The MyLanguage Project

Oriana Acevedo is the Multicultural Consultant at the State Library of New South Wales in Australia, and she provides a case study for the Toolkit book on marketing to multicultural communities (an important subject on which there doesn't appear to be much written previously). I got in touch with Oriana (on the recommendation of Mylee Joseph - thanks Mylee!) because she ran the MyLanguage Project - an internet portal to deliver information and library services to several different cultural groups across many languages. And although we cover it in the case study there was far too much to say about it to fit it all into the book. With that in mind, here's a mini-case study all about it.

I have to say, I found this really fascinating - it was one of the most revealing things I encountered writing the book. The usage stats of the Portal are fantastically high, and Oriana's words on their approach to communicating the same information to different cultures - not just in terms of language but in terms of everything else that goes with communication - are something we can learn from across the board.

The MyLanguage Project: Interview with Oriana Acevedo

The MyLanguage portal homepage

Tell us about the Mylanguage project. 

Mylanguage is a national internet portal designed to deliver information and complement library services to multicultural Australia using a number of innovative web-development techniques and scripting languages. You can find it at www.mylanguge.gov.au - it is a national partnership between the State and Territory Libraries of New South Wales, Victoria, Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia, West Australia and the Australia Capital Territory Library and Information Services.

The MyLanguage concept was inspired by three key ideas:

1. That the Information Society is dependent on fostering access to, and publication of, multilingual and multicultural information;
   

   
   
2. That libraries are crucial as gateways to multilingual information resources; and,
   
   
   
3. That technology and the Internet are necessary components to developing access to information and resources for new and emerging communities. 

The development of the portal is supported by The State Library of Victoria, through its Vicnet business unit, who have developed and maintained significant expertise in multilingual web development. They have provided technical leadership for the project.

Traditional library services are available in only 49 languages in Australia, whereas the community consists of approximately 212 active languages. The provision of appropriate library services to this large culturally and linguistically diverse population, including minority language groups and emerging communities, is a key challenge to libraries. Limited funding and the scarce availability of traditional resources and materials continue to constrain support for this diverse group of Australians.

Electronic resources in languages other than English provide an opportunity for libraries to expand their library services to these communities.

And how did you go about it?

The marketing of the MyLanguage involved banners, bookmarks and youtube videos in multiple languages.

The State Library of NSW produced the design and coordinated the distribution of bookmarks and banners to the participating State/Territory Libraries.

Across Australia 70,000 bookmarks were initially distributed through the state /territory libraries to community organisations. Due to overwhelming demand, an additional reprint of 105,000 bookmarks followed.

Each State and Territory received five banners promoting the MyLanguage portal and these have continuously travelled across public libraries throughout the States and territories since November 2007. 

The design of the banner and bookmarks have an inclusive diversity in the graphics of the banners and the bookmarks have scripts from different language. The subject of the photographs in the banners are all employees of the state Library of NSW representing a range of ethnic groups.

And the YouTube campaign was particularly successful?

In June 2008, on behalf of the national partnership, the State Library of NSW recruited over 30 native speakers, representing a wide range of languages (see Attachment 4), to participate in the filming of video clip(s) under the banner of “So you want to be a film star – now recruiting!”

In order to address cultural differences all participants were provided only with basic instructions to deliver a core message – that is, to promote the use of MyLanguage but with the following guidelines:

• Address the viewer according what was appropriated for the cultural background; and 
• Avoid greetings that indicate a specific time of the day, such as good morning or good evening, because it was important that the message remain relevant whenever the user of YouTube accessed the video clip.

34 individual videos, each of approximately 1.5 minutes in duration, were individually scripted by the native speakers to emphasise library services in a culturally appropriate manner.

[An example in Tamil]

The filming, editing and uploading of the video clips to Youtube video sharing web site was done in partnership with the University of Western Sydney, Winter vacation program, industry partnership. The videos were filmed at the State Library between July and August 2008.

Each native speaker participant adjusted the delivery of their clip, inviting viewers to explore the portal by using the most appropriate language and style for their own culture.

In order to deliver the message the person could be precise and brief or a longer version of the message delivered according to what is appropriate for the culture. In some cultures, a brief version can be interpreted as rude or arrogant whilst a longer and detailed version is more appropriate and respectful. However, for other cultures, providing too much detail is not the correct approach.

The project aimed to cover a wide range of languages and effectively represent key regional differences (ie accents), even in the same basic language. For example, Spanish speakers share a common language. However their different accents are clearly recognisable amongst their peers (similar, for example, to the difference between English speakers from Canada, Australia, America and United Kingdom). To address this issue, Spanish speakers from Spain, South America, Central America and the Caribbean were recruited. A Galego speaker was also recruited.

All participants were native speakers of the languages. Some were employees of the State Library of NSW, some staff of public libraries in NSW and others were members of the community. All were volunteers.

Have the usage statistics been encouraging?

A monthly summary covering the period September 2007 to August 2008 – the period following the launch of the campaign - showed that the portal had been visited almost 10 million times. In September 2007 it had over 1.2 million hits and in August 2008 this had increased to over 1.5 million hits per month.