Language preference in a bi-language digital library

ABSTRACT

This paper examines user choice of interface language in a bi-language digital library (English and Maori, the language of the indigenous people of New Zealand). The majority of collection documents are in Maori, and the interface is available in both Maori and English. Log analysis shows three categories of preference for interface language: primarily English, primarily Maori, and bilingual (switching back and forth between the two).

REFERENCES

• 1: Apperley M. D., Keegan T. T., Cunningham S. J., & Witten, I. H. Delivering the Maori newspapers on the Internet. In Rere Atu Taku Manu! Discovering History Language and Politics In The Maori Language Newspapers. Auckland University Press. (2002) 211--236.
• 2: Shihong Huang , Scott Tilley, Issues of content and structure for a multilingual web site, Proceedings of the 19th annual international conference on Computer documentation, October 21-24, 2001, Sante Fe, New Mexico, USA [doi>10.1145/501516.501537]
• 3: Saverio Perugini , Kathleen McDevitt , Ryan Richardson , Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones , Rao Shen , Naren Ramakrishnan , Chris Williams , Edward A. Fox, Enhancing usability in CITIDEL: multimodal, multilingual, and interactive visualization interfaces, Proceedings of the 4th ACM/IEEE-CS joint conference on Digital libraries, June 07-11, 2004, Tuscon, AZ, USA [doi>10.1145/996350.996424]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL
      H.3.7 Digital Libraries
          Subjects: User issues

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors

Keywords:
log analysis, multi-lingual access