Conversion of Wade-Giles to pinyin: An estimation of efficiency improvement in retrieval for item-specific OPAC searches

The recent adoption of the Hanyu pinyin Romanization standard by the Librar y, of Congress will affect many libraries in North America in the coming ye ars. Using pinyin over Wade-Giles will have a definite impact on retrieval in online library catalogues. End users are, for the great majority: more f amiliar with pinyin than with Wade-Giles. Other factors related to the Roma nization scheme itself can also influence retrieval efficiency The current investigation identifies three factors, related to the change from Wade-Gil es to monosyllabic pinyin, that will influence retrieval efficiency in item -specific title searches in OPACs. The relative importance of each of these factors is estimated. The analysis reveals that the impact of the two fact ors related to the nature of the Romanization scheme itself is minimal and most of the time inconsequential. The impact of the other factor, related t o the familiarity of end users with the Romanization system, is much more d eterminant in improving retrieval efficiency,. (C) Canadian Journal of Info rmation and Library Science.