Challenging Anglocentric Library Infrastructures (2024)
Although multilingualism or multi-scriptiality is a constitutive factor for research, teaching, learning, and working in all academic institutions, academic infrastructures such as (university) libraries have been developed primarily by and for English and Latin script. This has resulted in a tremendous gap in resource findability between Latin and non-Latin scripts.
This affects not only the accessibility of library holdings in non-Latin scripts like Japanese, but also the rising scholarly field of digital humanities and (digital) social sciences in the area studies disciplines, which are dependent on the use of multilingual (meta)data, multilingual digital tools (platforms, software, ...) and, in particular, the use of non-Latin scripts in digital environments.