I barely understand a word of Spanish since I took German in high school and college so this was an interesting experience. We do have some Spanish speaking patrons whose grasp of English or at least written English is not very good. From time to time they tell us how much they enjoy using our small sections of books written in Spanish and other resources in their native language. I think they would enjoy using this database with their children.
As for me, I was able to find my chipmunk by browsing in English, but I was only able to understand the information by clicking on the link to World Book Kids. It is a good thing that it has the visual dictionary. There is some guesswork involved as to what some of the pictures mean, but it took me less time to find the chipmunk through the visual dictionary. It then provided the Spanish word for chipmunk so I could look it up. I do wish, however, that when I finally found the chipmunk through the visual dictionary that it had linked to the encylopdia entry. That would have been so much simpler than having to go back and search for "ardilla listada". Either way, it is definately a good resource for either native Spanish speaking children or for kids who are trying to learn a new language. It allows the children to switch back and forth between the Spanish and English translations. Plus, those trying to learn Spanish can hear what the words are supposed to sound like by having the entries read aloud.
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You are learning a lot about chipmunks, Learning Librarian! Good observations about this module. I agree that it would be nice for the visual dictionary to contain a direct link to the article. For older Spanish students, the links to newspapers from Spanish-speaking countries may be valuable. I hope your patrons will enjoy using this module.
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