Language barriers and bibliographic retrieval effectiveness: use of MEDLINE by French-speaking end users.

Objective: A study was conducted to determine if bibliographic retrieval performed by French-speaking end users is impaired by English language interfaces. The American database MEDLINE on CD-ROM was used as a model.

Methods: A survey of self-administered questionnaires was performed at two libraries of Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2 University, during a two-month period in 1997. Three study groups were constituted: MEDLINE / Ovid end users, MEDLINE / Ovid librarian-mediated users, and Pascal, a French bibliographic database, end users.

Results: Among 191 respondents, only 22% thought English was an obstacle to their bibliographic retrieval. However, the research software was generally underused and the quality of the retrieval weak. The differences were statistically significant between users trained by librarians and the self-trained group, the former performing better.

Conclusion: Special efforts need to be made to develop curriculum training programs for computerized bibliographic retrieval in medical schools, regardless of the native language of the student.