1. GND 2. RDA 3. CrissCross 4. MACS 5. Petrus

Digital libraries have become valuable learning resources for information users. However, language barriers have greatly limited information access for many digital libraries, as users do not understand those languages. This study explored technical and operational challenges digital libraries faced in sustaining multilinguality. Using the multiple-case method, the study investigated two digital libraries that have sustained multilinguality for over a decade: the World Digital Library and the Digital Library of the Caribbean. On-site interviews were conducted at both digital libraries and the related documents were analyzed. The findings of the study showed that the two multilingual digital libraries faced many technical and operational challenges and employed various approaches to find solutions. A model of challenges and approaches in sustaining multilinguality was presented. As the first such case study, this research enriches the existing literature, and has theoretical, practical, and methodological implications for the research of multilingual digital libraries. The findings of the study provide useful guidelines and insights for the digital library community in sustaining multilingual services.

1. GND 2. RDA 3. CrissCross 4. MACS 5. Petrus

La thèse, effectuée dans le cadre d'une bourse CIFRE, et prolongeant un des aspects du projet ANR Traouiero, aborde d'abord la production, l'extension et l'amélioration de corpus multilingues par traduction automatique (TA) et post-édition contributive (PE). Des améliorations fonctionnelles et techniques ont été apportées aux logiciels SECTra et iMAG, et on a progressé vers une définition générique de la structure d'un corpus multilingue, multi-annoté et multimédia, pouvant contenir des documents classiques aussi bien que des pseudo-documents et des méta-segments. Cette partie a été validée par la création de bons corpus bilingues français-chinois, l'un d'eux résultant de la toute première application à la traduction littéraire.Une seconde partie, initialement motivée par un besoin industriel, a consisté à construire des systèmes de TA de type Moses, spécialisés à des sous-langages, en français↔chinois, et à étudier la façon de les améliorer dans le cadre d'un usage en continu avec possibilité de PE. Dans le cadre d'un projet interne sur le site du LIG et d'un projet (TABE-FC) en coopération avec l'université de Xiamen, on a pu démontrer l'intérêt de l'apprentissage incrémental en TA statistique, sous certaines conditions, grâce à une expérience qui s'est étalée sur toute la thèse.La troisième partie est consacrée à des contributions et mises à disposition de supports informatiques et de ressources. Les principales se placent dans le cadre du projet COST MUMIA de l'EU et résultent de l'exploitation de la collection CLEF-2011 de 1,5 M de brevets partiellement multilingues. De grosses mémoires de traductions en ont été extraites (17,5 M segments), 3 systèmes de TA en ont été tirés, et un site Web de support à la RI multilingue sur les brevets a été construit. On décrit aussi la réalisation en cours de JianDan-eval, une plate-forme de construction, déploiement et évaluation de systèmes de TA. / The thesis, conducted as part of a CIFRE grant, and extending one of the aspects of the ANR project Traouiero, first addresses the production, extension and improvement of multilingual corpora by machine translation (MT) and contributory post-editing (PE). Functional and technical improvements have been made to the SECTra and iMAG software produced in previous PhD theses (P.C. Huynh, H.T. Nguyen), and progress has ben made toward a generic definition of the structure of a multilingual, annotated and multi-media corpus that may contain usual documents as well as pseudo-documents (such as Web pages) and meta-segments. This part has been validated by the creation of good French-Chinese bilingual corpora, one of them resulting from the first application to literary translation (a Jules Verne novel).A second part, initially motivated by an industrial need, has consisted in building MT systems of Moses type, specialized to sub-languages, for french↔chinese, and to study how to improve them in the context of a continuous use with the possibility of PE. As part of an internal project on the LIG website and of a project (TABE-FC) in cooperation with Xiamen University, it has been possible to demonstrate the value of incremental learning in statistical MT, under certain conditions, through an experiment that spread over the whole thesis.The third part of the thesis is devoted to contributing and making available computer tools and resources. The main ones are related to the COST project MUMIA of the EU and result from the exploitation of the CLEF-2011 collection of 1.5 million partially multilingual patents. Large translation memories have been extracted from it (17.5 million segments), 3 MT systems have been produced (de-fr, en-fr, fr-de), and a website of support for multilingual IR on patents has been constructed. One also describes the on-going implementation of JianDan-eval, a platform for building, deploying and evaluating MT systems.