An Assessment of Arabic Transliteration Systems

The American Library Association and the Library of Congress currently use a cooperatively developed Arabic transliteration method that incorporates the use of diacritical marks native to neither Arabic nor English. This study seeks to investigate whether the adoption of an alternate Arabic transliteration system can increase user access to library materials. The various systems are evaluated based upon phonetic and spelling accuracy, as well as usability and the adherence to not using non-native diacritics.