Multiple non‐roman scripts in aleph—israel's research library network

As the only country in the world in which Hebrew is the official language, Israel found it necessary to develop software enabling its research library catalogs from the outset to handle two alphabets—Hebrew (including Yiddish and Ladino) and Roman characters. Starting in 1981, ALEPH, Israel's research library network, utilized locally developed software that could provide both a Hebrew and Roman mode. However, since the nation's research libraries had large collections in Arabic and Cyrillic languages, an urgent need arose for a system that could also handle Arabic and Cyrillic materials. This led to the development of soft fonts, software instead of the hardware‐based Hebrew‐English solution that was incorporated in ALEPH's earlier versions. The soft fonts can display on any VT320 or upwardly compatible terminal in Roman‐alphabet, Hebrew, Arabic, and Cyrillic. Furthermore, in the Hebrew and Arabic modes, the language of communication with the computer (commands, HELP, and so on) are also in the vernacular. This article focuses on some of the problems and solutions involved in developing ALEPH's multi‐script, bi‐directional system.