Making Irish Language Buttons including translations

1. Meitheal Oibre na Gaeilge
Web Opac Buttons
Project

2. Irish Language Web OPAC Terms
 Aim
– To facilitate libraries in the need to meet their Irish
Language service provision obligations under the
Languages Act in relation to the provision of Web
OPAC’s.
 Most of the terms used are generic across WebOPAC’s.
– Across sectors

3. Sources
 ‘An Coiste Téarmaíochta’
 Members of Meitheal Oibre na Gaeilge
 Published dictionaries
 Online dictionaries and lists of terms:
– Acmhainn
 http://www.acmhainn.ie/
– Tearmai Leabharlainne
 http://www.acmhainn.ie/tearmai/Leabhar.htm

4. Processes
 Terms from catalogues of Meitheal members
were sent to NWH and put into a list
 List distributed
 Irish language terms proposed and sent to
NWH to put into a list
– There were up to four for some terms
 Several long meetings with dictionaries to
hand

5. Finalizing terms
 Final list agreed
 Buttons drafted
 Terms on buttons reviewed, redrafted
 Buttons redrafted, reviewed, redrafted
 Buttons loaded at test site
 Publication drafted, reviewed, redrafted
– Reviewed, redrafted… and so on.

6. Challenges
– Terms that are a true reflection of the English
meaning, and are short enough to fit on a button
for use on any library's WebOPAC.
 Most buttons on library WebOPAC's are 80 pixels wide
by 40 pixels high.
– This allows for a very limited number of characters on a
button, including punctuation and spacing.
– Challenge: maintain accuracy while submitting to
the need for brevity.
– Occasional review.

7. Examples of buttons

8. Now it looks live

9. Live results list

10. Title details

11. ‘My Account’ - log on page

12. ‘My Account’

13. Making the list available
 To be published in both print and electronic
formats
 Free
 ISBN registered
 Looking for sponsorship
– Print version
– Electronic version
 Via the LAI web site
– Hope to include file of images for download.
 Will have occasional updates.

14. Setting up the Buttons at ITT Dublin
 Buttons created
 Buttons renamed
– Match the naming convention of the Library
Management Software
– Match the format required
 Loaded into the web server
 Checked that they displayed

15. Getting the buttons to function
 See if we had second language capabilities
for the library management software
(Millennium)
 Tell the library management software that the
second language was set up
 Tell the system that the Irish language
buttons were loaded

16. Translation
 Translate the pages that we wanted to use in Irish
– Done in conjunction with the Irish Officer
– Search pages mostly
– Name the pages to that they are recognizable to the system
as Irish pages.
 Tell the system that the Irish pages were in place
– Ensure that the links for the buttons were correct
 Testing

17. Display
 Wanted to polish the look
 Used CSS to control the look, colours, links
etc in the catalogue
– Cascading style sheets.
 Easily changed.

18. Problems with displays
 Terms in results display and bibliographic
display were not editable locally
 Got permission to go into the translation
interface at the Library management
Software Supplier
 Now working through all the terms there
trying to catch terms that display in the
catalogue