Searching Hebraica Titles in Penn’s Online Catalog: Library of Congress (LC) romanization for Hebrew titles

Today, virtually all libraries in the United States, and some elsewhere, follow LC romanization tables. Some points to remember:

• In most cases, LC romanization is phonetic. It transliterates both the visible consonants and the unseen vowels, based on Hebrew vocalization (nikud), grammar, and syntax rules.
• See the Hebrew and Yiddish romanization table for a list of letters and vowels. However, knowing the roman equivalents of the Hebrew letters alone is not enough by itself in order to romanize. Because romanization infers the vowels from the context of the phrase, one must know the correct “niḳud” in order to romanize correctly. This point will become clear with the exercises that follow.
• LC romanization differs slightly from the scheme used in the scholarly world. LC uses the same roman character to represent two different Hebrew characters at times, with diacritical marks (subscript dots or accent marks) to distinguish between the two. When searching, it is not necessary to type the diacritics, but using the correct letter is essential. You will see diacritics used in many words in the record.
• Separate romanization tables and rules dictate the romanization of Judeo-Arabic and Ladino.

A. Examples of a single roman letter representing two Hebrew ones, and of two roman letters representing a single Hebrew one:

B. Use of the letter E in romanization:
The letter “e” is used in the following instances: