ARABIC SCRIPT CATALOGUING

at Georgetown Universityin Qatar

Stefan SeegerMENA-IUG 5th Annual Conference, Dubai 2010

Outline Georgetown University in Qatar Cataloguing of Arabic material

at GU Experiences with the III Arabic

Indexing add-on Four projects, including

excursion into Encore Questions and contact

Georgetown University (in Qatar)

Established in1789, GU is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit University in the US

School of Foreign Service founded in 1919 by Rev. Edmund A. Walsh

Since 2005 SFS branch campus in Qatar in Qatar Foundations’ Education City

4 years Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service program

About 178 students from 46 countries, and additional 568 public patrons.

GUQ Library

at date 60.000 items in addition: ½ Mio eBooks

and 350 databases Acquisition of material in

Arabic started in Summer 2009

1.000 volumes catalogued Kotobarabia, … AskZad.

GUQ … transition into a new building

Completing move in early January 2011

Library space times 4: 32.000 Sq Ft

Target collection: 140.000 volumes

… of which ca 10% will be in Arabic.

Cataloguing of Arabic material at GU

Shared database with GU Main Campus in DC

… but separate OPACs and Discovery Platforms

Vice versa access via internal “ILL”

Marc21, AACR2, LCSH records with Romanized Arabic.

Old vs New record

40.000 records containing Romanized Arabic only

ca 9.000 Original script records

99% of all Qatar records

Record with 880 linking field

Romanized

Original script

Experiences with III Arabic Indexing

Benefits: Internal & External

search with Arabic script

Linking field (880) indexed with its linked Main field (eg 245)

Hyperlinks of Arabic entries in the OPAC

Problems: Not all fields with

Arabic script are indexed (eg 505)

Automatic changes of characters (Comma)

Cut off search strings Dead end hyperlinks

(eg series).

Arabic colons get converted into commas ; Arabic commas into Latin commas ; Characters (1&|) get added into subject fields.

Problem: Automatic changes

The link with Romanized leads to the correct short list… whereas the link with Original script … into the void.

Problem: Dead end hyperlinks

Project I: Authority record linkage

Project II: Arabic subject headings

Library of Congress Subject Heading Arab Union Catalogue Subject Headings 600 & 61x Fields (Personal & Corporate Name) linked through 880.

Results from Project I & II

RED: 400 (Tracing references) from the Authority Files BLUE: 650 (Topical Term) entry in the Bib record.

Project III: Reverse order records

THE RULES Appendix D

(Multiscript Records), Model A of Marc21 Bibliographic allows the reverse order if “cataloging agency prefers to use Arabic in the regular fields”

A catalogue should describe its material true to the original

First objective for any catalogue should be user-friendliness.

Even though the initial search was entered in Romanized Arabic, the reversed Marc record displays the original script of the item for the ease of user Since OCLC Connexion displays original script in a duplicated Main field (eg 100), an respective alteration of the III loader table could simply reverse records.

Reverse Record display

The Arabic script Subject & Authority entries feed into the related searches and facets Problem with Encore: no advanced search as yet & search terms seem to be retrieved as strings and are not searched for in all bibliographical fields.

Excursion: Arabic Record display in Encore

IV: Retro-conversion project in DC

Automatic conversion of transliterated text (LC) to Arabic script in Bibliographic records

40.000 old records Sept 2010 testing of

100 records, eg Perl script export of records

coded ‘ara’ & no 066 in the display of

hex20 for "space" in III Quality of the records.

Possible project for the future

Proposal to test a relational database

… containing authority records with duplicated field in different languages

… and coded user interfaces that trigger the respective language from the record for display

see: Virtual International Authority File.

Thank you !! لكم ً جزيال ً شكرا

… any questions ?

GUQ Library url:http://www.library.georgetown.edu/qatar/

Contact: in Doha, Qatar:Stefan Seeger – email: ss982@georgetown.edu

in Washington, DC:Mark Muehlhaeusler – email:

mpm97@georgetown.edu