TRANSLATION SERVICES: THEIR ORGANISATION AND DOCUMENTATION AT NATIONAL LEVEL IN INDIA S.K. TANEJA Technical Infonnation Centre, Aeronautical Development Establishment, Bangalore!resent status of Translation Services in India has been discussed. Need for the coordination of the e~isting translation services at national le~ vel has been emphasised. Development of the National Translation Centre (NTC) for Science & TechnoZogy by augmenting the existing services at INSDOC and elsewhere in the country under NISSAT!rogramme has been discussed. INTRODUCTION Uptill World War I when the R&D results were communicated in one of the major West European languages such as Gennan, French and English etc., scientists being native speaker of one and sufficiently familiar with others could follow the important discoveries. Since the decline of Latin as the international language of scholars and scientists, communication has been increasingly impeded by the language barrier. At present the situation has further changed. Several countries have started R&D activities and their results are reported in their respective languages. It is neither economical nor possible for every research worker to learn many languages and do his own translations. ~1oreover, it would dissipate the time and energy of the potential research worker and retard the advancement of science and technology. Language problem alone has been found to be responsible for the degradation in the transfer of knowledge to the extent of 40-50 percent. Russian comes second only to English among the top four in terms of the amount of scientific and technical literature published. NEED Besides INSDOC and IASLIC, some of the R&D institutions and industries have created the translation facilities in foreign languages ranging from two to four in number to cater to their individual specialised needs. Translations undertaken by various institutions all over the country are scattered since they are being maintained by the concerned institutions on1y. Translation work is very expensive since it requires the proper combination of the good knowledge of both foreign language as well as the concerned subject. A study carried out some years ago showed that estimat- ed savings in avoidance of duplication of translation exceeds the cost of maintaining the index by over 70 per cent. In order to make the scientific and technical literature in foreign languages other than En~lish (fonning about 40-50 of the total world's output) available to the scientific cojldllunityin India without much delay and avoid the costly duplication work, an apex body for proper organisation and co-ordination of the existing translation facilities in the country is needed. Such a body so-called ~7C can be created" under grants from NISSAT. OBJECTIVE lne purpose of the ~7Cwould be to direct the enquirer of any translation to the correct source of availability. It would supply the complete bibliographical Cletails of the translated publication alongwith the abstract in English language. It would supply the source from where translation can be obtained alon~vith its price, etc. It would also be able to furnish the information concerning the translations in progress. It would also supply the translation undertaken by it or pooled wi th it by the other agencies in the country. FUNCTIONS/RESPONSIBILITIES NTC would be charged wi th the following responsibilities in order to accomplish its objectives. 1. To collect information concerning translations already done as well as those in progress both within India as well as abroad. 2. To undertake translations from various foreign languages into English. 3. To rn;;tintai~the panel of translators specialised 111 var rous for'e ign languages alongwi th their addresses, subject and language speci ali s.ation. 4. To maintain index cards containing complete bibliographieal information of the article alongwith its abstract in English source of availability and price of the tra~slation he10 by it as well as those available from other sources. 52
'I'IWfllATIONSERVICES 5. To maintain separately the indexes by subject, source language from which translation has been done into English, author, title of the article and journal, etc. 6. To arrange the procurement of translation from abroad. 7. To undertake translations on request as well as in antitipation on the predetermined topics including cover-to-cover translations of certain journals selected by the committee of subject experts drawn from various organisations in the country. 8. To disseminate the information concerning 9. a) Translations done b) Translations in progress To make the scientists aware of its products and services through wider publicity. 