The non-English LibraryThings are flourishing. Every day we move closer to the dream of a truly international community of book lovers—contributing to the community even when we don’t speak the same language.* Good sources have been critical. We’re going release a flurry of Spanish ones on Monday, and hundreds more in many languages are forthcoming soon. Equally important has been all the effort members have put into the translations. Participation has been really astounding—202 members have made at least 20 edits each. A few languages have been shouldered by a single member—moriarty with Albanian or avitkauskas with Lithuanian—but most have been a group endeavor.

At least a dozen languages are ready for general use. It’s time to introduce some more!

• Afrikaans (afr.LibraryThing.com)
• Arabic (ara.LibraryThing.com)
• Armenian (am.LibraryThing.com)
• Chinese, traditional (cn1.LibraryThing.com)
• Chinese, simplified (cn2.LibraryThing.com)
• Farsi/Persian (ir.LibraryThing.com)
• Hindi (hin.LibraryThing.com)
• Japanese (jp.LibraryThing.com)
• Korean (kr.LibraryThing.com)
• Macedonian (mk.LibraryThing.com)
• Polish (pl.LibraryThing.com)
• Russian (ru.LibraryThing.com)
• Serbian (sr.LibraryThing.com)
• Tagalog (tgl.LibraryThing.com)
• Urdu (urd.LibraryThing.com)

By and large, the languages above correspond to languages we hope to support with one or more sources. In some cases, as Armenian, we haven’t found a source yet, but we’re hopeful. In some cases, as with Korean, we haven’t yet figured out how to make our source work, but we haven’t exhausted our options. As always, we need help finding open Z39.50 connections.

PS: Don’t forget Basque. It’s still almost untranslated. We’ll be releasing a largely Basque-language library on Monday too.

*Notably, LibraryThing’s work system means that when it comes to a book that crosses boundaries, everyone counts. That is, if Albanian readers of Heinlein also enjoy Alfred Bester, that will count when it comes time to generate recommendations. Speaking of which, we have a site-wide re-think of recommendations going on. So, expect bumps.

Labels: languages, new feature, new features, new langauges