ERIC Number: ED376831
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1994-Nov
Pages: 78
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Planning, Producing, and Implementing a Multilingual Audiotape Walking Tour of the Iowa State University Parks Library.
Huls, Mary Ellen; And Others
Staff shortages and high service ideals collided when the Iowa State University Parks Library recognized its need to find an alternative to the human-conducted tour for various groups of library users, including hundreds of non-native speakers of English who arrived at the school to enter a degree program. An audiocassette taped tour was developed and tested in English, and then it was translated into Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Malay, and Spanish. While many of the problems of producing the English tape were anticipated, problems unique to the translated version, keeping the translations down to 45 minutes, verifying if the translations were correct, and the problem of the sound technician not knowing the foreign language, were not. Other problems with using the audiocassette were encountered; the contents of the tape quickly became obsolescent and the equipment failed or the batteries died. The English version of the tape was evaluated positively but there was not enough use of the foreign tapes to generate enough feedback about them. This report includes the grant proposal, a Parks Library tour script in English, progress and final reports, tour packet provided to library patrons, and guidelines for planning. (DGM)
Publication Type: Reports - Descriptive; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A