The Open Road: language technology developments and public library services
VALA 2002 CONCURRENT SESSION 15: e-nabling Technologies
Friday 8 February 2002, 14:00 – 14:30
Persistent URL: http://www.vala.org.au/vala2002-proceedings/VALA2002-session-15-cunningham
Andrew Cunningham
Multilingual Technical Project Officer, Accessibility and Evaluation Unit, VICNET, State Library of Victoria
Larry Stillman
Accessibility and Evaluation Unit VICNET, State Library of Victoria, and Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Community Networking Research, Monash University
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Abstract
Language technology and access to the internet are crucial components in the development of flexible and responsive library services to culturally and linguistically diverse populations. Minority and emerging languages need public access. Internet access is one way of breaking the linguistic barriers that have been erected around minority and emerging languages. This paper reviews the Open Road multilingual website (www.openroad.vic.gov.au) from a technical perspective, outlining current strengths and limitations of major operating systems and browsers in the display of different character sets. Some solutions for entry and display of languages are offered for public access systems in public library environments.
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