New Language Limits

I've just made a change to our catalog's advanced search page that allows better limits by language.

Originally, our language limits were based on collection codes. Collection codes are designed to let you know where a particular item is located. For instance, you would expect an item with a "Large Print Fiction" collection code to be shelved in the large print area. However, the only language that has its own collection code is Spanish. While Spanish is currently the dominent non-English language within our district, other languages are also becoming more common. As a result, we decided it was time to look at a better way to search by language.

The new language limits I have just implemented are based on MARC, the underlying data for every bib record. This allows us to limit based on a much wider range of languages. For the sake of simplicity, I have decided to only provide limits for languages where we have at least 20 works in that language. Currently, this list includes:

• Arabic
• Chinese
• Danish
• English
• French
• German
• Hebrew
• Hindi
• Italian
• Japanese
• Latin
• Persian
• Portuguese
• Russian
• Somali
• Spanish
• Swedish

Let me know if you feel any specific language should be added to this list and I'll research it.

An Example:
With the old language limits based on collection codes, you couldn't search for Spanish music. While we have collection codes for many Spanish items, we don't have one specifically for music. However, using the new language limits, this search is now possible.

1. Go to our catalog, http://catalog.mylibrary.us/
2. Click on the Advanced search page
3. Type an * next to Title Keyword
4. Under Format, choose Music
5. Under Language choose Spanish
6. Click the red arrow to start your search

You should now see a list of all music in Spanish within the district.

Quirk Alert:
While limiting by MARC tags instead of collection codes is generally more precise, there is a bug in HIP that does prevent all matching records from being displayed. For those that remember their cataloging lessons, it searches the 008 field but only the first 041 $a subfield. What this means is that the limit should return results for all records in the original language but it may miss some titles that are either multilingual works or the language is available as a subtitle for a movie.

For example, look at the movie Walk on Water. This movie's original language is Hebrew which is reflected by appearing in the 008 tag. However, it is also available to watch in English or German. Because English is listed as the first language in the 041 field, if I limit by English, the movie will appear. However, since German is the third language listed, it will not appear when I limit by German.

Thanks go to Clara M for suggesting the original idea of using MARC language codes instead of collection codes and Eric P for later testing and patiently explaining the intricacies of the MARC codes to me.