Michael Hunter

1
The Net Across the World

• Michael Hunter
• Hobart and William Smith Colleges
• for Western New York Library Resources Council
• Member Libraries Staff
• Sponsored by the
• Western New York Library Resources Council

2
For Today

• Communicate in a foreign language on a computer
• Locate gateways to Search Services in Foreign
  Countries
• Search non-English services
• Locate, use and evaluate free translation
  services
• Explore Spanish language search services

3
Focus today is on PC (Windows)Information for
Macintosh at http//www.colby.edu/lrc/help/accen
ts.html
4
What are the languages of the Webs Content?

• OCLCs Web Characterization Project
• Of all unique websites in October, 2001
• 73 English
• 7 German
• 5 Japanese
• 3 French
• 3 Spanish
• 9 Other

5
Who is on the Web?From Global Reach Online
Marketinghttp//global-reach.biz/globstats/(form
erly glreach.com)
6
(No Transcript)
7
Communicating in a foreign language on a computer

• Two-way process (similar to us)
• Understanding (Display)
• Speaking (Output)

8
Displaying ContentUnderstanding the language

• A computer must recognize non-English characters
  in a variety of contexts
• Files, e-mails, web pages and more
• Involves operating system, applications and
  browser settings

9
Output (from You!)Speaking the language

• Creating files, e-mails, web pages and more
• Involves operating system, applications, browsers
  AND keyboard layout settings

10
Displaying ContentUnderstanding the Language
11
Display

• Applications (Word, etc.)
• Check the help files
• Multilanguage use of Browsers
• Need to select language (font)
• Need to specify appropriate encoding option for
  the languages you will be using

12
Setting the Language (font)

• Netscape
• Edit Preferences Appearance Fonts (set both
  variable and fixed)
• NOTE Netscape may automatically link a font with
  the encoding you select)
• IE
• Tools Internet Options Languages
• NOTE To activate settings, close the browser and
  open it again

13
Encoding

• The method by which a document has been converted
  to computerized data (aka character set)
• Not necessarily equivalent to a language.
• Most Western languages use one (ISO 8859-1), but
  some languages (Russian, Chinese, Japanese) have
  several encoding schemes

14
How do I know which one is the current setting
and/or change it?

• Netscape
• View Character Set
• IE
• View Encoding
• NOTE IE has an Auto-select feature which works
  with most commonly used languages

15
How do I know which to use?

• For Western European use
• Western ISO 8859-1
• For Central European, Baltic, Cyrillic, Greek,
  Turkish-based and Asian languages try a Windows
  or ISO encoding scheme when available.
• Some schemes are platform-specific check with
  your system administrator
• If a document wont display, try to e-mail a
  contact person to determine the encoding scheme
  you need. ( You may need to be creative to do
  this!)

16
What is Unicode?

• Encoding scheme that provides a unique number for
  every character
• No matter what the language
• No matter what the platform
• No matter what the program
• Required standard in XML, Java, and WML
• Enables data to be transported across multiple
  platforms, languages and countries without
  corruption.
• AKA USO 10646 AKA UTF-8

17
What are Dynamic Fonts?

• Fonts provided with the document
• Usually in a .pfr file that accompanies the
  document
• Allows the user to view the document without
  loading the font, or re-setting the browser or
  application
• Increasingly used in documents in Far-Eastern
  languages

18
Output (from You!)Speaking the language
19
Keyboards

• The usual one is US 101
• a qwerty standard
• The US-International is a qwerty keyboard with a
  few added features (I recommend it for all
  Western European languages)
• Other non-qwerty keyboard layouts exist
  specifically for individual languages

20
Output (from You)Speaking the language

• Set language (fonts) and encoding appropriate to
  the language you will be using
• Select a keyboard layout
• FOR WINDOWS
• Control Panel Keyboard Language (or Input
  locales)
• US-International recommended
• RESTART after changing a keyboard layout to
  activate the change

21
Output (from You)Speaking the language

• Some applications have specific keyboard schemes
  for non-English characters
• Creating Web pages
• See Hunters Toolkit for html code for characters
  in Western European languages
• Check help files in Composer, Front Page or other
  editor you may be using

22
Search Services in Foreign Languages
23
Why use Search Services based in another country
and/or language?

• To find personal or business contact information
• Addresses
• Phone numbers
• E-mail addresses
• Sources for this information are often more
  complete from these services
• For more detailed information about a business or
  organization

24
Why use Search Services based in another country
and/or language?

• For more comprehensive coverage of news and
  economic, political and cultural information
  about a country
• For alternate viewpoints about national and
  international events and issues

25
How do I know if a service is an engine or a
directory (or both)?

• Some gateway sites may use the word Index to
  denote a directory or other indication.
• Some gateways may specify this such as
  www.nationsonline.com
• If the service is a portal, check results found
  using the search box against results found in its
  subject directory. If they are the same, it is a
  directory. If different, it may be crawler-based
  (engine) or a blend of engine and directory.
• Test for freshness (engines are usually fresher
  than directories)
• Try e-mailing the main contact (Good Luck !!!!)

