Finding books in a foreign language

There is no good way with our new catalog to do a search for books written in a foreign language. The existing language limit does not rule out translations, so a blank search (using * as your keyword) with a Chinese limit in the opac (i.e., Advanced Catalog Search) will bring up items in Chinese AND items translated from Chinese.

Infosearch (a.k.a. Encore) will not allow you to do a blank search. You have to type something into the box before you can narrow your results by language. Even still, this post-search language limit is not perfect and also does not rule out translations.

I have talked to Jo and Beverly about this. Apparently both versions of our catalog are using the 041 MARC field to determine the language, but should instead be using the 008 field. ?? Jo has sent a request to Ann F. to sort out how we can do a true "language limit" using the 008 field of the MARC record. Stay tuned...

Also, another problem is that only some languages are available as limits in the OPAC. There are no options for Japanese, Hebrew, etc. Jo has also requested that Ann reconfigure the Advanced Catalog Search's language limit to include all of the languages in our catalog as available limit options.

In the meantime, should you find yourself needing to find some introductory readings in a foreign language, here's an another strategy. I accidentally stumbled upon a subject heading for Japanese Language -- Reader that seemed to satisfy my patron.

ありがとう,

Jason

New Subject Guides

We have a few new Subject Guides in the "Select A Course Subject" dropdown list and on the Resources by Subject web page:

• Communication Disorders


• Fundamentals of Communication (Comm 2200)


• Speech and Communication


• Theatre and Dance