Library catalog
Searching for accessible material for children should be easy. It should be fun as well, if children and illiterate learners are to make use of it when getting started.
Two elements of a catalog for international childrens materials:
Metadata and cataloging standards
Metadata tracked for children's materials -- both those they use and those they create -- should include stadnard core elements as well as elements indicating how it can be used, how adaptable it is, and its intended audience. Material for international audiences should include detailed information on the cultural background involved.
Cataloging material from diverse sources
Many modern collections are of materials, and from authors, that would not traditionally have been archived or stored in a library. Examples include collections of Scratch or Squeak programs on a website, indexes of articles authored by dozens of people in a collaborative dictionary or encyclopedia, snippets of code and xml uploaded to community sites, or physical objects that serve as cultural artefacts and can now be stored digitally much more flexibly than in a local museum. [NB -- museums have long dealt with this issue, many in their own ways; only recently has there been convergence with library methods.]
