NAL Publishes Spanish Language Agricultural
Thesaurus and Glossary
By
Len
Carey May 7, 2007
The USDA National Agricultural Library (NAL) has published Spanish language
versions of its NAL Agricultural Thesaurus (NALT) and
Glossary of
Agricultural Terms. The NALT and Glossary in Spanish support increased
Spanish language access to agricultural information throughout the United
States and the world, accommodating the complexity of the Spanish language from
a Western Hemisphere perspective.
This first Spanish language edition of the NALT comprises more than
15,700 translated concepts. Included are definitions for more than 2,400 of the
concepts, in both English and Spanish, which are published in a separate
interface as the Glossary of Agricultural Terms. Both publications can be
downloaded and used through the NAL
Services web page.
The NALT is used at NAL and at other organizations as a key component
for organizing and describing agricultural information. Publishing a Spanish
language edition of the NALT makes it a valuable bilingual reference tool which
benefits both Spanish and English speakers. Organizations using the NALT terms
can easily add a Spanish language capability to their agricultural information
applications.
Of the estimated 480 million Spanish-speaking people in the world,
about 87 percent live in the Western Hemisphere. Spanish is the second most
widely spoken language in the United States, and is the most rapidly growing
language used in U.S. agriculture. Future Spanish-language editions of the NALT
will change in response to recommendations from the Spanish-speaking
agricultural community and NAL cooperators.
Translation of the NALT into Spanish was accomplished by NAL with the
American Distance Education Consortium (ADEC). ADEC is a nonprofit international
distance education consortium of approximately 65 state universities and
land-grant colleges that promotes the creation and provision of high-quality,
economical distance education programs and services to diverse audiences.
The USDA National Agricultural Library, in Beltsville, Md., is the
world's foremost agricultural library and part of the
Agricultural Research Service, USDA's
chief scientific research agency.