[Koha] Multilingual Koha and MARC

[KEVIN ZEMBOWER]

Thanks all for your continuing advice and suggestions. For those new to the conversation, I'm working on converting a set of records in a flat-file database in English into a format usable in Koha in both English and Arabic.

Please help me with my understanding of how Koha works in multiple languages. It's my understanding that Koha's interface works in multiple languages, including Arabic, right 'out of the box.' Is this correct for both the current version and 1.2.3? The 1.2.3 version I'm working on has an Arabic pull down menu which controls the interface language, but I don't know if this was added by the local programmers or was a standard part of that version of Koha.

Other than the interface appearance, I can't think of anything else in the Koha program (not catalog contents) which would need to be changed in order to work in Arabic. Am I overlooking anything?

Regarding the content of the catalog and other databases, I'm currently leaning towards converting our existing records into MARC, or, I guess more properly, UNIMARC, in order to input them into Koha. I've learned that certain fields, such as the one for title, have corresponding fields for the title translated into other languages. My question is, for all the fields containing English text, is it possible to have a corresponding parallel field translated into Arabic or another language?

If I was successful translating all the fields needed into parallel fields in Arabic, would the 1.2.3 version of Koha and bulkmarcimport.pl handle it successfully?

Thanks, again, for all your help.

-Kevin Zembower
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