Language archives are repositories of language data: material about or in a set of languages, including audio and video recordings, transcriptions, translations, and linguistic annotations. Beyond their value for academic applications, digital availability of language data holds potential to support language and cultural revitalization and maintenance. Until recently, language archives have not been considered in information science research. This article reports the first empirical investigation of various dimensions of organization and representation of recorded knowledge and information in language archives. The study used a combination of semistructured interviews and content analysis. Results demonstrate that, while some of the phenomena related to organization of information in language archives are specific to these types of archives, others are more typical and have been addressed by libraries in past research and practice. For example, authority control, sustainability, and software interoperability are among the primary issues identified by our study. This paper discusses the metadata-related opportunities and challenges for language archive managers and depositors observed in this study, and suggests directions for future research in this area.

Language archives are repositories of linguistic data about a selected set of languages, typically including recordings, transcripts, translations, and linguistic annotations. Digital accessibility of primary language data, particularly that of endangered languages, has long been recognized as necessary for research reproducibility, production of pedagogical materials, and typological discovery, though their potential currently lies dormant because these resources are rarely accessed by linguists or language communities. Reasons for the under-utilization of language archives include the lack of data standardization and decreased focus on metadata quality. The present work seeks to elucidate the issues facing language archive managers and users through two steps: content analysis of information organization in language archives, and semi-structured interviews with language archive managers and users. Primary challenges identified include lacking institutional support and a range of factors which impact authority control in language archives.

This submission reports preliminary results of the first stage of a research project that seeks to identify the information organization methods and techniques currently offered in the language data archives and the gaps between the tools and techniques available and the needs of actual and potential users of language data archives. We conducted an exploratory content analysis of the websites of the language archives (LAs) hosted by the institutions located in the United States and several other countries. The focus of our exploratory content analysis is on the information organization, including documentation on metadata standards, displaying of individual metadata records and availability of harvesting sets of metadata records, provision of advanced discovery and navigation options powered by metadata such as availability of adaptive and personalized search or social tagging functionality. Here, we report our preliminary findings and describe our plan for Stage 2 of the.

As archiving became a priority in documentary linguistics only in the 1990's, existing research indicates that language archives are not yet up to date on best practices in information organization. As a result, metadata in language archives varies substantially, depending on the depositor, self‐upload procedures, and metadata creation guidelines. Focusing on free‐text metadata, known to provide rich information, this study analyzes item‐level metadata in three language archives: the Endangered Language Archive, Pacific Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures, and the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America. The study identified categories of information included in Description metadata fields and the relative distribution of these categories. The most commonly occurring categories of information observed in this study can serve as a basis for the development of best practice guidelines for item‐level metadata in language archives.

With the advent of increased attention towards language endangerment comes the need for a better understanding of how speakers of endangered languages interact with information, specifically health information resources. This paper builds on health information behavior literature and participatory research models with indigenous communities to develop strategies for future work with indigenous communities of speakers of endangered languages, proposing a participatory methodology for future work with these communities related to health, using ethnographic interviews and focus groups. Lack of infrastructure, multilingualism, and distrust of outsiders are found to be major barriers between this population and health information resources. Approaching health information behavior research with an interdisciplinary and participatory model incorporating ethnographic and linguistic field methods into traditional information behavior methodologies can mitigate the challenges these barriers present. Understanding the health information behavior of speakers of endangered languages will aid in future efforts to make health information resources accessible to wider audiences and to document indigenous knowledge. Currently, fieldwork with speakers of endangered languages is confined to linguistic and anthropological investigation. Through the proposed methodology, community members can work alongside linguists and information professionals to create culturally appropriate health information resources in their native language.