Q. Can I type in different (non-Roman) scripts in Quicksearch?

Yes, you can type and search in many different non-Roman scripts in Quicksearch! You'll have to change your input keyboard to do this. 

• Mac (Language & Text - Input Sources)

• PC (Keyboards and Language). Also check out Google Input Tools!

For foreign languages that use the normal Roman alphabet (like French, Hmong, Norwegian, or Wolof) simply type away! Quicksearch is smart enough to not need accents or diacritics.

• Learn more about how to correctly Romanize your language within the library system.

• More about Searching in non-Roman scripts in Orbis

THE BACKGROUND REASONING

DO NOT CONFUSE LANGUAGE WITH SCRIPT!  Just because Quicksearch will accept different scripts doesn't mean you're going to get excellent results in that language. Why?

• Older catalog records often won't have original scipt (non-Roman) text in them. Instead they are only Romanized. (example of an old record)

• Books that were published in the UK, UK, or Western Europe often won't have original script (non-Roman) data in them (example of a record for a book published in the US)

• Not all languages are currently being cataloged in original scipt (example of a Nepali book)

      EXAMPLE

• नेपाल: 0 result in Books+, 2 results in Articles+

• Nepal: over 5,000 results in Books+ (including over 150 items in the Nepali language), and over 425,000 results in Articles+

SOME LANGUAGES have many records in Quicksearch that have original script (non-Roman) text in them. Try searching in both the original script and Romanization for these languages:

• Chinese
• Japanese
• Korean
• Hebrew
• Arabic
• Russian 

Other languages only have a few records with non-Roman script: 

• Southeast Asian languages (mostly Thai)
• South Asian languages (mostly Devanagari-based languages and Tamil)
• African languages (mostly Ethiopic and extended Latin/IPA)
• Greek