Cyrillic Transliteration and Its Users Alena L. Aissing

A wide diversity exists in the current practice of transliterating Cyrillic scripts for use in bibliographic records in online catalogs. Without knowing which transliteration table was used, it is difficult to retrieve the desired record successfully or efficiently. Retrieving an item (e.g., titles or an author's name) from a library's online catalog (OPAC) where it is given only in transliterated form can be a confusing task, even for users who know the Russian language or at least the Cyrillic alphabet. This study explores the problems besetting three groups of Russian-language students faced with romanized Cyrillic bib­ liographic records. It also tries to investigate students' ability in searching the Russian records romanized according to the Library of Congress (LC) translit­ eration table. Analysis of the test results show the students' success-and-error rate before and after instruction. The findings of this study establish that transliteration is one of the factors limiting access _by Russian language stu­ dents to the Slavic collections.

tudents in foreign language eration needs to be distinguished from classes usually experience transcription, in which the sounds of the various difficulties in finding source words are conveyed by letters in library materials in the lan­ the target language. For example, an guages they study.1 One of the most in­ English transcription of former Presi­ tractable problems confronts readers of dent Mikhail Gorbachev's name would Russian, since records they want to ac­ have to be Gorbachoff, to reflect the way cess have been modified (i.e, romanized) it·is pronounced in Russian.2 by transliteration or transcription into There are several different translitera­ the Roman (English) alphabet. Translit­ tion systems for Cyrillic script used eration is a process in which each char­ throughout the world. Most of the cur­ acter of the source language is converted rently used systems are based on graphi­ into a character of the target language; cal and/ or phonologic similarities for example, Russian crryTHHK (compan­ between Cyrillic and the target lan­ ion, satellite) becomes sputnik. Translit- guage. However, not all transliteration

Alena Aissing is German and Slavic Studies Selector and Slavic Studies Cataloger at the University ofFlorida George A. Smathers Libraries, Gainesville, Florida 32611. The autlwr wishes to express her appreciation to the Department of Germanic and Slavic l.Jmguages and Literatures at the University of Florida, the Department of Modern lAnguages at Florida State University, the Department of Slavic lAnguages and Literatures at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for their cooperation; Olga Campara and Graig N. Packard from the Center of Applied Linguistics in Washington, D.C., for valuable information in the field of Slavic linguistics; Joan Aliprand from the Research Libraries Group for inspiration, editing and updates on computer software developments; Frank DiTrolio, Dolores Jenkins, and John Van Hook from the Collection Management Department at University of Florida Libraries for editing this manuscript; Bill Covey from the Systems Department at the University ofFlorida Libraries for editing the statistical analysis and my husband, Gerrard Aissing, for encouragement and input on this research design. This research was funded in part by a grant, from the University of Florida, Division of Sponsored Research.

207 208 College & Research Libraries May1995 or transcription is systematic. Both difficult for someone who knows the transliteration and transcription depend Russian language or at least the Cyrillic on the source and target language, and alphabet. The data for this research were differ from case to case (see table 1). A gathered using three-part tests. These searcher has to be aware of the array of tests were distributed among Russian­ variations in transliteration schemes, language students at the University of particularly if the search is being done in Florida, Florida State University, and the more than one database.3 A translitera­ University of Illinois at Urbana-Cham­ tion scheme that is systematic does not paign during the period 1990-1993. necessarily have a broad application. For example, the transliteration scheme BACKGROUND AND used by Physical Review is intended for LITERATURE REVIEW scholarly application. The Library of Several Cyrillic transliteration schemes Congress transliteration is intended for have been proposed on the local, na­ the general user and is standard for most tional, and international levels at vari­ academic libraries in the United States. ous times. Some were attempts at cor­ Recently, the LC transliteration system recting and improving existing schemes. in its simplified form (without the dia­ Others came up with new proposals, critics) has been appropriated by vari­ such as Dekleva's Uniform Slavic Trans­ ous scholarly publishing organizations.4 literation Alphabet (USTA) that con­ Since these problem areas could affect sisted of ninety-seven graphemes com­ the student's academic performance, it bining Roman letters and diacritical is important to question the effective­ marks.to,u It was never adopted, how­ ness of transliteration as a method for ever, probably because its features were bibliographic control and its usefulness unfamiliar to both English- and Slavic­ for the user. This phenomenon has been speaking readers. analyzed during the past years by sev­ Because the number of Roman letters eral authors, although no research has in the English alphabet is less than the 5 9 been done involving actual users. - This number of Cyrillic letters in the Russian study tries to fill this gap by investigat­ alphabet, most of the transliteration sys­ ing whether bibliographic searches for tems have to resort to the use of diacritics transliterated Russian titles or names are or letter combinations to achieve a com- TABLE 1 EXAMPLE OFTRANSLITERATION OF THE WORDS 'll:IL.4.;7JJ.Hfi AND .Y.llElilUill4 AND .f().lll.KiilJHl.l IN V ARlO US TRANSUTERATI ON SYSTEMS

