I am now working on the World Cultures Committee at FVRL. One of the tasks assigned to me is to find out ways for access to our multilingual collection (it’s a 12 non-English collection) through OPAC. As far as I know, this is one of the most challenging topics in our profession. Many organizations and individuals have ended up with despair because of daunting contraints such as language expertise, lack of funding, and technology. I think as new librarians working in a non-Chinese speaking environment, everyone of us will take on a task of this kind one day or another. So, I invite you all to join the discussion.
There are organizations, such as large academic libraries and national libraries jointly across countries, working on the issue. To me, they are in a good position to tackle the issue as they have better resources. However, my concern is what we can do for a minor system with less resources, i.e. individual local libraries with a growing multi-ethnic population. I am thinking of providing access points through OPAC, such as subject headings and name headings in English. Are there people out there who have experience in this field and can offer me some advice?