Multilingual Open Science: Improving the Discoverability of Translations in Swiss Library Catalogues (TransDiscoverability)

Description

Translated texts, whether these are translations of scholarly works such as Ferdinand de Saussure’s Cours de linguistique générale, or translations of literary works such as Ingeborg Bachmann’s Die Anrufung des großen Bärens, are currently inadequately discoverable in Swiss library catalogues, and in catalogues across the globe. This lack of discoverability has, on a technical level, to do with data management and retrieval practices, but what feeds these practices is a long and entrenched history of translated texts being viewed as secondary, derivative and untrustworthy. Digital transformation offers an opportunity to shift our perception of translated texts and to effect anew bibliographic practice and intellectual history. Translation Studies has long established that translation is a motivated and frequently ideological act that subjects texts to “manipulation” (Lefevere 1992). Since there is nothing “neutral” about translation, and neutrality in translation is in fact neither possible nor desirable, access to translation metadata is a precondition not only for some of the core activities of academic researchers across all disciplines but also a precondition for truly open science. This project proposes to begin addressing this problem in Switzerland, where collective multilingualism suggests somewhat more enlightened data management processes in relation to translation than in other European countries.

This project is an opportunity to transform a long and entrenched history of translated texts being considered secondary, derivative and untrustworthy, via the optimisation of translation metadata. It also asks the question: Can an AI overlay improve the discoverability of translations in existing library catalogues? The ultimate goal is to effect lasting change in the digital discoverability of translations and hence insure the integrity of research in the humanities and social sciences that depends on information and insights gleaned from translated texts. The poor discoverability of translations in library catalogues is a significant weakness of the global knowledge infrastructure. It constitutes an obstacle to the achievement of at least three globally agreed principles: open science, in that it falls short of the “sharing of information for the benefits of science and society” (UNESCO 2023); digital inclusion, in that the voices of “those who are not fully benefiting from digital opportunities” are not heard (United Nations 2020) – these voices include scholars and writers from parts of the world that rely on translation to come to the attention of a global audiences, but also the voices of translators, whose work frequently goes unacknowledged –; and digital cooperation, as the practices being uncovered present an example of the “fragmentation” of knowledge infrastructures and of insufficient governance (United Nations 2021). As the world becomes increasingly digital, with more data available to more people than at any other time in global history, the accuracy and completeness of data is an issue of significant concern and importance. Open Science is reliant on robust digital infrastructures and undermined by sloppy practices such as the inadequate cataloguing of translations. Here too the aims of this project are in line with UNESCO’s 2030 Agenda, the ninth goal of which specifically highlights Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure.

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