DC-Localization and Internationalization WG report 2004

This working group held a special session at DC-2004 in Shanghai, China.

The special session was attended by 22 participants from 10 countries. The session included presentations on a survey from a questionnaire on localization of DCMES; the DCMI registry; multilingual aspects inDublin Core™ and also six short reports from local activities as shown in the session agenda shown below.

Session Agenda

• DC Survey 2004, Questionnaire on DCMES, standards - translations use by Karen Rollitt (National Library of New Zealand, New Zealand)
• Internationalization Aspects of the DCMI Metadata Registry by Harry Wagner (OCLC, USA)
• Dublin Core™ in Multiple Languages by Thomas Baker (Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Germany)
• Report from China, Wei Liu (Shanghai Library, China)
• 2004 Metadata Progress Report of NDAP in Taiwan, Hon-chung Sum (Academia Sinica, Taiwan)
• Lessons learned in the Development of Community-oriented Subject Vocabularies by Wonsook Lee (University of Tsukuba, Japan)
• Report from Thailand by Vilas Wuwongse (Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand)
• Report from Canada, Gregory Renaud (National Library of Canada, Canada)
• Report from Korea, Sam Oh (Sung KyunKwan University, Korea)

Karen Rollitt reported on a survey of the status of standardization activities by non-English speaking communities from the questionnaire distributed via DC-International and DC General mailing list in this year. The report will be available to all WG members shortly.

Harry Wagner talked about how the DC Registry has developed, its deployment as a translation tool and its ability to add local extensions and usage examples.

Thomas Baker talk was based from the viewpoint of the DCMI registry and term maintenance at the Usage Board. He discussed the ways the Registry handles translated terms and finding an appropriate model for the status and endorsement of translations of DCMI terms.

Wei Liu, from the Shanghai Library told us about the National Digital Library and digital library standards. More than twenty institutions are working the project.

Hon-chung Sum from Taiwan gave the 2004 Metadata Progress Report of National Digital Archives Program which supports more than 70 projects, is cross domain and all metadata maps to DCMES. Also the Union Catalogue of NDAP which is OAI based and also uses DC Wonsook Lee told us of the Internet Public Library, Asia which is a subject gateway in multiple languages, and how core and localised vocabularies are handled.

Vilas Wuwongse told us of DCMES translations and related activities in Thailand and also of projects using DCMES such as the The National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) The report from Gregory Renaud was an update for contribution to the DC Internationalisation questionnaire.

Sam Oh told us about DC activities in Korea and plans for the near future.

This Working Group has an important role to connect local DC communities where non-English languages are spoken and to bring local information to the global DC community. The primary mission of this WG is to serve as a forum to exchange and share knowledge and information among local DC communities where non-English languages are their primary language. Major issues of the WG's interests include translations of DCMI terms into local languages and collecting/sharing local requirements and adoption of DC to local resources. We think cooperation with other WGs, especially the Registry WG to collect translations of DCMI terms and other related information, is crucial. The DC-Localization & Internationalization WG will continue its activity in the 2004-2005 year.