[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] ***SPAM*** Integrating Google Translate with Evergreen

[Don Butterworth]

Colleagues, 

I just found out that American University of Rome has added a Google Translate app to its Koha online catalog. Here is a sample record from their catalog http://www.galileo.aur.it/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?bib=26480 Just choose the language from the right sidebar drop-down menu and Voila, instant translation. Is this something that could work with Evergreen too? 

Don 

Don Butterworth 
Faculty Associate / Librarian III 
B.L. Fisher Library 
Asbury Theological Seminary 
(859) 858-2227 
don.butterworth at asburyseminary.edu 

----- Original Message -----
From: "James Weinheimer" <j.weinheimer at AUR.EDU> 
To: AUTOCAT at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU 
Sent: Friday, March 4, 2011 3:25:49 AM 
Subject: Re: [ACAT] "our" vs "or" (was:Re: Subjective Judgements in RDA 300s????) 

On Thu, 3 Mar 2011 01:11:31 -0500, Hal Cain <hecain at DML.VIC.EDU.AU> wrote: 

>On Wed, 2 Mar 2011 10:33:54 -0500, Aaron Kuperman <akup at LOC.GOV> wrote: 
> 
>>Is there a way we could have the OPACs and cataloging systems 
>>automatically switch between British and American spellings in fields that 
>>don't involve transcription, such as the 300, the 5xx fields (other than 
>>quoted notes), etc. It seems to me a program would be told which spelling 
>>a library prefers, and could adapt the field without making any extra work 
>>for us. It probably could even do that for changing cataloging from 
>>non-English sources as well.--Aaron 
> 
>Barbara Tillett's notion of authority control as "access control", offering the user the capability to switch between desired languages for searching (and seeing results) on names (like Confucius, or Vergil, to mention some classics) that vary according to the language environment, could be extended to cover alternative languages for bibliographic description. 
> 
>In such a case, that would require that "language of cataloguing" be coded differently for British or American English. 

There are other possibilities though. The incredible example of Google Translate shows an alternative. I have implemented the API for my catalog, as you can see in a record, e.g. http://www.galileo.aur.it/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?bib=26480 in the right column, you will see a drop-down box of Google Translate. (This is a mashup and the box may take a moment to load) Just select any language and watch the magic! I am still amazed when I see it. 

Students at my institution think this is really cool, plus they have found it useful to translate into and out of Italian. To see the original, just run your mouse over the parts you want. Of course, not all the translations are perfect--people have no trouble at all understanding this today--but it can be implemented very easily and for *no cost* at all. 

The differences between British and American spellings ("u" or "re") pale in comparison with what this tool from Google accomplishes. People who know English have no problem understanding that "labour" and "labor" or "centre" and "center" mean the same things, but people have genuine problems understanding languages they either do not know or have a shaky grasp of. Google Translate can provide highly substantial help. 

All of this shows that providing translations that can *help* our patrons (and it is important to separate "providing help" from "being perfect") is quite achievable. Just examining a few of the abbreviations in the 300 field shows that Google Translate does a highly creditable job. 

If catalogs had something similar that worked only in certain areas/fields of the record, we could create something of much greater utility for everyone concerned. But who knows? It could be that simply implementing the Google Translate API solves *all the problems,* while it is so much more flexible, saves scads of money, plus it allows the catalogers to focus their time on more productive tasks. For example, why would implementing Google Translate *not* solve the "problems" we are discussing here? 

Again, modern technology allows an entire raft of solutions that were considered science fiction just a decade or so ago. We must utilize that power to improve what we do and how we do it. 

James Weinheimer j.weinheimer at aur.edu 
Director of Library and Information Services 
The American University of Rome 
via Pietro Roselli, 4 
00153 Rome, Italy 
voice- 011 39 06 58330919 ext. 258 
fax-011 39 06 58330992 
First Thus: http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/ 
Cooperative Cataloging Rules: http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/ 

-- 
*********************************************************************** 

AUTOCAT quoting guide: http://www.cwu.edu/~dcc/Autocat/copyright.html 
E-mail AUTOCAT listowners: autocat-request at listserv.syr.edu 
Search AUTOCAT archives: http://listserv.syr.edu/archives/autocat.html 
By posting messages to AUTOCAT, the author does not cede copyright 

*********************************************************************** 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://libmail.georgialibraries.org/pipermail/open-ils-general/attachments/20110304/db6dba32/attachment.htm