Wikipedia as a source of monolingual and multilingual information about the Spanish heritage

Abstract The aim of the study was to analyze the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia as a tool for the dissemination of monolingual and multilingual information about the Spanish heritage. The sample consists of catalogued buildings and sites of cultural interest in a Spanish region. For that purpose, we examined to what extent articles about the buildings and sites are represented in Wikipedia that is, what kind of information is dedicated to each of them. Three different types of search in the encyclopaedia (browsing, lists and internal search engine) were performed for several months. In addition, we established to what extent Wikipedia includes multilingual information regarding the sample, that is, the number of languages in which the information is expressed, as well as articles translated into languages other than Spanish. The results show that only 21.73% of the buildings and sites that constitute the final sample have a separate article in Wikipedia, of which only 20.85% are in several languages, and 50.00% are properly described as translations. This leads us to conclude that, given the collaborative nature of this tool and in view of the cultural and economic importance of historical and cultural heritage, institutions should be responsible for promoting the multilingual dissemination of this type of information.

摘要 本研究旨在以在线百科全书维基百科（Wikipedia）为研究载体，分析其作为传播西班牙遗产单语与多语信息工具的应用价值。本次研究样本取自西班牙某行政区内的已编目文化遗产建筑与遗址。为此，我们历时数月，通过浏览、列表查询与内置搜索引擎三种不同的百科检索方式，调研了维基百科对该类建筑与遗址的收录覆盖程度，以及各条目所承载的信息类型。此外，我们还评估了维基百科针对本次研究样本的多语信息覆盖情况，具体包括信息所使用的语言数量，以及除西班牙语外的译制条目占比。研究结果显示，最终样本中的建筑与遗址仅21.73%拥有独立的维基百科条目，其中仅20.85%存在多语言版本，且仅有50.00%的条目为正式译制版本。据此我们认为，鉴于该工具的协作式属性，结合历史文化遗产所具备的文化与经济价值，相关机构应主动推动此类信息的多语传播。