Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2009

Publication Title

Program: Electronic Library & Information Systems

Volume

43

Issue

1

First Page

49

Keywords

INTEGRATED library systems (Computer systems), LIBRARY automation, LIBRARY administration, ACADEMIC libraries, DATA libraries, COMPUTER systems, LIBRARY information networks, LIBRARIES -- Data processing, INFORMATION storage & retrieval systems, Canada, Information retrieval, Language, Library management, Library systems, Software engineering

Last Page

61

Abstract

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate various issues related to Chinese language localisation in Evergreen, an open source integrated library system (ILS).

Design/methodology/approach - A Simplified Chinese version of Evergreen was implemented and tested and various issues such as encoding, indexing, searching, and sorting specifically associated with Simplified Chinese language were investigated.

Findings - The paper finds that Unicode eases a lot of ILS development problems. However, having another language version of an ILS does not simply require the translation from one language to another. Indexing, searching, sorting and other locale related issues should be tackled not only language by language, but locale by locale.

Practical implications - Most of the issues that have arisen during this project will be found with other ILS-like systems.

Originality/value - This paper provides insights into issues of, and various solutions to, indexing, searching, and sorting in the Chinese language in an ILS. These issues and the solutions may be applicable to other digital library systems such as institutional repositories.

DOI

10.1108/00330330910934101

Comments

The article available for download is a post print. The definitive version is published in Program: electronic library and information systems and is available here. Copyright (2012) Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

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