FW: Help Improve the Discovery of Translated Works in WorldCat
Lesage, Rhea Karabelas
Dear MGSA members,
Please pass this information on to the librarians at your institutions.
Thank you,
Rhea
Rhea K. Lesage
Librarian for Hellenic Studies and Coordinator for the Classics
Humanities and Social Sciences Collections and Services
Widener Library Room G60A
One Harvard Yard
Harvard College Library
Cambridge, MA 02138
================
Dear colleagues,
I am writing to draw your attention to a proposal (an OCLC Community Center account is required) to improve the discovery of translated works in WorldCat. The proposal was directly inspired by Ausiàs Tsel’s blog posts shared in this listserv back in April.
Here is a little background of my proposal. Last year, Princeton University Library introduced the ability to search by the source language of translations in its discovery system. Users can conduct advanced searches to meet all sorts of retrieval needs, such as—
· Find titles translated from Ukrainian into English since 2014.
· Locate fiction translated from Korean or Japanese into other languages.
· Explore works on philosophy translated from German into French.
The feature also makes it much easier to discover bilingual and parallel-text editions (for example, English–Chinese).
The feature was developed in response to user needs identified by collection selectors, reference librarians, and metadata librarians, and received immediate praise from Princeton faculty members. Such functionalities were previously locked when a small but crucial data point about source language of translations failed to be indexed. Once enabled, the new feature supports the growing popular interests in translated literature, as well as academic pursuits in translation studies and global circulation of ideas.
Beyond Princeton, however, researchers and translators continue to describe how difficult it is to discover translated works. Recent discussions, in addition to Ausiàs Tsel’s blog, include:
· Fricker, Christophe. "Librarians, OCLC and Clarivate: Discover translation!" [Linkedin post]
· Groenland, Tim, and Michaela Králová. "Data, Discoverability, and Translation in the UK and Irish Book Markets." Mémoires du livre / Studies in Book Culture, vol. 16, no. 2, 2025, pp. 1–26. Érudit, [URL] (Explores limitations upon available data on translated books in the UK and Ireland, focusing on the absence of a comprehensive database of titles.)
Ultimately, the most effective solution lies with WorldCat, arguably the world's most comprehensive bibliographic database. I have submitted a proposal asking OCLC to index MARC field 041 $h (source language of a translation) and make it searchable in the WorldCat discovery interface. Doing so would allow users to search directly for translated works by their source language, greatly improving the discoverability of translations across the WorldCat ecosystem.
Translating (pun intended) that proposal into a product, however, depends on support from the library community. In particular, librarians affiliated with OCLC member libraries are eligible to vote and comment on ideas submitted to the OCLC Community Center.
OCLC relies on community feedback when evaluating proposals:
"You vote for an idea by giving it kudos. … Your kudos are our primary tool for evaluating the demand for community ideas."
My proposal is currently competing with more than 1,300 other ideas. Without sufficient votes and comments, it will simply be buried.
There is also an important lesson from history. This is not the first time librarians have requested this functionality, which reflects a longstanding need shared by librarians, researchers, translators, and other users. In 2021, Martijn Van Wensveen submitted a nearly identical proposal, "Add a new index for searching for original language (041 $h)." Unfortunately, because it did not receive enough votes/comments, OCLC eventually closed the proposal--without visible community support, even well-founded proposals disappear before they can be seriously considered.
If you know librarians who care about improving the discovery of translated works, I would be grateful if you would share this proposal with them. Librarians at any of OCLC's more than 16,000 member institutions can register for an individual Community Center account, vote for the proposal (i.e., giving “kudos”), and leave comments describing why this functionality would benefit their own users.
One practical note: registering for an OCLC Community Center account is not instantaneous. New accounts typically require four to five days for approval, so it takes real commitment to go through the process with patience and attentiveness.
While waiting for account approval, you are welcome to preview the proposal in this PDF, which is a saved copy of the OCLC Community Center page.
Best,
Minjie
------------------------------------------------------------
Minjie Chen, Metadata Librarian
Leader, Cotsen Children’s Library Cataloging Team
Princeton University Library
Phone: (609)258-9574
Email: chenm...@princeton.edu
https://libguides.princeton.edu/cotsen
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "mideastcat-l" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to
mideastcat-l...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mideastcat-l/CAK5%3DmpAMU8OXQUYD6MTfzEhcZr1gCCOsBCCoQAE4eSs8UUoatw%40mail.gmail.com.