System "4HTaJibH51 System XJie6HHQa System I0mKeBH"4

LC chital'nfl LC khlebnitsa BM Yushkevich

ISO (:ital'nja ISO hlebnica NUC (LC) fDshkevich

BSI chital'nya NYPL khlebnitza GNC Ju~kevi(:

MR. (:ital'nya SR khlebnica OFC Iouskevich

Abbreviations used in this table LC Library of Congress SR Slavic Review ISO International Organization for BM British Museum Standardization BSI British Standards Institution NUC National Union Catalog NYPL New York Public Library GNC German National Catalog MR Mathematical Review OFC Old French Catalog Cyrillic Transliteration 209 plete transliteration.12 This can present IME24 have contracts to develop systems several problems for the users of the for Russian libraries; Cyrillic script capa­ catalog who have to deduce how these bility is a fundamental requirement. diacritics or letter combinations trans­ Few American libraries have taken ad­ late back to the original Cyrillic charac­ vantage of these developments because ters.13 The differences among the various of the pervasive belief that romanization schemes are considerable, especially for is adequate for those languages written those Cyrillic letters for which no Ro­ in Cyrillic script. (The results of this man equivalent exists: e, JK, x, Q,q, lll, I.Q, study undermine this belief.) Because of ~q and 11. 14 In addition, Russian has no h this conviction, most libraries do not and represents this sound mostly as r, own systems that can utilize other therefore, transliterating Hamlet from scripts, nor do they have enough fund­ Cyrillic back to Roman script results in ing and concern for the multilingual Gamlet. 15 A Russian name beginning needs of their community.25 Users cannot with 11 might be transliterated into ia, ja, search and display a bibliographic record or ya with major retrieval problems un­ in the script of the original document.26 less the conversion system is known. A Most local OPACs are limited to Roman further problem is that certain phonemes character sets and do not provide the characteristic of Slavic languages cannot proper typographical facilities necessary be written unambiguously as a single for the display of non-Roman languages. Roman letter (assuming English pro­ Therefore, romanization of non-Roman nunciation).16 scripts is necessary if the automated. The Library of Congress offers a sepa­ catalog is to be a comprehensive repre­ rate transliteration table for every Slavic sentation of the library's holdingsP language written in Cyrillic scriptsY This can lead to more inconsistencies. For example, Q is used when transcrib­ Most local OPACs are limited to ing Ukrainian e and old Russian-B. That Roman character sets and do not is, the same combination of Roman let­ provide the proper typographical ters is used for two completely different facilities necessary for the display of Cyrillic letters! The user has to know or non-Roman languages. · .' recognize the original language in or­ der to find the corresponding translit­ eration when searching the library's Yet there are some hopeful signs that online catalog. this situation is changing. Several Readers of non-Roman documents authors have discussed the problems for usually want to see the original script, users caused by romanization, and the because it is more familiar to them than attitude of librarians toward minority the romanized version.18 Cyrillic script users is changing.28 Allen and Plumer has been implemented on a number of cite many examples of practices and systems. The first American library to methods that tend to alienate a library's automate Cyrillic script was the New international clientele: awareness is the 29 York Public Library, where Cyrillic script first step toward correction. ,3° records were included in its book-form Recent developments in computer "Dictionary Catalog," phototypeset from software and standards will eventually machine-readable copy.19 Cyrillic script ca­ do away with this limitation.31-34 In the pability was added to the Research Librar­ past, research and formulation of stand­ ies Information Network (RLIN) in ards for the automation of non-Roman 1986.2°Cyrillic is one of the scripts imple­ scripts was slow and fragmentary. In ad­ mented on ALEPH, the Israeli library dition, the library community devel­ system.21.22 The British Library's online oped its own standards in isolation from catalog includes not only the characters the standards-making of the computer of modern Cyrillic script but also Old ind ustry.35 These standards were incorpo­ 7 Church Slavonic.23 VTLS, Geac, and rated into USMARC and UNIMARC.36,3 210 College & Research Libraries May 1995

