PITTCAT CAUTIONS for SLAVIC-LANGUAGE MATERIAL

10/3/08

SEARCHING CAUTIONS for SLAVIC LANGUAGES and LANGUAGES NOT WRITTEN in the ROMAN ALPHABET

1) With the exceptions noted below, we use the Library of Congress (LC) transliteration system for languages not written in the roman alphabet. This means that if you have a citation transliterated using a different system, you will have to re-transliterate it, or you are likely to find nothing. Works by V.V. Yanov, for example, will be under IAnov; by V. Djokić will be under Ðokić. Serbian Cyrillic is transliterated to look like Serbian written in roman letters. If you are using languages written in Cyrillic for which I have not given you tables, you can find links to tables on the web on Stanford’s Slavic & East European page: http://library.stanford.edu/depts/hasrg/slavic/index.html, or on the Selected Sources handout. Do not neglect to look at the tables, because you will find some surprises.

2) Exceptions to the transliteration rule can occur under a few circumstances: • Names of people who are well-known in the U.S. and generally appear in English-language sources under some other spelling. A partial list of these: Bely, Andrey Dostoyevsky, Fyodor Mayakovsky, Vladimir Tolstoy, Leo Yevtushenko, Yevgeny Djilas, Milovan Trotsky, Leon Stalin, Joseph Yeltsin, Boris Nikolayevich Mirsky, D. S. • Scholars who write in both English and Russian (or Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Georgian, etc.) and use a different system to transliterate their own names on English works. For example, Lewytzkyj, Boris Pospielovsky, Dimitry Tschiževskij, Dmitrij • Serbian authors with the letter ђ in their names may themselves use dj instead of đ. Try both. • Non-Russians who write in both their own languages and Russian, or are well-known in Russia. There may be entries under LC transliteration from each language. Try both forms. For example, there are entries under both Dumbaże, Nodar and Dumbadze, Nodar. • Central Asians known by different forms of their names, for example: Russian form: Гаспринский, Исмаил Turkish form: Gaspirali, İsmail Bey LC form: Gasprinski, Ismail Bey

If you find less than you think you should, do a Browse search using LC transliteration instead of a Keyword search; use only the person’s surname and first initial. You should find at least a cross reference to the form used in Socrates. If you still find nothing for a well-known person, try playing with the transliteration. You may not find all works by an author under the same form of his or her name.

3) Do not type in too much information. A personal name may be entered in Socrates with his or her surname plus first name, surname plus initials, or (occasionally) only the surname. Often the author will be there in only one form, so putting in too much could cause you to miss everything. The author’s name could also be there in more than one form. There could be a mistake in your citation or in the Socrates record. In short, typing in too much multiplies your chances of missing what you are looking for. The search most likely to succeed is just the author’s last name and first initial, then click “browse” if using the Simple Search.

4) Ignore diacritics on roman letters. The computer treats miagkie and tverdye znaki, and the bars on the Polish dark ł and Croatian đ as diacritics, in addition to the more obvious hačeks and the like. But pay attention to diacritics on Cyrillic letters in Central Asian languages, because they affect which roman letter is used. (Kazakh and Uzbek қ is transliterated q, not k, for example.)

5) Holdings of serial titles (journals, magazines, newspapers) in Socrates may be inaccurate. Don’t give up in despair without looking in the stacks or paging the issue you want from SAL. If Socrates says a title is shelved in Hoover, ask at the Reference Desk there. Socrates may show more holdings than we have, as well as less. Allow extra time when looking for serials!

6) Pay careful attention to locations listed in Socrates. Current issues of a journal could be in Green and the backfile in Hoover. Recent journal issues might be at the bindery rather than lost. Books can be in Green, Hoover, one of the SALs, a branch library, one of the reference collections within Green, etc. If a call number ends in F or FF, it could be shelved nearby on the bottom shelf or in a folio case.

7) If searching for a title that contains a person's initials, be very careful. Even though your citation may contain initials, the person's given name may be written out on the title page of the book (and thus in the Socrates record). And there may or may not be a space between the initials. If possible, search the title without the initials. For example,

Citation: Учение В.И. Вернадского о биосфере и ноосфере Search as: uchenie vernadskogo o biosfere or some variation of that.

You could also search some other field, e.g., the author. (Use a browse search with only the author's surname and his or her first initial.)