Wondering how to get Spanish speakers to your library? Gain an understanding on how to serve Spanish speakers in your community focusing on your library collections, services and programming. Presenter has experience working with the immigrant community and recently served as an advisor for a research project on how public library staff can more effectively serve multilingual communities. The goal of the study is to make the voices of multilingual patrons heard. This presentation will cover results from this research project such as reading practices in their countries of origin, ways of locating new materials to read, and relationships with public libraries. Included will be programming, services and collection approaches on serving Spanish speakers in public libraries. This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Laura Bush 21 grant. Three partner libraries were involved in this study; Pueblo City-County Library District (PCCLD), Brooklyn Public Library (BPL, NY), and New York Public Library (NYPL, NY).
Learning Outcomes:- Attendees will be able to apply what they have learned towards collection development by reviewing what Spanish speakers are interested in reading.
- Attendees will depart with ideas to create library programming and services that engage the Spanish speaking community.
