There are three ways to search for Hebrew authors: With Hebrew characters; by the author’s preferred romanization, determined by how it appears in an added title page in a Hebrew book; or by LC romanization. In most cases, searching any of these three ways will lead to the established author entry via “Preferred” or “Alternate” form links.
(Exception: Searching by Hebrew characters may in some cases yield no results if that author’s work was cataloged entirely in romanization, without subsequent revisions that added Hebrew script. In such a case, try searching by LC Romanization.)
Examples of types of entries discussed:
1. Hebrew to LC romanization: עוז, עמוס → Oz, Amos
Using Oz, Amos as an example, if you run an author browse search for the name in Hebrew characters [עוז, עמוס], you will get only 17 results, since only 17 records contain Hebrew script:
Beneath the entry of the name in the Hebrew script is a cross-reference to the established romanized form, Oz, Amos, which is currently found in 125 records.
The following is an example of a record that cannot be found when using the Hebrew form of the name עוז, עמוס. It is one of 108 records with Oz as the author that currently has romanization only.
The title ʻAd maṿet is only found by searching it in romanized form. Searching עד מוות will retrieve no results since the record contains no Hebrew script.
The record can also be retrieved by searching for the author Oz, Amos, sorting the titles retrieved alphabetically. Thus, once you know the established form of an author name, it can be more efficient to search directly from that form.
2. Variant romanization to established form of name: Weiss, Hilel → Ṿais, Hilel
Cataloging rules applying to Hebraica authors are complex. Hence, two authors with the surname of “Weiss” may be spelled “Weiss” for one and “Vais” for another. This would depend on whether or not the author used a romanized form in the book first cataloged or if such a form can be found online. The concept behind this practice is to respect authors’ wishes for their preferred romanization. However, if the Hebrew book contains no romanized form supplied by the author and it cannot be found in online sources such as LinkedIn or Facebook, then Library of Congress romanization prevails. The National Authority File contains an established form for each author, along with cross-references, and is used for the sake of uniformity by libraries across the United States.
Searching the name Weiss, Hillel retrieves the following:
3. Author’s preference vs. LC romanized form: Amichai; Hakak
The name Yehuda Amichai is established in library catalogs as such because, per his publications, the author prefers the letter ח be represented by ch instead of ḥ. Searching his name by the standard romanized form, Amiḥai, Yehudah, will point to the established form:
In contrast, other authors with the letter ח in their name may have publications in which their name is romanized with the letter H (without the subscript dot). Some examples include the twin brothers, poets Herzel and Balfour Hakak:
As seen in the image above, searching for the author in any form will point to the established form which links to all records in Franklin for that author.
But the following two examples have no supplied romanized form in their respective books. Thus, the letter ח has a subscript dot in the established forms because that is the form following LC romanization: Ḥatsor, Ilan | Ḥayek, Yo’av.
Important note: For searching purposes, diacritical marks need not be included.
To summarize, searching for authors by either vernacular or standard romanized terms should lead you to the established/preferred form of name. The entry with the most records attached to it should be the one that will display your desired results. The same cannot be said for searching titles, as there are titles that can only be found by searching the standard romanized form of the title.
