An exploration of ethnic minorities' needs for multilingual information access of public digital cultural services
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-12-2021-0238 |
| Published date | 01 April 2022 |
| Date | 01 April 2022 |
| Pages | 1-20 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
| Author | Dan Wu,Shu Fan,Shengyi Yao,Shuang Xu |
An exploration of ethnic
minorities’needs for multilingual
information access of public digital
cultural services
Dan Wu
School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China and
Center for Studies of Human-Computer Interaction and User Behavior,
Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, and
Shu Fan, Shengyi Yao and Shuang Xu
School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
Abstract
Purpose –Ethnic minorities (EMs), who make up a sizable proportion of multilingual users, are more likely to
browse and search in their native language. It is helpful to identify multilingual users’information needs to
provide public digital cultural services (PDCS) for making their life better.
Design/methodology/approach –The in-context interview is an efficient way to explore EMs’information
needs and evoke their daily experience with PDCS. The material from 31 one-on-one interviews with EMs in
China was recorded and analyzed using thematic analysis.
Findings –The findings reveal that language proficiency is a critical factor influencing multilingual
information access (MLIA) and multilingual users’information needs. Moreover, language ability, digital
literacy and cultural literacy are important components of multilingual information literacy (MLIL), which is
helpful for EMs to access PDCS. In light of Kochen’s theory, the information needs of PDCS can be classified
into the aroused need of resources, the recognized need of functions and services and expressed need. For the
expressed need, it is necessary to develop a one-stop convergence platform of PDCS to process various requests
of resources, functions and services in the future.
Originality/value –The findings will be valuable for governments, public institutions and social
organizations in identifying, addressing and resolving these issues about PDCS.
Keywords Ethnic minorities, Information needs, Multilingual information access, Public digital cultural
services
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Globalization has led to easier access to multilingual information and increased intercultural
communication. The use of the Internet to find information in multiple languages has become
more relevant and practical due to increasing Internet accessibility and online information
demand (Safdar et al., 2020). The cross-language barrier on the Internet has become the
primary obstacle for users searching for and accessing information online. Furthermore,
studies have shown that multilingual users’query and result selection behavior is very
different due to the heavy use of their native language (Lowe and Steichen, 2017). Given the
diversity of web content and the increase of multilingual user groups, the need to support
personalized search is even more pressing.
There are many ethnic minorities (EMs) in China, and most of them have their own
languages and scripts. Many EMs use Chinese as well as their own language, and even
English, making them a special multilingual user group. There is a great need for them to
Multilingual
information
access
1
This work was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China under Grant No. 19ZDA341.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0022-0418.htm
Received 17 December 2021
Revised 23 February 2022
26 February 2022
Accepted 27 February 2022
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 79 No. 1, 2023
pp. 1-20
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-12-2021-0238
access multilingual information resources online. Multilingual information access (MLIA)
enables users to search for information written in various languages without formulating
their query in each language individually (Peters and Sheridan, 2001;Kishida, 2005). There
has long been recognition that supporting MLIA in digital libraries is vital to providing
universal access to digital content (Bian and Chen, 2000;Peters and Sheridan, 2001).
Additionally, the EMs have created many splendid national cultures, leaving behind a
vibrant cultural heritage, which has become an important part of public digital cultural
resources (PDCR).
Public digital cultural services (PDCS) provide multilevel and diverse digital cultural
services through public cultural institutions and a range of emerging media to meet the
public’s basic cultural needs in the digital age (Xiao and Zheng, 2013;Wanyan and Hu, 2019).
The goal of PDCS is to provide widespread access to digital cultural resources via intelligent
networks to achieve a large-scale distribution. Dou (2019) defines PDCS as a cyber-physical
system incorporating physical and digital cultural resources. PDCR are digital resources
available in public cultural facilities, products and activities. Specifically, facilities or
infrastructures, products, activities and other related services are included in PDCS (Wanyan
and Hu, 2019). However, these digital collections of public cultural institutions lack a
connecting bridge to provide digital services to users (Xiao and Wanyan, 2015).
MLIA plays an essential role for EMs in accessing PDCS, but using MLIA to achieve free
access to PDCS has not been given much attention. Existing research indicates that EMs’
information needs are directly linked to their cultural and ethnic characteristics. However,
just a few research studies have examined how users seek information in multilingual
settings. There is still much to be discovered about EM’s information needs and how they
seek information in PDCS, particularly when it comes to finding multilingual information
resources. It is also vital to investigate how traditional culture and living environment
influence EMs’information needs for PDCS.
In the context of information services, it is important to distinguish among information
needs,reorganization ofthese needs and expressionof these needs (Drake,2003). Theref ore, this
study adapted Kochen’s (1975) theory ofinformation needs, distinguishing information needs
as the arousedstate of need, recognizedstate of need and expressedneed. From the perspective
of ethnic minority groups, this study will explore their cultural information needs under the
theoretical framework created by Kochen through conversational interviews to gain insight
into their real lives, which is the key objective of this research. In brief, by adopting the
qualitative research methods, this research can help better understand the multilingual
informationneeds, which is a novel topicin the information seeking domain.Also, it is of great
importance to improve people’s search experience and improve the utilization of PDCS,
increasing the visibility and transparency of the PDCR, which can enhance EMs’multilingual
informationliteracy (MLIL). In addition, thisstudy aims to provide guidance and referencefor
relevantgovernment departments and publiccultural institutions to strengthenPDCS for less-
developedgroups. It will furtherimprove cultural services,cultivate culturalawareness, protect
cultural rights and develop multicultural digital resourcesin different languages.
2. Literature review
2.1 Multilingual information access and multilingual information literacy
The diversity of global online search users has brought new challenges to the development of
search engines. Most studies have focused on translating queries formulated by users and
optimizing retrieval algorithms (Steichen and Lowe, 2021). Cross-language information
retrieval (CLIR) refers to the retrieval of information written in source language based on a
query expressed in target language. In order for the process to be successful, both translation
and retrieval must be executed simultaneously (Petrelli et al., 2004). In Cross-language and
JD
79,1
2
To continue reading
Request your trial