Cross-language information access
Douglas W. Oard · 2009
The problem of providing people with the information that they seek when that information happens to be in an unfamiliar language is not new. Rather, what is new is what we can do to help address that challenge. To illustrate this point, I'll start my talk with a brief recap of two earlier generations of automated support for cross-language information access, the first from roughly 1964 to 1985, and the second from roughly 1989 to the present. With that as background, I'll then take stock of where we are, and where I see unmet needs that call for capabilities beyond what can currently be accomplished. I'll conclude with a few observations about how we might expect the role of the research community to evolve as progressively more capable cross-language information access technologies become commercially viable.