YIVO is an acronym for the Yiddish name of the Yiddish Scientific Institute, which was founded in Vilna, Poland in 1925. It is a repository of manuscripts of Sholem Aleichem and Biaklik, records of Jewish communal governments, and other historical documents and books. YIVO is now the standard for Yiddish orthography/spelling. The institute provides weekly Yiddish language courses as well as an intensive summer course.

Have a look at:

  • www.yivoinstitute.org, for the main site
  • http://www.yivoinstitute.org/yiddish/yiddish.htm, for information on YIVO and Yiddish; it also has many Yiddish-related links.
  • http://shakti.cc.trincoll.edu/~mendele/roman.htm, for the YIVO version of Yiddish transliteration

Thanks to tres equis for the links!