10. To obtain the indexing and abstracting services pertaining to the translations available anywhere in the world such as Translation-Register Index,Wor1d Translation Index, BLLD Translation Bulletin, Gommonwealth Index of unpublished translation maintained by ASLIB, etc. PRESEm' STAnIS OF TRANSlATION SERVICES IN INDIA Demand for translation has been increasing tremendously from or into foreign languages with the increasing trade with the non-english speaking countries. A large number of institutions have set up their own translation units to cater to their urgent specialised needs. During the limited survey of some of the institutions viz., HMf, oni, IISc, NAL, CFTRI, IASLIC, IESIIXX, BARC etc., concerning the available translation facilities, it has been observed that most of them have made some limited arrangement for translation from a few foreign languages into English to cater to their urgent specialised requirements. INDIAN NATIONAL SCIENTIFIC IXX:UMEl\'fATION CEKfRr: (INSOOC), NEW DElliI INSDOC with facilities for translation from 33 foreign languages into English takes up the major workload. It has been offering translation service on request since its inception. INSDOC maintains a panel of part time translators besides the regular staff translators. In 1967, INSDOC compiled a roster of scientific and technical translators to assess the availability of foreign language translators in India. INSIXX has recently carried out an extensive survey throughout the country to find out the availability of potential translators and compiled a Directory of Scientific and Technical translators. This is a very useful guide for users in locating the pertinent translators. INDIAN ASSOCIATION OF SPECIAL LIBRARIES AND INFOR- MATION CENI'RE (laslic), CALClJITA IASLIC has organised Document Reproduction and Translation Wing for providing translation service. It has facilities for translating from about one dozen foreign languages viz., Chinese, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Rlunanian, Russian, Spanish and Yugoslavian etc., into English. Its average performance has been about 12 articles per year. Besides, it can undertake translation of articles from Bengali into English. DEFENCE SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION AND IXX:UMENTATION CENTRE (DESIDOC), DELHI DESIDOC caters to the requirements of laboratories/establishments functioning under Defence Research and Development Organisation. It has facilities for translation from five foreign languages viz., Russian, French, German, Japanese and Chinese into English. It brings out its abstracting service of the translations done by it. INDIAN INSTI1UfE OF SCIENCE (IISc) BANGALORE IISc. undertakes translations in Russian, French, German, Bulgarian, Chinese, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Rlunanian and Spanish for its staff only. INDIAN STATISTICAL INSTInTI'E (151), CALClTITA 151 provides translations in Russian, French, German, Bulgarian, Chinese, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Rumanian and Spanish for its staff only. BHABHA AIDIIC RESEARCH CENTRE (BARC), BCMBAY BARC provides translations from French, r~rman, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Rlunanian, Russian and Spanish into English. It mainly caters to the requirements of the scientists/engineers working under Department of Atomic Energy Units. It disseminates the information concerning completed translations through a quarterly publication "Translation Bulletin". INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION Our Ministrv of Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs had been receiving sets of cards of the translated titles from the British Scientific Commonwealth Office (BCSO) through the Indian Scientific Liaison Officer in U.K. from time to time since 1951. These cards are then passed on to INSDOC for maintenance. INSDOC has been maintaining such cards according to author etc. to help in finding whether the translation requisitioned by the scientists/institution has already been done elsewhere. In case it has already been done, a copy of the same is procured and supplied; otherwise, INSDOC takes up the translation work, if requisitioned. INSDOC had been contributing to this system by sending lists of its translations to BCSO for inclusion in the index. This system seems to have been discontinued at present. 53
TANEJA COVER-TO-COVER TRANSLATION OF JOURNALS Cover-to-cover translation should be confined to the really worthwhile journals not being done elsewhere. Such journals should be selected by the NTC in consultation with the subject specialists/scientists engaged in R&D work in various institutions. Scientists for this purpose may be drawn from CSIR, DROO, Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Space, Universities, ICAR, ICMR and similar other organisations in the country. The advantage of cover-to-cover translation is that it eliminates the hit-or-miss selection of articles, and ensures the availability of important scientific literature irrespective of the language barrier. A study carried out by the National Science Foundation shows that it is economical to translate all the articles in a journal than to determine which one to translate eventhough one paper out of forty is of general interest. It facilitates bibliographical location and handling. In the case of existing cover-to-cover translation of journals time-lag between publishing of a journal in its original language and its translated version ranges from six months to one year and in certain cases it exceeds even one year. PROBLEMS IN ORGANISATION OF TRANSLATIONS Some of the institutions undertaking the translations may not supply the requisite information about the translations as had been the experience of ASLIB in this regard. It may be because of the two reasons:- 1. Industry in Ce!tain cases is reluctant to reveal to its ompetitors its interest in a particular s bject. 