Re: Tips on Modern Languages

[Dan Robinson / Indexing Services <drobinson@INFO.HWWILSON.COM>]

Earl, and others,

        If your OPAC is using the MARC format as input, MARC provides an
indicator field to tell the program how many characters to ignore
before starting to alphabetize a title.  If your OPAC allows editing,
you could physically enter the number of characters to ignore.

In theory, a program could pick up the language code from the MARC
008 field and use a specialized list of articles for that language.
That way an English title that began 'Die,  you savage beast'
would start alphabetizing with the word 'Die' while a German language
story of 'Die Fliedermouse' (sp??) would began alphabetizing with the
word 'Fliedermouse'.

We found out when we converted data in our own format to MARC format,
that such narrow distinctions where quite hard for computers to
handle. If you can get specialized programming, you could have
alphabetization on both the first and second words of a title,
provided the first was in a list, regardless of language code.
You'll still have some odd sequences anyway.

Sometimes, nothing beats a person.

Dan Robinson
Indexing Services
H.W. Wilson Company
Bronx, NY
drobinson@hwwilson.com



On 27 Dec 97 at 7:57, Earl Sande wrote:

> Those of us with computers know the frustration of cataloguing
> modern language materials.  In many of OPACs, the initial English
> words (like : a, an, the, ) are ignored in the indexing.  Los, Le,
> La and most modern language ones, however, either require purchasing
> additional modules (if you're lucky) or accepting this problem.  One
> solution :  when entering modern language materials, do not enter
> the intial words that would normally be ignored if the item were in
> English. And, by the way, rather than using the ASCII code for the
> various language-specific alphabet letters, I found our language
> teachers had no hesitation in recommending using the modern English
> alphabet instead. Sure saves time! Finally, the method of DDC
> cataloguing I mentioned in another tip has now been tested and
> found, to quote one of my French teachers, "Absolutely Wonderful!"
> Now, if I can only learn German, Spanish, Italian, .............. to
> do the same for the others. Earl Sande, Upper School Librarian,
> International School of Tanganyika, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
>

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