Found in Translation: Archiving Foreign Language Material

"Found in Translation: Archiving Foreign Language Material" addresses the responsibility and challenges in processing foreign language material through the perspective of three New York Public Library (NYPL) processing archivists: Denise Mantey, Ornella U. Baganizi, and Amy Lau. Each archivist will share their experiences arranging and describing collections with materials created in foreign languages, working with translations, and building cultural context to accurately describe the items in the collection. We intend to encourage discussion amongst archivists, curators, donors, and library patrons about the importance of foreign language collections to diversify archive collecting areas; provide access to a wider variety of patrons; and encourage a more culturally competent generation of archivists. We also hope to highlight the necessity of collaboration amongst donors, archivists, and patrons in order to make this work possible.

The format of our session will be a panel presentation. We will introduce our respective departments and research centers within the New York Public Library, the Schomburg Center for Research in Back Culture and Library Services Center, and how we work together through the NYPL system. Each archivist will share their experience processing one to two collections with foreign language material, followed by Q&A. Guiding questions informing our session are: What technical challenges have you faced in processing these collections? What knowledge gaps did you encounter? How can foreign language materials operate as tools to enrich special collections? Languages we will discuss are Vai and Spanish; Xhosa, Swahili, and Hausa; and Chinese.

Our session focuses on our experiences and perspectives on processing collections containing items in foreign languages from China, West and East Africa, and South Africa. These materials embody the geographic diversity of the collections acquired by the New York Public Library and reflect the diverse identities of our donors and the interests of our patrons. We will discuss our approaches to learn about the cultural contexts of items written in languages we do and do not speak, the importance and limitations of translations, and the decisions we made to make linguistically and culturally diverse items more accessible for our patrons.

Panel Discussion