Today, there is a new universal multi­ I tried to ascertain whether they still had script character set, International Stand­ problems and how much they had im­ ard ISO/IEC 10646.38 The Unicode™ proved. After the data were statistically character set, which is code-for-code analyzed, the findings showed that identical with ISO /IEC 10646, is being without the knowledge of the LC trans­ implemented in products from leading literation practice of Russian letter .R by computer companies.39 The advent of a, for example, 80 percent of the stu­ this new standard facilitates the devel­ dents chose ya, whereas only 7 percent opment of global software capable of were correct. When students had to deal processing any script. No longer will li­ with Russian Ill (phonetically very simi­ braries have to develop systems on their lar to English sh), 91 percent were suc­ own; many of the features needed for cessful even without knowing how to multiscript processing will be included transliterate. It is likely that any graph­ in the standard package or can be added eme transliterated by a letter combina­ easily. This will be a boom to the users of tion for which the English pronunciation various non-Roman scripts. Service to does not resemble the Russian sound the user and provision for the most di­ becomes a barrier to access. This pretest rect access to dissimilar documents (i.e., concentrated on transliteration of only 7 documents not in the predominant script letters-those for which transliteration used by the library) need to be seen as the could be problematic: .R,IO, Q, ~. H:, x, prime responsibilities of libraries. and )1(. None of the students was able to transliterate all 7 tested letters correctly RESEARCH DESIGN (the average correct score of the tested AND METHODOLOGY individuals was only 1.1 correct out of Pretest 7). The instruction and approximately A sample of 50 Russian language stu­ one week practice resulted in an overall dents was randomly chosen from the improvement in the scores for the indi­ Department of Germanic and Slavic vidual letters (the average score in­ Languages and Literatures at the Uni­ creased to 4.3 out of 7). Results of a versity of Florida during the spring se­ paired t-test indicated that the improve­ mester of 1991. None of the students was ment of the test scores is highly signifi­ familiar with the LC transliteration ta­ cant (t = 0.001). Finally, only 14.6 percent ble. The data were collected using three of the students were able to transliterate tests consisting of a list of titles and all 7 letters.40 proper names in Russian. The students were then asked to transliterate the Rus­ Actual Research sian items on the list. The objective of Because the sample size was rather these tests was to determine: Test A­ small and the Department of Germanic How correct are the students' searches and Slavic Languages and Literatures at without the knowledge of the translit­ the University of Florida offers only un­ eration table and what are the problems dergraduate classes in Russian, infer­ involved? Test B-How correct are the ences from the data analyses were students' searches after receiving in­ limited and showed a high degree of struction and practicing the translitera­ uncertainty. To get a more reliable pic­ tion in the library? Another test (C) ture of the problem, the study was ex­ consisted of retrieving and locating at tended to include more students from least three items-one title search, one Florida State University and the Uni­ author search, and one journal search. versity of Illinois, including graduate Most of the students visited the library, students. One hundred forty-five under­ located the items, and brought back the graduate and graduate Russian lan­ call numbers and the location codes of guage students from these three the materials requested. Test B was then universities were the sample size for the given to the students after they practiced actual research. The randomly selected what they learned from my instruction. students were tested by the use of three Cyrillic Transliteration 211 I specifically designed tests and a ques­ by Russian-language students. Basic tionnaire. Tests A and B were similar to demographic data such as number of those used in the pretest, consisting of a years in school were collected as well. list of Russian proper names and titles in Additional information about the users an (ideally) isomorphic representation (education, library use, problems with of the title pages of several actual docu­ online searching, their personal opin­ ments in the Cyrillic alphabet.41 In both ions, etc.) was used in interpreting the tests, special attention was given to tests. For example, if the student did not those graphemes that cannot be rebuilt use the library often, the probability in reversibly and to those that are difficult making errors in online searching might to transliterate: n,10, u., 11\, H:, x, and 11<. be relatively higher. The ·Russian-lan­ Test A was intended to investigate how guage students were asked: successful the students would be in • whether they use library services; searching and retrieving transliterated • whether they were familiar with the records without any instruction. This library's online catalog/OPAC; also showed how well the library had • whether they had problems with re­ been preparing students in the past. Test trieving English bibliographic records; B was given to the students after they • whether they had problems with re­ were instructed in the use of a translit­ trieving Russian bibliographic records; eration table. This transliteration table • whether they were familiar with the was a simplified form of the LC translit­ LC transliteration table; and eration table for the Russian language • whether they would prefer using and without the diacritical marks. (Diacriti­ displaying the Cyrillic alphabet, etc. cal marks are generally ignored in OPAC The data were compiled, tabulated, indexing.) The results would indicate and analyzed using the statistical soft­ whether there was significant improve­ ware JMP, version 2.0 for the Macin­ ment or whether there were still residual tosh.42 problems. Test C included both translit­ FINDINGS erated titles and proper names where no part of the original data remains un­ Success-Failure Report changed, and the matching process can Test A. Students transliterated a list of become cumbersome. This is exactly selected titles and names in the Russian how the student would find the biblio­ language with no prior instruction and graphic data on an OPAC display screen no transliteration table provided. Stu­ in the library. The students had to show dents had to create their own search struc­ how they were able to decode, reverse, tures depending on whatever knowledge match, and identify the names of of Russian phonology and orthography authors or titles of works back into the they had, making use of their own con­ Cyrillic script. In other words, the users cept of transliteration. In some cases, the had to match each letter of the roman­ result was a combination of translation, ized script with the original alphabet transliteration, and transcription. Out of equivalent. For a reader familiar with 145 students who took test A, 14 par­ the language and the original script of tially translated the Russian words into the work, the transliteration could be a English instead of transliterating them. serious obstacle resulting in partial or Table 2 shows the frequency distribution even total loss of information. This test, of number of mistakes by the number of therefore, tended to indicate the obsta­ students who made them. There were 93 cles in the matching process. letters (19 words) in test A. Commonly At the end of the testing, each student encountere.d titles, such as AAeKCaH4P was asked to fill out a questionnaire. CepreeBJ.iq n YIIIKHH or Pocom nepBan This questionnaire was developed to as­ A10 6oBh, were used. The largest possible sess not only transliteration use but also number of mistakes was 93, since there primary library use patterns and utiliza­ were 93 letters. Test results showed that tion of collections, services, and facilities in any situation of not knowing the 212 College & Research Libraries May1995