2. In some cases ~anslations are in rough version and require substantial editing before releasing to any other institution. The editing job is not undertaken because (a) their own purpose is served even with the rough version of the translation (b) due to shortage of manpower. METHOD OF OPERATION NTC would basically function on the basis of the co-operation of various institutions having translation facilities. All such institutions should invariably supply the bibliographical information alongwith the abstract in English of the journal a ticles, technical reports, etc. where translation has been completed or in progress, or even going to be started. The information should be sent without any delay. The concerned institutions should also send the information as soon as translations undertaken earlier have been completed. All the information so collected would be properly indexed so that all the enqueries from the various organisations can be answered pinpointedly and with utmost efficiency. Besides, maintaining location indexes, NTC should maintain and supply the translations undertaken by it. It should collect and maintain the ~riced translations done by other institutions. All unpriced translations may be made available for consultation, loan and for supply of photocopies on request. Thus NTC would act as a translation pool as well as an aid for putting the enquirer in touch with the concerned translation agencies. National Translation Centre can possibly be created by augmenting the existing facilities at INSDOC through a positive policy under NISSAT. Various institutions/individuals responsible for commissioning translations should be encouraged to deposit copies of the unpriced translations and furnish requisite bibliographical information alongwith the abstract of the priced ones. NTC may disseminate the information about the translations by bringin~ out its indexing/abstracting publications. TranslatIon index started by INSDOC can be a good media for keeping the scientists abreast with the available information about translation by enhancing its coverage. It would be able to render more effective service if abstracts are also' included. Moreover, all the information sources for translations should be given wider publicity in various Indian scientific journals pertaining to different disciplines to make scientists aware of their ~xiste~ce.. Such type of publicity is very essential WhICh IS lacking at the moment. CONCLUSION & COMMENTS Ther~'s a necessity for the development of a national tr lation centre in India by augumenting the facilit es.already created at INSDOC. This can be done wit the provision of required funds from DST under the NISSAT programme. INSDOC with its experience in organising the translation facilities since 1951 may be able to function as NTC. This would help the various scientists/engineers engaged in R&D activities/production agencies to find out what has already been done elsewhere in their respective areas of activities irrespective of language barrier and avoid costly duplication of translations/research. At present most of the scientists seem to be unaware of the existence of indexes for the translation. In fact, what is required is lot of publicity for the existing indexes to the translations completed as well as in preparation. Secondly, various institutions engaged in translations should agree to supply the required details regarding the translations undertaken as well as those in progress at the earliest to the NTC to enable it to bring the same to the knowledge of others through the publications such as Translation Index started by INSDOC recently. Translation Index would be able to provide the most effective service if the abstracts of the articles in English are also included and it is brought.out periodically. NTC would help in making the optimum use of the translation facilities in India by avoiding duplication of the costly commodity through coordination at national level. It would be possible to participate in similar international cooperative programmes on exchanje basis through NTC. This would further help in avoidinp duplication of translations/r&d work. 54 Ann Lib Sci Doc
