Finding Aids for Archives which have been catalogued in two languages (AtoM 2.4)

[Vicky Phillips]

Dear All,
What is the expected output when generating PDF finding aids from different language interfaces? We have an archive which has been catalogued in both English and Welsh, with English being the predominant record. If we click on Generate within the Welsh interface will it grab the Welsh record to populate the PDF or will it just take the predominant record which in this case will be English?  Just to note that we've previously translated the Finding Aid labels so that they are bilingual. 
Thanks,
Vicky

[Dan Gillean]

Hi Vicky, 

Honestly, I'm not sure - maybe you can experiment and tell us! 

When the finding aid generation feature was originally funded, the budget was limited so the focus was on getting a first pass fully developed in the hopes that future community support would allow us to refine and improve the initial development. In light of this, the stylesheets included were hardcoded in English, and actually based on the Canadian RAD standard template (since the sponsoring institution was Canadian), and not ISAD(G). 

No one has sponsored major enhancements to the finding aids since that initial push, though a few institutions have created their own customizations - for example, we have a French version of the finding aid XSLT developed for the Archives de Montreal on our wiki, here: 

• https://wiki.accesstomemory.org/Community/Community_resources/Customization#Stylesheets
  

If you have a Welsh version and would like to share it, I would be happy to add it to our wiki as well! 

But, long story short: I've not tested the Mtl finding aid or any other community variations that might be floating around. Consequently, I'm not sure how/if language will be factored into the finding aid generation when there are multiple stylesheets available. 

If there is only one finding aid, but the content is in multiple languages, my suspicion is that it will grab the source language record for generation. I think you will end up with English content in your finding aid, and that the culture of the user interface when you hit the generate button will not affect this. 

I did run two quick tests on our public Demo site - where the default installation culture is English. 

TEST 1: 

• Flip user interface culture to French
• Create a hierarchical description while in the French interface, and save it.
• Flip user interface to English and add translations to all fields originally created in French. Save 
• Flip back to the French interface, and publish the descriptions
• While still in the French interface, generate a finding aid.

Outcome: 

• The generated finding aid used the English translations for all fields. 
  

We don't yet know if this is because the finding aid is hard-coded to use English when available, or if it is because the default installation culture of the site is English. 

TEST 2: 

• Flip user interface culture to French
• While still in the French interface, generate a finding aid.

Outcome: 

• French metadata is used. Culture fallback works. 

Further tests that could be run: 

• Changing the default installation culture to French, and repeating both test 1, and an inverted version of test 2. When default culture is FR and there is both original FR and translated EN content, which is used for the finding aid? AKA is language hard-coded with the finding aid at present, or is it dependent on installation culture?

Vicky, in your case, you might be able to answer part of these open questions. Is the default culture of your installation Welsh, or English? I'm hoping it's Welsh, as that will give us more insight...  What happens when you try to generate the finding aid  - does it use the original English text, or the translated Welsh?

If your default installation culture is Welsh and...

• it uses the English version, then this might suggest that English is used whenever it is available - e.g. there is something hardcoded in the finding aid to look for English, and barring that, it relies on culture fallback for the source data. 
• If it uses the Welsh version, this might suggest that the default installation culture determines which version is used when there are multiple languages - regardless of which is the original

If your default installation culture is English and...

• it uses the English version, then we still don't know if this is because it is preferring the source/original version over the translated content, or if it is because the finding aid is hard-coded to look for an English version when available. We'll need further tests. 
• it uses the Welsh version, then ...I'm confused. But it might mean that the most recent version is used and culture is otherwise ignored?

Let us know what you find out!

Dan Gillean, MAS, MLIS
AtoM Program Manager
Artefactual Systems, Inc.
604-527-2056

@accesstomemory

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