TABLE2 NUMBERS OF ERRORS MADE IN TESTS A AND B TestA TestB Interval Count• % Count• % 0 0 0 20 15 1-5 4 3 59 43 6-10 19 13 20 15 11-15 28 19 13 9 16-20 25 17 7 5 21-25 26 18 6 4 26-30 12 8 5 4 31-35 15 10 2 1 36-40 6 4 2 1 >40 10 7 3 2 Total 145 137 •The difference in total counts was due to the fact that some students did not participate in the second test. transliteration table, none of the stu­ stituted the largest student unit, forming dents would be able to conduct a 100 43 percent of the total sample. Only one percent successful search. The lowest person had all 82 letters wrong. The number of mistakes made was one, and average number of mistakes made was only one person achieved this rate. The 8.9. average number of mistakes made was Special attention was given to the let­ 21.6. The largest group of students, 28, ters that either cannot be rebuilt revers­ made between 11 and 15 mistakes. ibly and to those that must be trans­ literated by letter combinations. These let­ ters were n,IO, ii, Q, w, x, )1(, q, and I.Q. The For a reader familiar with the language results for these letters are compiled in and the original script of the work, figure 1. In the comparison of the two the transliteration could be a serious tests significant improvement is seen. It obstacle resulting in partial or even also becomes clear that the students are total loss of information. dealing with two groups of letters: those that represent sounds similar to the ones encountered in the English language Test B. Test B consisted of 82letters (in and those that represent sounds that are 16 words) which included words similar alien to English speakers. The improve­ to the ones used in the first test (for ment in the second group is more im­ example, in examining the soft vowel n, pressive than that experienced in the test A included the word nepaan and test ·first group. The first group consists of B had the word coapeMeHHan). Table 2 the letters Q, q, and w, whereas the sec­ showed the frequency distribution of ond group is formed by'IO, n, ii, x, )1(, and mistakes by the number of students who I.Q. In the first group the average im­ made them. The table shows that the provement after instruction is almost library instruction and practice resulted negligible; in the second group it is al­ in a clear overall improvement. Twenty ways more than 27 percent. It also seems students transliterated all 82 characters that the vowels are more difficult to without any mistakes, followed by 59 transliterate than the consonants. A students who made fewer than 6 mis­ good example of the problems in trans­ takes in their search structure. This con- literating Cyrillic letters is given by the Cyrillic Transliteration 213

Count

200~------~~------.

