OCLC Macro for Adding Cyrillic Fields in Bibliographic Records

In 2005, OCLC's Connexion software was updated to allow the addition of parallel fields in Cyrillic script for Slavic and other languages. However, several Cyrillic characters--for example the Church Slavic character yus malyĭ (ѧ, ѧ)--are still not fully supported in OCLC records. Although they may actually be available in the Cyrillic macros, OCLC records with these characters will not validate, although it seems possible to add them via bulk exports. Until these letters are fully supported, OCLC suggests that the letter graph be replaced with the corresponding Numerical Character Reference (NCR) code, so that is can be replaced with the proper graph in the future (more on NCRs at Wikipedia; and more on problematic Church Slavic characters in Transcribing Church Slavic).

Soon after Cyrillic script support was added, Joel Hahn developed a series of macros to automate the transliteration work for catalogers. His macros can be used to derive a Cyrillic field from a romanized field or a romanized field from a Cyrillic field. The macros take into account the differences in romanization between the languages by having the cataloger designate the language as the macro is run. Because of the one-to-one correspondence between the original Cyrillic character and its romanized counterpart, the automation of parallel fields for these languages works much better than it does for some other languages.

To download the macros:

Joel Hahn's macros can be found on his Better Living Through Macros website. You'll want to click on the "Connexion Client" link and download the "Transliteration" macros. At the top of the "Connexion Client" page, Joel gives a link to complete instructions for downloading the macros.

Once you have downloaded the macros, you can assign the one(s) that you will use to a keystroke combination not otherwise being used by Connexion. The latin2cyrillic macro will generate a Cyrillic parallel field from a romanized field. Its counterpart, cyrillic2latin, will generate a romanized field from a Cyrillic field.

To use the macros:

- Place your cursor anywhere in the field from which you want to generate a parallel field. Run the macro (you will probably want to assign the macro to an unused key combination in Connexion)
- A dialogue box will ask you to choose the language from a drop-down list. Russian is at the top of the list, and the rest of the languages will appear under that. You can use a keystroke to identify the language by pressing Shift/Tab and then entering the first letter of the language that you want to use, e.g., "u" for "Ukrainian."

Tip: if you are handy with macros, you can manually edit the macros to reorder the languages, e.g., if you are only working with Ukrainian, you may wish to move that to the top of the list, so that it becomes the default language.

- Press ENTER or click OK to supply your parallel field. The parallel fields will appear with the Cyrillic field above the romanized field, linked visually on the left by a bracket.

- Some paired fields might need editing after you create them. If the field contains non-Cyrillic data as well as Cyrillic language data, you will have to put the non-Cyrillic data back into the appropriate alphabet. Some examples of this:
  - Parallel titles in a 245 field in which some words are in Cyrillic script and others in Latin script
  - Fields that contain text in English, such as a phrase like "At head of title:"
  - The roman numeral X remains X; I, V, D, L, M are converted to the corresponding Cyrillic letters И, В, Д, Л, М.
  - Subject headings for names established in vernacular language, followed by a subdivision, such as Akhmatova, Anna Andreevna, 1889-1966 ǂx Archives.
  - Some additions to personal names, such as “approximately” with dates.

Advantages to adding parallel fields

- The ALA-LC romanization tables have served us well, but they do require users to learn a special romanization scheme just to find materials in Cyrillic script. Adding parallel fields allows users to search via the Cyrillic fields without having to memorize the romanization scheme.
- It makes proofreading easier for catalogers, since the record is in the same script as the item.
- You can earn OCLC credit for your library by enriching the record with these fields. Even non-PCC libraries can add parallel fields to DLC/PCC records.
- With Joel Hahn's macros, adding the parallel fields takes very little time.