| Technology & MCL services | Digital Libraries | Other Voices |
Currently we are witnessing a transformation of the internet. Multilingual support is being incorporated into web development tools, web browsers and operating systems and a growing amount of material is available on the Internet in languages other than English.
This growth provides an opportunity for public libraries to extend their public internet access and extend their services to their NESB (Non-English speaking background) patrons. Library Services' provision of services to NESB patrons has traditionally been constrained by financial, demographic, and supply factors.
Due to limitations of, and demands on, available resources, public libraries that offer multicultural or ethnic services have developed collection development guidelines that provide a systematic measure for determining which community languages they should provide services for and the amount of resources that can be allocated to each language. The formulae may differ from library service to library service, but the underlying constraints are financial, demographic, and logistical.
The public internet access provides a new way of looking at multicultural or ethnic services in public libraries. Initially, multilingual internet service provision provides the opportunity to extend services to existing supported languages to a new media. Public Libraries that provide access to non-English language materials tend to initially provide internet support to these supported community languages.
This approach limits the possibilities of multilingual internet access. Public Libraries have a tool which now allows them to adapt and provide services for:
It becomes feasible for library services, that traditionally don't have multicultural or ethnic collections to provide a service to their NESB patrons. These patrons could be small ethnocultural communities, seasonal workers, tourists, students, exchange students, individuals and families from a NESB.
The growth in the internet and multilingual computing has a range of benefits for multicultural library staff.
In the following sections MCL-net will attempt to link to available research and conference papers, available online, which focus on the provision of multicultural or multilingual services. The links are divided into three sections:
| Technology & MCL services | Digital Libraries | Other Voices |
For further information contact Andrew Cunningham or Larry Stillman at VICNET.