['- ,....0 100 II TestA D TestB

0

Letter

FIGURE 1 Comparison of Test A and Test B for the Letters Jl, 10, u;, III, X, .IK, q, I..Q, and .ti

letter 10. In modern American English lie version and reestablish the text in its there are several ways one could write original characters to determine if a this sound, including ewe, yu, you, or given record matches the one sought for. even u. In fact, the version used by LC The reconstruction or back-translit­ "fil" is counterintuitive, because there eration can be performed only between seems no relation between the translit­ two alphabetic scripts and depends on eration and the everyday "sound" of the the rules governing the relationships be­ Cyrillic letter. tween the letters of these two scripts.43 Test C. After instruction, test C was Applying the rules of transliteration in given to the students as well. This test reverse can cause some difficulties included a list of transliterated Russian since this process involves at least three titles and authors' names. If a student different stages: (1) the user must know were to search a book written in a Cyril­ how the word appears in the original lic script in the online catalog, this would (i.e., Cyrillic) alphabet; (2) the user be the way in which it would display. needs to know how to use the translitera­ The user then would have to match the tion rules; (3) the user should be skilled transliterated information with its Cyril- in recognizing that this transliterated 214 College & Research Libraries May 1995 information does indeed match its origi­ The largest group, consisting of 20 stu­ nal equivalent. Obviously, users will dis­ dents, made 3 mistakes while only 5 stu­ cover this only if they apply the dents made as many as 16 to 17 mistakes. back-transliteration. An additional step would be needed in dealing with proper names, especially those used in Western Cyrillization of foreign names is languages (e.g., Baker) as well as adjec­ frequently done by phonological tives derived from proper names (e.g., transcription, not by transliteration Copernican theory). For example, when since the latter would result in an a user deals with a transliterated text unintelligible and unpronounceable from Russian alphabet where the name result to a Russian reader. "Brown" is included, the user needs to know how this name is spelled in its original (in this case English script). In Another factor examined in test C was addition, the user needs to be aware that the total number of mistakes that stu­ the Russian version will be BpayH. Cyril­ dents made individually for each Rus­ lization of foreign names is frequently sian letter. This analysis is shown in table done by phonological transcription, not 3, where as predicted, the letters 10 and by transliteration since the latter would n, (represented combinations of two Ro­ result in an unintelligible and unpro­ man letters when romanized) caused a nounceable result to a Russian reader. lot of trouble. The most misunderstood Back-transliteration of "BpayH" could letter was 11 (140 mistakes), followed by also refer to a German author "Braun," hi (94) and i1 (80). The underlined parts but for the English language, the user of the following words show where the needs to know the correct spelling of the students made most mistakes on test C: name. This example clearly demon­ A1-14peii. .[xoHTOB, Coq>J::Ul, Aape.u Map11.1:1 strates that back-transliteration and/ or Me411'111; c6opHHK q>aHTaCTH'IeCKHX retranscription is sometimes impossible npHKA!Q'IeHWi, 3aKoH npyno.4hl. The without tracing the identity of the origi­ word "npHAJO'Iei-mii" was the most dif­ nal name and its spelling. ficult for students to transliterate. The Figure 2 shows the frequency distribu­ transliterated word "prikliuchenir" is tion of mistakes made by students. on the genitive plural of "npHKAID'IeHHe" test C. The data were collapsed into 16 (in English adventure). Since the R~ssian groups showing that after instruction, 3 language changes its noun endings in students did not make any mistake in particular cases, the user needs to take reversing the transliteration process. this into consideration when transliter-

TABLE3 .ERROR COUNT FROM TEST C BY LETTER Letter Count Letter Count Letter Count

a 5 G 0 B 2 r 1 A 3 e 15

:;) 1 )I{ 4 3 10

H 140 80 K 2

J\ 3 "M 1 H 5

0 2 n 3 p 5

c 1 T 10 y 25

5 X 35 ~ 31 'I 11 Ill 11 11\ 22

bl 94 10 90 JI 96 Cyrillic Transliteration 215

Mistakes missing 11 16-27 5 14 2 13 2 11 2 10 2 9 7 8 8 7 9 6 13 5 13 4 17 3 20 2 19 1 11 0 3

