Non-English Language DVD’s

Bob Molyneux, Dr. Data, has also done an interesting dip into the NDP database.
He asked the question – “What foreign (created first in non-English languages) movies circulate best?“.
He discovered that by far the best circulating foreign movies, primarily in non-English languages were what we loosely term ‘art’ or ‘genre’ films.
No way of knowing for sure but it gives us pause. Two things that come to mind:
1. Art films are circulating to English speaking users who are reading the subtitled versions as most DVD’s released in North America have closed captioning in many languages and/or are dubbed.
2. Our English DVD collections are cicrulating to many people who speak English as a second or third language. They can then use the dubbed or subtitled options. Again, I have been told by many people who needed to learn English they use the English version to improve their English speaking skills.
Either way this seems to imply an underused marketing option for many underserved aspect of our communities with our DVD collections since DVD’s have so many more options and features than the traditional videotape versions. I’ll have to look at a few MARC records in our OPACs and see if we’re covering all of the language and ADA options that are available now.
Stephen