The foreign language barrier in information transfer at the University of Tasmania

Abstract

A survey of indexing and abstracting tools held at the University of Tasmania's library was conducted to determine the amount of foreign language materials available to researchers working at the University. The research workers themselves were also surveyed in order to ascertain the effects of the foreign language barrier on their ability to access information relevant to their fields of study. The data suggests that there is a considerable barrier which adversely affects information dissemination and that there exists a need for the development of library services especially designed to confront this barrier.