If you want your patrons to be able to search with Arabic words in subject headings as well, you may have to find an Arabic-language thesaurus. I think Dewey (19? 20?) has been
Salvete! Hey, thanks for the compliment, Steven. :D translated into Arabic but I am not
sure about LCSH. Otherwise, there might be a Malaysian national standard to use.
After some discussion on this list a looong time ago, if you've not selected a classification system, I would heartily urge you to consider Colon Classification. While you might be a little daunted by it at first, I believe that its flexibility would reward your efforts in the long run. Use an old fashioned Ranganathan version, instead of the newest issue. If I had guts and an army of assistants, that's what I'd use. Dewey, in my not so humble opinion, would be an awful choice for an Arabic library due to it's Western slant. I was helping my clerk classify language tapes that we got in yesterday, and she was justifiably confused. While French, Italian, German and Spanish all played nicely, Japanese, Chinese and Arabic were funky by comparison. I'd be hesitant to commit to something that's not particularly friendly or extensive in your area of focus. Cheers, Brooke @ Hinsdale MA