. Our experiment has been successful.
- We welcome your comments and suggestions as we are still beginners in this practice. Please send your comments to Sherab Chen, Coordinator of Non-Roman Cataloging: xsherabchen@hotmail.com
Advancement of Unicode and computer facilaties such as the Windows IME* technologies, and the recent practice of OCLC Cooperative Cataloging all encourage the providing of true Non-Roman scripts in bibliographic record. As technical service librarians and catalogers, we strive for providing our users better access to bibliographic information. Making cataloging records with origianl languages and making library catalog searchable in the languages user-preferred are certainly one of the most important moves towards this end. We will continue to make endevour in this direction.
*The IME is a Microsoft product stands for Input Method Editor, and it’s pre-installed on all Windows computers version 2000 above.
Add comment February 27th, 2008
