Translating the Libraries: A Multilingual Information Page for International Students

Abstract

University libraries have long recognized the special needs of international students on campus, but have struggled to find the best ways to bridge the cultural and linguistic barriers and thereby demystify the library experience. The University of Alabama’s online Information Page for International Students (http://www.lib.ua.edu/international/), which was first mounted on the Libraries’ website in 2004, was an attempt to meet this need; however, only when the page was translated into Spanish and Chinese, two of the campus’s most prominent languages, did the advantages of library information in students’ native languages become fully apparent.