Library resources provider EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) has announced that it has improved upon its already superior platforms for Middle Eastern Studies. By enhancing multilingual content search technology, EBSCO will make the Arabic-language content in EBSCOhost databases and EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) more discoverable.
EBSCO products, including Arab e-Marefa, benefit from the improvements which overcome many of the challenges that arise when performing keyword searches in the Arabic language, such as variations in spelling that can occur across the Arabic speaking world. The search engine also accounts for unique characteristics in the Arabic language by removing common prefixes and suffixes that only serve a grammatical purpose.
Finally, it is quite common in Arabic for a noun to have an irregular (or "broken") plural, similar to English with mouse/mice or child/children. The search engine recognises broken plurals and returns documents containing either version.
The Arabic language search upgrades are part of EBSCO's efforts to support multi-language capabilities for non-English language searches. It is expected that these enhancements will further improve the already superior platform for Middle Eastern Studies that EBSCOhost and EBSCO Discovery Service provide.