Dear colleagues,
Several of you asked about the status of script input the last couple of weeks. The Library of Congress and OCLC have been working together to provide a status update. Below is the announcement issued by Beacher Wiggins on behalf of the Library of Congress.
The Library of Congress announced the expansion of non-Latin script input in bibliographic and authority records on September 18. Since then, the Library has been working closely with OCLC to ensure that LC records distributed to OCLC are correctly rendered in its original script including both bibliographic and authority records. We are pleased to share that we have started adding scripts in both bibliographic and authority records for the following languages included in the Phase I implementation (October 2025-Spring 2026): Assamese, Bengali, Marathi, Panjabi, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Sinhalese, Tamil, Telugu, Tibetan, Devanagari-based languages, Burmese, and Kurdish.
Additionally, the expansion includes the following areas that were not part of the original announcement.
- Armenian, Thai, and Mongolian input in authority records
- The extended Cyrillic character set
- All CJK Unicode characters
- Indigenous North American languages
As part of OCLC's commitment to data quality and system integrity, they are following a validation process to ensure accurate script rendering across all OCLC applications.
OCLC members interested in contributing records with scripts included in the expanded list should follow OCLC communications for rollout status and script specific contribution guidelines.
For project updates related to LC announcement, please visit: https://loc.gov/aba/news/
The list of scripts/languages already implemented in Phase I can be found at: https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html
For project updates related to OCLC announcement, please visit: https://help.oclc.org/Metadata_Services/WorldShare_Record_Manager/Reference/Details_from_OCLC_Library_of_Congress_scripts
Thank you very much for your valuable feedback and contributions to this important project.
Jessalyn Zoom
Chief, Asian and Middle Eastern Division
Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate
Library of Congress
101 Independence Avenue, S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20540
Email: jiwu@loc.gov
Phone: 202-707-4264
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Karl Pettitt
Coordinator of Cataloging and Metadata Services
University of Denver Libraries
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