I’m forwarding the message below from Christophe Fricker, member of the Translators Association (UK), about how to make translations more visible in library catalogues (incl. OCLC). Fricker presents useful info and a call for action regarding translations from all languages, including from English to Chinese–Helen Wang <helentao@hotmail.co.uk>
Dear all, you may remember a conversation about why so many translations don’t show up in library catalogues. I have found out why this is, and how it can be remedied.
It needs the vendors of ‘discovery layers,’ i.e. the search engines behind your library’s catalogue to ‘index’ the field in which information about translation is entered. There are two bits of good news here: the change is relatively straightforward, and OCLC, the biggest player in the industry, is already asking whether they should make this change.
Librarians need to say yes to the ‘ideas request’ that OCLC has put out in their ‘community center.’ So far, very few have responded, so we need to draw the attention of librarians to this giant opportunity for translation, and provide them with the arguments why they should offer support.
I have summarised what is needed, and possible, and the main argument for making translation visible in library catalogue results specifically:
Please share if you can; respond if you are a librarian; and add comments and corrections.
Thank you!
Christophe Fricker