0 10 20 30

Number of Students

FIGURE2 Frequency Distribution of Mistakes Made by Students on Test C

ating from Russian and/or back-translit­ demonstrates that the users attempted erating into Russian. When students to base their transliteration on both or­ dealt with transliteration of the word thographic and phonetic rules at the "npHKAIO'Iemtif," in most cases, they same time. In practice, it could mean omitted one of the last letters or substi­ that all bibliographical transliteration tuted the English letter y for them. systems contain some elements of (Phonetically Russian if is considered phonological transcription that are identical with the English y as in yes.) based on the historical habit of pro­ Even though transliteration assumes nouncing certain letters in a certain way. following the rule of "write what you These habits are probably acquired in see" (i.e., performing exclusively ortho­ childhood, and it is just as difficult to graphic transliteration where the user change them as any other phonetic at­ should concentrate only on the letters tributes of articulation such as stress, not on their sounds), the example above pitch, and intonation. The study shows 216 College & Research Libraries May1995 that the students tend to transliterate ported that they were familiar with the according to the spelling and pronun­ online catalog in the library. ciation convention governing their own Another question of the survey dealt (i.e., English) language. with the students' experience of problems in the retrieval of Russian bibliographic Questionnaire records. Table 5 shows that 37 students (26 Undergraduates comprised the larg­ percent) answered that they "sometimes" est group of students (79 percent), and, had problems, followed by those who did of these, 40 percent were seniors. The not know (28 = 19 percent) and those who remaining 21 percent were primarily answered no (27 = 19 percent). graduate students. Only 1 percent of the When answering the question "What group were Ph.D. students. Thus the kind of problems did you have in retriev­ data gathered in this survey represent ing a Russian bibliographic record?" 48 (33 primarily undergraduate students' pat­ percent) students indicated transliteration terns rather that those of the total Rus­ as a major problem (table 6). sian-language student population (see One question also dealt with stu­ table 4). dents' familiarity of the transliteration One of the first questions the students system. Table 7 indicates that 73 re­ were asked in the survey was "Do you spondents (50 percent) indicated that use the library services?" In response to they can search Russian materials with this question, 9 percent of the students the help of the transliteration table. said that they did not use the services Those who felt that they could search offered by the library while 85 percent witJ:lOut a table numbered 40 (28 per­ answered yes. Nine st.udents (6 percent) cent) and 2 students (1 percent) said did not answer the question at all. that they could not search at all. Additional analysis of the relationship To find out students' opinion about between the familiarity with the online possible use and display of the Cyrillic catalog and the students' years in school alphabet in their online search, the fol­ is shown in table 4. Based on the fre­ lowing question was asked: "Do you quency distributions, it was expected that think that it would be easier for you if students who spent more years at school you had the option of using the original would be more familiar with the library Cyrillic alphabet in your search?" The online catalog and the concept of biblio­ majority of the Russian-language stu­ graphic access. Table 4 shows this to be dents (105 = 72 percent) answered yes. primarily the case. Of those students who were freshmen, only 35 percent said that IMPLICATIONS they were familiar with the online catalog, The intent of this study is to examine while 65 percent of graduate students the public reaction to online retrieval of and 100 percent of doctoral students re- material involving Cyrillic script trans-

TABLE4 FAMILIARITY WITH ONLINE CATALOG, BY YEARS IN SCHOOL Years in School Freshman Sophomore J Junior Senior Graduate Doctoral Familiarity with online catalog No. % No. % I No. % No. % No. % No. % Yes 7 35 7 47 73 25 54 13 65 2 100 No 5 25 3 20 12! 12 9 19 3 15 0 0 Little 8 40 5 33 I s 15 12 26 4 20 0 0

Number of students 20 14 15 10 1 33 23 46 32 20 14 2 1 X2 = 11.12; df = 8; Cramer's V = 0.194 Cyrillic Transliteration 217

TABLES FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION FOR PROBLEMS WITH ONLINE CATALOG IN GENERAL AND WITH RETRIEVAL OF RUSSIAN TITLES Online Catalog Retrieval of Russian Titles

R~sponse Frequency % Frequency % Unknown 28 19 14 10 Always 12 8 2 1 Sometimes 37 26 41 28 Seldom 10 7 28 19 No 27 19 41 28 Never tried 31 19 13

