Bruce Jensen

¡Hola, Wisconsin!

It will hit 85 degrees here this afternoon.   So I looked north and dialed cooler climes, prompted by a nice story last week in the Wausau Daily Herald: “Libraries closing cultural gap: Central Wisconsin libraries rethink methods to reach growing Hispanic popultion." I figured that if the minds behind the ¡HOLA! project (Hispanic Outreach Library Action) up there could communicate across our vast climatic differences--gonna be below zero up there tonight--they might have some valuable insights about bridging cultural and language gulfs to reach out to new library users.  

Taking a long swig of iced tea, I rang up Nancy Fletcher who for fifteen years has been the Special Needs librarian in Waukesha County. Nancy graciously set down her mug of steaming cocoa and told me about ¡HOLA!

Wisconsin’s work is part of WebJunction’s Spanish Language Outreach program. After receiving SLO orientation in Seattle, and doing a lot of research and preparation on their own, Nancy and three other trainers go around the state to conduct workshops that bring together library staffers and local Latino community leaders. The workshops foster dialog and introduce libraries to tested techniques for earning the interest and trust of local Latinos.

The state is in on the third round of SLO, and Nancy is excited about the toolkit that WebJunction has assembled in its three years of work across the country. “The curriculum we’re using translates well to other populations,” she said. It applies principles that work with many other groups besides Spanish speakers. In reaching out into the community, she observed, it’s all about talking to people—asking others who they think would be good on a panel. 

A recent workshop featured two “very dynamic panelists” whom Nancy identified through, in one case, asking around, and in the other by going online. “One name kept popping up” as she searched on Latino/Hispanic issues in that region. She submitted discussion questions to the invited panelists, which helped seal the participation of one of them. “He told us he was discussing the questions with his wife. One of them was worded along the lines of, How can libraries help the Spanish-speaking community? When she heard that, his wife just said, ‘Why do they assume the community needs help?’ He spoke about that at the workshop.” It served, Nancy says, as a reminder that it’s not enough to offer a valuable service—the subtleties of how you present it can turn people off.

Hence I was careful to not take pity on Nancy by offering to send all our unneeded blankets to Wisconsin.

By the way, Nancy went to Guatemala before the project began, to study basic Spanish but more importantly, she says, to get a feel for what it's like to live in a place where people don't speak your mother tongue.  She also did big favors for some book- and library-loving kids while she was there.

For background on population trends in the Badger State, see a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article from Aug 11, 2005: "Latino numbers booming: Growth in state way ahead of other groups'.”

Posted by Bruce Jensen on January 29, 2008 | Comments (0)