[Koha] More question on Cataloging using different character set (Arabic, Chinese & etc.)

[Joshua Ferraro]

Hi Amzari et al,

So first off, I tried it out:

http://opac.liblime.com/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?bib=23750

How's it look?

I don't know Arabic, but I do know from my studies in linguistics
that Arabic is a Right-to-Left language. I also know that there
is some trickiness when it comes to searching because Arabic is
a highly inflected language.

> > It's come to my attention that tags 880 have something to do with this (by
> > the way, I am still learning cataloging).
The role of the 880 is to provide more than one script (called a 
transliteration) for the same language. So for instance, you might
want the main record to use Arabic script, but then provide a 
transliteration script in 880 so that you could search for items
even on a keyboard that didn't support input of Arabic script,
make sense? The example records I posted in response to Carol will
give you a good sense for what is possible in Koha.

> > 1. What should I add in my MARC structure, Links to other fields and etc?
It's hard to give you advice in this area without a more through understanding
of the needs you have for your collection. I'd think you would want to 
follow standard MARC cataloging practice here, though if you want
to be able to search for both Arabic and Latin scripts (within the
same record), you might want to handle that with local use fields as
I've outlined to Carol.

> > 3. Can I directly catalog in [my] native language ([i.e.] Arabic) in tags
> > other than tag 880, not using transliteration? Example tag 245. If I can,
> > how? [snip]
Yep you can. As soon as you set up UTF-8 as Carol has outlined it
should 'just work'.

Of course, if you would like support setting up your system any of
the companies listed on the support page: http://koha.org/support/pay.html
would be glad to help out. Also, if there is functionality related 
to Arabic that you would like to see in Koha, of course we'd love 
to develop it for you.

Cheers,

-- 
Joshua Ferraro               VENDOR SERVICES FOR OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE
President, Technology       migration, training, maintenance, support
LibLime                                Featuring Koha Open-Source ILS
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