TABLE 6 provides insight into the problems of FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION FOR Russian-language students when they KIND OF PROBLEMS WITH try to access transliterated Cyrillic biblio­ RETRIEVAL OF RUSSIAN TITLES graphic records. These data enable the author to determine any statistical sig­ Kind of Problems nificance of particular variables on stu­ with Retrieval Frequency % dents' success-failure rate. As expected, Unknown 76 52 the measurements strongly suggest Transliteration 48 33 that the use of transliteration in biblio­ graphic records forms a barrier to ac­ Diacritical marks 3 2 cess even for those skilled in the original Not familiar with script. A number of other factors, such as online catalog 7 5 unfamiliarity with online searching and Other 11 8 with library resources, exacerbates this problem, but such factors are, of course, not peculiar to language students. The TABLE 7 important'" point is that, even after hours FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION of instruction in the LC tables, most stu­ FOR FAMILIARITY WITH dents still felt that searching in the origi­ TRANSLITERATION nal alphabet would be more efficient and Familiarity with easier. It seems likely that such feelings Transliteration Frequency % are not limited to the Cyrillic alphabet, but would apply to records in other non­ Unknown 26 18 Roman scripts as well. Can search with Any academic library needs to exam­ transliteration table 73 50 ine its user population in order to develop Can search without and implement appropriate services. As­ transliteration table 40 28 sessing the needs of foreign-language Cannot search at all 2 1 students in American colleges or uni­ versities ought to be an integral part of Needs help 4 3 library instruction programs. Because of the scale of the problem, library instruc­ !iterated into Roman letters in a primar­ tion for Russian-language students ily English-language environment. The should not only be the responsibility of diffiCulty of searching for transliterated reference librarians but also of the Russian records for someone who is fa­ Slavic studies faculty, too. Both groups miliar with the Russian alphabet was must, on the strength of this study's tested, involving students at three uni­ findings, include a session on translit­ versities. The analysis of the findings eration that will help students acquaint 218 College & Research Libraries May1995 themselves with the system and teach character set has been developed. Per­ them how to interpret particular charac­ haps academic libraries will eventually ters in the Cyrillic script that could be acquire systems based on this new stand­ troublesome. ard. Implementation of this sixteen-bit Transitions in computer standards character encoding that can represent the that support multiple-character sets in principal written languages collected qy the libraries are predictably slow. Never­ American academic libraries, would mean theless, multiscript-character set, the a revolutionary change in serving foreign Unicode standard/ISO 10646, that su­ language students. It is up to the librari­ persedes the traditional ASCII (American ans, developers, and programmers to Standard Code Information Interchange) make the change.

REFERENCES AND NOTES 1. Virginia P. Sorensen, "Searching for Materials in a Foreign Language," Research Strategies 9 (Summer 1991): 152-55. . 2. David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1987), 346. 3. Catherine E. Pasterczyk, "Russian Transliteration Variations for Searchers," Database 8 (Feb. 1985): 68-75. 4. William Edgerton, "One More Look at the Problems of Transliteration," Slavic Review 48 (Winter 1989): 97-99. · 5. International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, "Transliteration Systems for the Russian Cyrillic Alphabet: Report on a Survey," International Cataloguing: Quarterly of the IFLA Committee on Cataloguing 5 (Apr./June 1976): 8. 6. Hans H. Wellisch, "Bibliographic Access to Multilingual Collections," Library Trends 29 (Fall 1980): 223-44. 7. George C. Steyskal, "A Plain-Letter Romanization for Russian," Library Resources and Technical Services (Spring 1980): 170-72. 8. K. Ahmad and G. G. Corbett, "Bilingual Terminals: Input and Output in Cyrillic and Roman Scripts," in FEOLL Workshop: Computer Simulation in University Teaching (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1981), 237-a2. 9. Sylva Simsova, "Multilingual Information and the Computer," Information Development 1 (Apr. 1985): 103-108. 10. B. Dekleva, Uniform Slavic Transliteration Alphabet (USTA) (Berkeley, Calif.: Univ. of California Pr., 1973). 11. Graphemes are the smallest units in a writing system capable of causing a contrast in meaning. In the English alphabet, the switch from cat to bat introduces a meaning change; therefore, c and b represent different graphemes. For more information, see David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1987), 194. 12. B. Weinberg, "Transliteration in Documentation," Journal of Documentation 30 (Mar. 1974): 18-31. 13. Hans H. Wellisch, "Script Conversion Practices in the World's Libraries," International Library Review 8 (Jan. 1976): 55-84. 14. --,The Conversion of Scripts-Its Nature, History, and Utilization (New York: Wiley, 1978). 15. Susan MacDougal, The State of the Art in the Handling of Vernacular Scripts in Library Systems (Canberra: The Author, 1991). 16. Phonemes are the minimal units in the sound system of a language. For more information, see David Crystal, A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics (Cambridge: Basil Blackwell, 1991): 258. 17. Library of Congress; Processing Services, LC Romanization Tables and Cataloging Policies (Metuchen, N.J.; Scarecrow, 1990). 18. Alena L. Aissing, "Computer Oriented Bibliographic Control for Cyrillic Documents with or without Script Conversion," Information Technology and Libraries 11 (Dec. 1992): 340-44. Cyrillic Transliteration 219

