1. ARABIC SCRIPT CATALOGUING at Georgetown University in Qatar Stefan Seeger MENA-IUG 5 th Annual Conference, Dubai 2010

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. Old vs New record  40.000 records containing Romanized Arabic only  ca 9.000 Original script records  99% of all Qatar records

8. Record with 880 linking field Romanized Original script

9. 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).

10. Arabic colons get converted into commas ; Arabic commas into Latin commas ; Characters (1&|) get added into subject fields. Problem: Automatic changes

11.  The link with Romanized leads to the correct short list  … whereas the link with Original script … into the void. Problem: Dead end hyperlinks

12. Project I: Authority record linkage

13. Project II: Arabic subject headings  Library of Congress Subject Heading  Arab Union Catalogue Subject Headings  600 & 61x Fields (Personal & Corporate Name) linked through 880.

14. Results from Project I & II  RED: 400 (Tracing references) from the Authority Files  BLUE: 650 (Topical Term) entry in the Bib record.

15. 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.

16.  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

17.  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

18. 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.

19. 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.

20. Thank you !! شكراً جزيلاً لكم … 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