26
A few tips for exploring the Net ourside our
borders

• Begin with subject directories (if available)
  when you are unfamiliar with the country or topic
• Seek out experts in an area or field identify
  websites that are run by them and e-mail them for
  further leads
• Make use of support staff at US or foreign
  embassies. They often know the best Internet
  source for different types of information

27
A few tips

• Watch for hidden assumptions and be culturally
  sensitive. Just because it LOOKS like any other
  search engine or directory doesnt mean that the
  people and information behind it have the same
  cultural conditions and background as US users.

28
Evaluating Sites in Foreign Languages

• Be especially cautious about reliability check
  for authors credentials, quality of links to and
  from the site and date. Contact the author(s)
  via e-mail if you feel the need. Most are happy
  to hear that their site is visited and might be
  helpful in your search.
• Many foreign-language sites lack top-level
  domains (edu, com, gov and others). In these
  cases, link relationships and credentials are
  especially important.
• NOTE In the UK TLDs are
• co com ac edu

29
Evaluating Search Services in Foreign Languages

• Check for freshness by searching for a recent
  event
• Check for comprehensiveness by comparing findings
  for a topic with the same search on Google or
  FAST
• If you want to see which services are the most
  popular in European countries, consult Jupiter
  Media Metrix data at
• http//www.jupitermmxi.com/europelanding.html

30
Free Translation Services
31
Globalization and the Internet

• The Net (and the World) is increasingly global
  in content
• Non-English content is growing at a faster rate
  than English content
• For the first time, in 2001 less than half of all
  people online were from North America
• If present growth trends continue by 2004 70 of
  all Internet users will be outside North America

32
Babelfishhttp//babelfish.altavista.com

• The first publicly-available service
• Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese,
  Russian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese to English and
  vice-versa
• French to German, German to French
• Translates
• Any Altavista search result
• Any URL in the supported languages
• Supplied Text up to 150 words
• Auto-translates linked pages (new feature)

33
Freetranslationhttp//www.freetranslation.com

• Offers Spanish, French, German, Portuguese,
  Italian to English and vice-versa
• English to Norwegian
• Offers drop-down menus for vowels with diacritics
  
• Text and URL both accepted
• Good Help file

34
Translate.ru Russia-basedhttp//www.translate.r
u

• Offers Russian, French, German and Spanish to
  English and vice-versa
• German to French and vice-versa
• Russian to French and vice-versa
• Russian to German and vice-versa
• Accepts Text, URLs in supported languages and
  e-mails
• Auto-translates linked pages (????)

35
GoogleGoogle.com

• Offers German, Spanish, French, Italian,
  Portuguese to English and vice-versa
• German to French and vice-versa
• French to Spanish and vice-versa
• Google search results auto-translated into
  English
• Also accepts text and URLs in supported
  languages

36
Online Translation Dictionaries

• Martindales Collection (highly recommended)
• http//www-sci.lib.uci.edu/HSG/Language.html
• Lexicool
• http//www.lexicool.com/

37
When terms arent translated

• Gisting translation process
• Automatically translates terms that can be
  translated with a low degree of ambiguity
• Idioms and other terms that cannot be
  unambiguously translated appear in the original
  language

38
Gisting

• Why might you need this?
• As a filter to determine if a document is worth a
  finer, more costly translation
• Useful in dealing with documents in multiple
  languages (eg. an e-mail message with several
  comments from people using different languages)

39
(No Transcript)
40
Evaluating Translation Services

• Choose a site that has a bi-lingual version
• Eg. The Louvre has French, English, Spanish and
  Japanese versions http//www.louvre.fr
• Enter the URL of a page from the foreign language
  version and compare the translation to the sites
  own English version
• OR, simply compare the translations of any URL or
  text among various services

41
Compare these

• French
• www.mbam.qc.ca/orangerie/index.html
• German
• www.transgen.de
• Italian
• www.roma-intercultura.it

42
(No Transcript)
43
(No Transcript)
44
(No Transcript)
45
Spanish-language Search Services
46
Google Spanish Search Tip

• In Google Advanced Search, search for significant
  words or phrases in the TITLE (eg. museos,
  cultura, negocios, noticias)
• Limit the search by DOMAIN
• Country code (es, mx, co -- Spain, Mexico,
  Columbia)
• Top level (gov OR gob government or
  gobierno)

47
Internet Censorship in ChinaHuman Rights Watch
Report

• Chinas government has over 60 sets of
  regulations governing Internet content
• Individuals have been put on trial and sentenced
  to prison for downloading or posting politically
  sensitive material on the web
• Government censors monitor Internet cafés
• Politically sensitive topics are prohibited in
  chatrooms

48
Internet Censorship in China2002

• August Chinese Government requests Google,
  Altavista, Yahoo and other services to remove
  Falun Gong sites from their database.
• Yahoo does so, aas it operates an office in China
  and as policy obeys laws of country of operation.
  (Google and AV have no Chinese offices)
• Sept 2 - Access to Google and Altavista blocked
  in China by Chinese Government
• Sept 11 - Chinese government restores access, but
  continues to monitor Google

49
Foreign Search ServicesA few added values

• Personal or business contacts in that country
• Primary source material about a foreign country
  or topic
• More detailed coverage of political, economic and
  cultural issues in that country
• Alternate viewpoints about national and
  international events and issues

50
Thank you and Best of Luck in your travels

• Michael Hunter
• Warren Hunting Smith Library
• Hobart and William Smith Colleges
• Geneva, NY 14507
• [phone]
• hunter_at_hws.edu