DOWNTOWN : Library Offers 3 New Card Catalogues

The Koreatown branch has been doing it for years--Chinatown’s too. The Little Tokyo branch hadn’t started yet but was considering it.

Finally, the Los Angeles Public Library got the hint and introduced catalogue cards in Korean, Chinese and Japanese.

The Los Angeles Public Library has one of the nation’s largest popular collections of Asian language books and materials. But to find them with the card catalogue, patrons had to stumble through phonetic, English or Romanized translations of Asian titles, authors and subjects.

Jae Min Roh, Koreatown’s branch librarian, said that his patrons, 60% of whom speak Korean, ignored the Romanized card catalogue. Korean books that had phonetic translations on their spines usually went untouched.

“I’m familiar with the system and it was even difficult for me to understand the Romanized titles,” Roh said.

Romanized pronunciations usually correspond to more than one Asian character and can carry more than one meaning.

Seeing the difficulty that his patrons were experiencing, Roh and his staff began preparing their own catalogue cards using Korean characters. In the last five to six years they have written nearly 3,000 of their own cards.

The Chinatown branch took it a step further. Its staff, who said more than half of their 800 daily patrons speak Chinese, began creating their own Chinese-character card catalogue in the late 1970s. But during the ‘80s they joined the computer age and began electronically printing their Chinese-symbol catalogue cards.

“One of our patrons created a computer program which allowed us to do it,” said Carol Duan, the branch librarian.

Following the lead of the branch libraries, the library administration began issuing catalogue cards using the Asian language symbols in July, said Violet Kuroki, head of the catalogue department.

The branch libraries have recently begun to use the official cards.

At the Little Tokyo branch library, where 90% of the patrons speak Japanese, the staff had not created their own card catalogue but were happy to receive the new cards prepared by the library administration.

“This gives (the patrons) more independence and control. Now they can browse through the catalogue without having to ask the professional staff for help,” said Susan Thompson, branch librarian.

The next step is to get the Asian symbols on-line. The public library’s technical services staff is working on updating the automated circulation system and computerized catalogue to display Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters.

* The Little Tokyo branch is at 600 E. 3rd St. (213) 612-0525.

* The Koreatown branch is at 2613 W. Olympic Blvd. (213) 381-1453.

* The Chinatown branch is at 536 W. College St. (213) 620-0925.