Integrating true multilingual capabilities into an Institutional Repository : Building the World Health Organization's Institutional Repository for Information Sharing

Abstract

Introduction In a global context, how do we facilitate the dissemination and access if the material in a repository is primarily searchable and retrievable in only in one or two languages? It has been observed that there is much research and public health guidelines that goes unknown to large numbers of researchers, health workers and to the general public when they are only able to access in one language or another. How do we promote integration of various information sources in an international organization with 147 country offices, six regional offices and one headquarters, and with material being published in 6 official languages and 53 non-official languages? Research ethics should start considering, at design stage, the outreach of methods used and results obtained beyond the boundaries of the research language. Access to information in as many languages as possible should become a major component of any accessibilityrelated debate.