Service to special populations today

Serving New Immigrant Communities in the Library by Sondra Cuban and Kathleen De La Pea McCook examines the role of the library in today’s world in regard to immigration. Specifically for Latino populations this has great significance both for the library and for the immigrant community. Of the top ten countries sending immigrants to the US, five are Spanish speaking. There are currently 35 million adults in the US whose first language is not English, and this number is expected to keep growing.

The Latino population also grows more rapidly than other segments and accounts for half of the population growth in the country. Some areas like the Southwest and West are accustomed to this, but other areas like Greensboro, NC, Atlanta, GA and Las Vegas, NV, that are not traditionally thought of as hosts to large Latino populations have experienced ethnic shifts.

An ALA study showed that 58% of Latinos used the library. Libraries are usually inclusive, adaptable and flexible and, more often than not, have a true desire to help. Libraries are open places where at no charge immigrants can read, improve their language skills, have access to computers, form a bond with others in the community and experience and share the enjoyment books and films with their children.

Because 62% of low wage workers are considered to have limited English proficiency (LEP), these library opportunities become more important. No where else fulfills this role either because they charge money, are open fewer hours, require registration or proof of citizenship or immigration status and/or require higher literacy skills. The library is a safe place to go for information and it is part of the historic role/mission of library to provide the services that immigrants need to adapt to our society. When there are fewer educational opportunities in traditional society, there is a greater demand on libraries, and society really expects libraries to fulfill this role.

The Center for Immigration Studies finds that assimilation is not as quick as before because an atmosphere of patriotism mixed suspicion or skepticism in the general public sometimes borders on hostility toward those perceived as foreign. Another problem not often considered is that sometimes there is tension between legal and illegal immigrants in a community. And finally, modern technology makes it easier for immigrant populations to maintain contact with their countries of origin. All of this can have a profound psychological impact on the populations and should be taken into consideration when creating library programming

The authors are strong proponents of community assessment, outreach, and committed conditions to ensure that policies and services can be provided, and being proactive is the key. This book contains many examples and anecdotes from their research that can be adapted in practical and positive ways by libraries everywhere.

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Serving New Immigrant Communities in the Library
By Sondra Cuban, Kathleen De La Pea McCook. Libraries Unlimited, 2007

Understanding race

Gary Howard’s book begins with his own story: he managed to all but finish high school in Seattle in 1964 without having come across someone of a different race. Then he went to Yale and began participating in an outreach program at the YMCA, which led to a lifelong dedication to helping others understand the complexities of culture, and most of all race.

The title is borrowed from the words of Malcolm X, ‘We can't teach what we don't know, and we can't lead where we can't go.’ Howard posits that we need to understand all races and how the European white race became dominant. He makes the case that we need to understand our own cultural identity, which is a surprisingly uncomfortable one, and acknowledge our responsibility for the oppression of others.

This may sound overly morose, but the book actually supports finding meaningful ways to communicate effectively and sincerely with people from other cultural groups. The implications for libraries are obvious. Howard, who has dedicated his life to this, also runs the REACH Center in Seattle, a nonprofit, internationally renowned institution, which provides workshops, training and consultation.

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Howard, G.R. (2006). We can’t teach what we don’t know: White teachers and multiracial schools. New York: Teachers College Press/Columbia University.

Library Services to Youth of Hispanic Heritage

This is a book that I will keep in my reference collection. It is packed with trial and error reports, good advice, and valuable resources. It is actually a series of essays gathered by the Trejo Foster Foundation for Hispanic Library Education. The essays are aranged by topics: Programs, Collections, Planning and Evaluating, Bibliographical Resources, and For the Future. Many ideas can be gleaned from this and there is also an excellent annotated bibliography. I especially enjoyed the thoughtful ideas about how to contact people in the community and what to offer them to bring them to the library. There were great sources on how to build a collection including titles, authors and publishers.

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Immroth , B. F. (2000). Library services to youth of hispanic heritage . Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company.

Authority control and tagging

Authority control, as explained in Katherine Wells’ informative article, definitely appeals to the aspiring perfectionist in me. As our world becomes more complicated, and published works proliferate with technological advances spurring on their rapid growth, having a reliable method of being able to locate information will continue to escalate in importance.
Wells makes a good case for how authority control creates a structure that helps enable better searching through four functions: authority, finding, information and maintenance. Key word searching is less exact and cannot provide the ‘see from’, ‘see also’, ‘broader terms’ or ‘narrower terms’ that can quickly enhance a mediocre or uninspired search. It also makes it much easier to update huge systems when changes are necessary.
Tagging, that flavor-of-the-month, new-kid-on-the-block, hip, cool form of creating one’s own terms is even less satisfactory than keywords. Many (most?) people use very general tags like “read” or “library_sci”. What I tagged “MH” may have been clear 2 semesters ago, but now it’s just one big question mark. What Julie meant when she created the tag “Lib-web” is something I can only guess . These are the most popular tags on Delicious.com today: design, blog, video, software, tools, music, programming, webdesign, reference, tutorial, art. web, howto, javascript, free, linux, web2.0, development, google, inspiration, photography, news, food, flash. css, blogs, education, and business. How many do you think would be useful for finding exact information?
One of my pet peeves about tagging is that it is not hierarchical. At least mine is far from hierarchical. My del.icio.us account is less organized than a 12-year-old’s desk. Organizing it is somewhere on the proverbial ‘to-do’ list, but not really a high priority. It would surely benefit from some behind the scenes control.
Alas, I have strayed from Wells’ authority control, so let me just say that I agree with her premises . I am partial to authority. I approve of control. To me, its win-win.

