User Environment for Accessing Multilingual Digital Library

多语种信息环境是全球数字图书馆建设的重要内容之一。此外，日本数字图书馆通过互联网访问信息还有一些重要的方面需要解决，例如字符变体和标准字符集中没有包含的字符。基于这些考虑，研究人员利用最初由图书馆与信息科学大学(ULIS)开发的多语言HTML文档浏览技术来解决国际数字图书馆网络的信息访问支持环境。本研究与美国匹兹堡大学信息科学学院的研究人员合作，对多语言工具在全球信息网络环境中的可用性进行了研究，主要研究了以下几个问题：(1)通过使用MHTML技术，用户原则上可以在没有外文字体的WWW浏览器上显示任何外文文本。本研究除了开发显示功能外，还研究开发了文字输入功能。(2)开发了一套多语种表达的日本古老民间故事集。这本童话集包括11种语言的11个故事。翻译不仅由ULIS的工作人员完成，还由网络上的志愿者完成。(3)开发了日语汉字变体词库。该词库包括从两个主要的日本工业标准代码集中提取的变体集合，共包含12000多个字符。(4)我们从多语言的元数据描述和多语言的元数据注册两个方面研究了多语种的元数据，所有这些方面对于全球网络上的信息访问都是至关重要的，研究人员将继续努力。

Multilingual information environment is one of the most important aspects in the digital libraries for the global community. In addition, there are important aspects which has to be solved for information access in the digital libraries via the Internet in Japan, for examples character variants and characters not included in standard character sets. Based on these considerations, the researchers tackled information access support environment for international network of digital libraries using a multilingual HTML document browsing technology called MHTML that was originally developed in the University of Library and Information Science (ULIS). In this research, usability of the multilingual tool in the global information network environment was investigated collaborating with the researchers at School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh in USA.In this research, the following issues were investigated :(1) By using the MHTML technology, users can display, in principle, any foreign texts on his/her WWW browser which has no foreign character fonts. In this research, text input functions were investigated and developed in addition to the display function.(2) We have developed a set of Japanese old folk tales expressed in multiple languages. This collection of oldtales includes 11 tales in 11 languages. Translation were done not only by staffs at ULIS but also volunteers on the network.(3) A thesaurus of Japanese Kanji Variants were developed. The thesaurus includes sets of variants extracted in two principal Japanese Industrial Standard code sets that include more than 12,000 characters in total.(4) We have investigated metadata in multiple languages in two aspects, which are metadata description in multiple languages and metadata registry in multiple languages.All of these aspects are crucial for information access on the global network and the researchers will make continuing effort on these issues.