TRANSLATION SERVICES 1. ASLIB Information Department, compiler. Translations in the U.K. ASLIB Proceedings 1973 25 (7), 264-267. ' 2. Grogan, Denis Joseph. Science and technology an introduction to the literature. London ' Clive Bingley, 1976. ' 3. 4. Jain, T C and Goyal, S P. Translation services with special reference to India. Herald of Library Science 1970, 9(2), 111-115. Lufkin, James M. What everybody should mow about translation. Special Libraries 1969 60(2), 74-81. ' S. Ranganathan, S R, ed. Docimerrtat ion and its facets. New York, Asia Publishing House, 1963, pp 463-89. 6. Seminar on Scientific and Technical Translation. Annals of Library Science and Documentation 1965, 12(1), 2-4. 7. Veta1, S.N. Translation service in medical libraries with special reference to India. Indian Librarian 1972, 27(3), 119-125. 10. 11. Indian Association of Special Libraries and Information Centres (IASLIC), P-291 CIT Scheme No. 6M Kankur gachi, Calcutta-7000S4. Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. 12. Indian National Scientific Documentation Centre (INSDOC), Hill Side Road, New De1hi-110012. ' 13. National Aeronautical Laboratory, Kodihally, Bangalore. Israel 14. Israel Program for Scientific Translations, Israel. Pakistan 15. Pakistan Scientific and Doct.D1lentation Centre Karachi. Netherlands 16. European Translations Centre, Technological University of Delft, Netherlands. New Zealand ' Australia SOURCES FOR TRANSLATIONS Appendix 1. Information Service, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), East Melbourne, Australia. Canada 2. Library of National Research Council, Ottawa, Canada. 3. Ceylon Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research, Colombo. France 4. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) 18, Rue Pierre Curve, Paris 5, France. 5. India 6. 7. 8. 9. Federation International des Traducteurs 16 Rue A de Pontmartin, 84 Avignon, France. ' Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Bombay. Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore. Central Machine Tools Institute, Bangalore. Defence Scientific Information and Documentation Centre (DESIDOC), Metcalfe House, Delhi -110054. A 17. Information Bureau, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Wellington, New Zealand. U.K. 18. 19. 20. USA 25. Aslib, 3, Belgrave Square, London, SWI, U.K. British Commonwealth Scientific Office, U.K. British Library Lending Division (BLLD), Boston Spa, U.K. 21. Machine Tool Industry Research Association U.K. maintains a union list of translatio~ on machine tools and other subjects held by a number of organisations. 22. National Reference Library of Science and Invention, U.K. 23. The British Iron and Steel Industry Translation Service (BISITS) is a consortium of steel firms contributing to a central pool. A weekly list of completed translations, a fortnightly list of completed translations, a fortnightly list of translations in preparation and an annual classified list are published.' This is also responsible for publishing cover-to-cover journal, 'Steel in USSR'. 24. The Institute of Linguists, 91 Newington Canseway, London, S.E.1. American Translators Association, P.O. Box 489, Mad ison Square Station, New York-lOOlO. 26. National Translation Centre, John Crerar Library, Chicago, USA. 55
TANEJA 27. National Translation Centre, 2621 Speed Way, Austin, Texas 78705. 28. Joint Publications Research Service, USA. South Africa 29. Library and Information Division, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Pretoria, South Africa. West Gennany 30. Technische Informations Bibliothek, Hannover, Germany.. Appendix B Netherlands 9. World Index of Scientific Translations and List of Translations notified to ETC., covers translations in progress as well as completed translations by ETC by European Translation Centre, Netherlands,.monthly, ctunulated quarterly, annually and quinquennially. UK 10. BLLD Translations Bulletin by BLLD, UK, t.bnthly. 11. Classified Directory of Japanese Periodicals by ASLIB, UK. 12. Commonwealth Index to Unpublished Translations by ASLIB, London. PUBLICATIONS PERTAINING TO TRANSLATIONS France 1. Babel by Federation International des Traducteurs, quarterly. 2. Bulletin des Traductions by CNRS, Paris, t.bnthly. 3. Index Translationtun by UNESCO, Annual. 4. Translation Bulletin, coedition by Commission of the European Communities and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, ~nthly. India S. Journal of the Indian Scientific Translators Association, New Delhi. Quarterly. 6. Translation Bulletin by BARC, Bombay, Quarterly 7. 8. Translation Index by INSDOC, New Delhi. Science abstracts from foreign langua~e Journals by DESIIXX:, Delhi. Quarterly. 13. The Incorporated Linguist by Institute of Linguist, UK, Quarterly. USA 14. Delos by NTC, Texas, Bimonthly. IS. Professional Services Directory by American Translators Association, New York. 16. Sci-tech, Index to U.S. Government Translations by U.S. Joint Publications Research Service, Quarterly. 17. SLA's Translators and Translations: Services and Sources in Science and Technology, USA. 18. The American Translator by American Translators Association, New York. 19. Translation Register Index by NTC, John Crerar Library, Chicago, USA. West Germany 20. Nachweis von Ubersetzungen by Technische Informations Bibliothek, Hanover, Germany. 56 Ann Lib Sci Doc