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Wells, K.L. (2006). Got authorities? Why authority control is good for your library. Tennessee Libraries (Online), 56(2), 1-12.

Subject access and accessible cataloging

Elaine Yontz says: “If service to Hispanic patrons is not yet a major concern of your library, it will be soon.” We know that the Spanish speaking population is rapidly increasing in many areas across the country and every indication is that this segment of our population will continue to grow. Given this, it seems logical to conclude, as she does, that: “To lobby for a certain amount of consistency in the cataloging produced for national use is reasonable. Likewise, we should encourage utilities and vendors to catalog with more sensitivity to special populations.” She enumerates three current systems, LCSH, AC program, and Bilindex, and proceeds to analyze their effectiveness using the works of Mora. She finds them all extremely inadequate. 

She does advocate using MARC fields on a local level to make sure a library’s materials are at least accessible to it’s own immediate users, pointing out that “needed materials which cannot be found by patrons or by the librarians who help them represent a waste of valuable resources and do not, for practical purposes, even exist.” At least by identifying materials through MARC fields like 520, 650 and/or 690 will enable the local library and it’s patrons to have “a consistent access point" so that items can be located efficiently and certainly. When Yontz says that "this kind of editing can be done by anyone who can read, think, and type,” I thought: Aha! Our mission in SMA is defined!

Her point that “individual librarians must accept ultimate responsibility for the quality and effectiveness of their catalogs”also made me think that we must ensure that the soon to be released RDA has this covered better that the current systems.

 

Immroth, B. & McCook, K. de la P. (2000).  Library services to youth of Hispanic heritage.  Jefferson, NC: McFarland.  Subject access to fiction: A case study based on the works of Pat Mora, pp. 131-135. 

 

Reaching Latino community

I started on Chapter 6, because I'm most interested in outreach. The first points were to get to know the community and the leaders of that community. The authors suggest doing PR by partnering with Latino organizations. This certainly gives a great entree into the community, and provides a ready made organizational structure to take advantage of.

In the marketing section they list the following steps: plan well, use promotional fliers and the Internet, Use bilingual PR, emphasize that services are all free, Write effective press releases, utilize public service announcements, give effective presentations, and develop a distribution list with the necessary information included. Of these, I would like to highlight the following:

Use bilingual PR. This is a good idea even if the service or program is only being offered in English. Parents might like to bring their children to a story hour but either not understand enough about how it works from an English only announcement, or feel that they would not be welcome if they do not speak English. Often children know more English than their parents. In fact I think it would be great to develop a slogan to print as a footer on every library publication saying that all are welcome and all services and programs are free.

Emphasize that all programs are free. 'It's free' and 'You're welcome' are the two most important messages to get across. Many Latinos may come from areas that did not have libraries or the libraries were not able to offer many services. We want them to know what we offer and we want them to come. This is a vital part of outreach.

Develop a distribution list. This is a step that will pay off over and over again. When meeting people through their community organizations it is important to keep track of who they are, what group they represent, what their interests are, contact information and dates that are important to their community or group. (Holidays and celebrations vary from country to country.) If the library keeps good records of these things they will be able to provide greater services and attract more patrons. In short the library will be more successful.

Alire, C. & Ayala, J. (2007). Serving Latino communities. 2nd ed. NY: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc.

Our Syllabus

Spanish spoken here

The most crucial line of reasoning about having collections in languages other than English is that public libraries serve their populations. We should only attempt to judge what they might like to read, not what they should read. Not supplying books in another language when there are users who wish to read in that language is as sensible as not supplying books about non-Christian religions because we decide our country would be better if everyone were Christian. Or not supplying books on vegetarianism because it is 'healthier' to follow a ‘balanced’ diet.
We supply access to information. Along the way we sometimes have opportunities to help our users develop skills that aid them in being able to acquire the same, but that is not our primary mission.
An important point that was not touched upon in this article is that most people prefer to read in their mother tongue. I consider myself fluent in Spanish, and I am a translator by profession, but I prefer to read mostly in English. I find reading Spanish novels much more work to really comprehend all the nuance; in English I rarely even have to think consciously about this.
I can and do read non-fiction in the original language, and certainly prefer original language to translation when I have the choice, but for recreational reading, for relaxation, I want to read in English.
A personal case in point, if you will indulge me, are my unsuccessful attempts to read Don Quijote. This quest has involved searching for a palatable translation as well as various original versions. Actually, I have read but not grasped it well enough to understand its significance. I attribute this to my lack of comprehension of Cerventes, Spanish and male bonding; in that order.
I also thought the comment by Denver Mayor Hickenlooper was thought provoking: "Libraries tend to be independent from direct government control so that the personal preferences, tastes, or political needs of politicians do not dictate the contents they contain," Do library acquisitions stay under the political radar of their communities? This would be an intriguing topic to investigate more fully
Finally, I think it’s kind of strange that we’re given ½ an article to read here. I remember reading this when it was published in AL and thinking that the poor person who had to write the English spoken here portion certainly had the short end of the stick, and she was lampooned in subsequent letters to the magazine.

Quesada, T. (2007, November). Spanish spoken here. American Libraries, 30(10), 40-44.