19. S. Michael Malinconico, Walter R. Grutchfield, and Erik J. Steiner, "Vernacular Scripts in the NYPL Automated Bibliographic Control System," Journal of Library Automation 10 (Sept. 1977): 205-25. 20. The Research Libraries Group News 10 (May 1986): 3-4. 21. "Panel on Cyrillic Systems: ALEPH, RLIN VTLS," International Federation of the Interna­ tional Library Associations and Institutions Satellite Meeting on Automated Systems for Access to Multilingual and Multiscript Library Materials (presented at second meeting held in Madrid: 1993) Proceedings (Munich: Saur, 1994). 22. Susan S. Lazinger, "ALEPH: Israel's Research Library Network: Background, Evolution, and Implications for Networking in a Small Country," Information Technology and Libraries 10 (Dec. 1991): 275-91. 23. Roger Butcher, "Multi-lingual OPAC Developments in the British Library," Program 27 (Apr. 1993): 165-71. 24. Information from respective vendors. The features of the VTLS system are described in "Panel on Cyrillic Systems" (see note 21 above). 25. Sylva Simsova, "Coping with Foreign and Nonstandard Character in Libraries," in John Eyre, ed., Small Computers in Libraries (London: Meckler, 1988), 13-15. 26. James Edward Agenbroad, Nonromanization: Prospects for Improving Automated Cataloging of Items in Other Writings (Washington D.C.: Library of Congress, 1992). 27. C. Summer Spalding, "Romanization Reexamined," Library Resources and Technical Services 21 (Jan. 1977): 3-21. 28. Joan M. Aliprand, "Nonroman Scripts in the Bibliographic Environment," Information Technology and Libraries 11 (June 1992): 105-19. 29. Mary Beth Allen, "International Students in Academic Libraries: A User Survey," College & Research Libraries 54 (July 1993): 323-33. 30. Plummer Alston Jones, Jr., "Cultural Oasis or Ethnic Ghetto," North Carolina Libraries 50 (Summer 1992): 100-105. 31. Mark Leggott, "Unique, Universal & Uniform Character Encoding," Canadian Library Journal 48 (Oct. 1991): 345-46. 32. Charles Petzold, "Move Over, ASCII! Unicode Is Here," PC Magazine 12 (Oct. 1993): 374. 33. Charles Petzold, "Viewing a Unicode True Type Font under Windows NT," PC Magazine 12 (Nov. 1993): 375. 34. Charles Petz~;>ld, "Typing Unicode Characters from the Keyboard," PC Magazine 12 (Dec. 1993): 426. 35. John Clews, Language Automation Worldwide (Harrogate: United Kingdom SESAME Com­ puter Projects, 1988). 36. USMARC Specifications for Record Structure, Character Sets, Tapes, prepared by Network - Development and MARC Standards Office (Washington, D.C.: Cataloging Distribution Service, Library of Congress, 1990). 37. Brian P. Holt, Sally H. McCallum and A.B. Long, UNIMARC Manual (London: International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions Universal Bibliographic Control and International MARC Programme, British Library Bibliographic Services, 1987). 38. Joint Technical Committee ISO /IEC JTC1, Information Technology-Universal Multiple-Oc­ tet Coded Character Set, Part 1: "Architecture and Basic Multilingual Plane, ISO/IEC 10646: 1993" (Geneva: International Organization for Standardization, 1993). 39. The Unicode Consortium, The Unicode Standard: Worldwide Character Encoding, Version 1.0 (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1991-92); supplemented by The Unicode Standard, Version 1.1 (prepublication ed.) (Mountain View, Calif.: Unicode Consortium, 1993). (Uni­ code is a trademark of Unicode, Inc.) 40. Alena L. Aissing, The Effectiveness of Cyrillic Transliteration (poster session given at the American Library Association Annual Conference, Atlanta, July 1991). 41. Isomorphic representation-data are expressed exactly as found in the original documents, in this case, in the Russian characters. 42. SAS Institute JMP User's Guide, Version 2.0 (Cary, N.C.: September 1989). 43. Alena L. Aissing, "Computer Oriented Bibliographic Control for Cyrillic Documents with or without Script Conversion," Information Technology and Libraries 11 (Dec. 1992): 340-44. TIME CONSIDER OUTSIDE .0 N G HELP?