Críticas Magazine

Bruce Jensen

Publicity matters
February 8, 2008

It's a happy day when a local newspaper spills some ink about your library and what it's doing for speakers of other languages. Better still when that coverage is in the vernacular press, as with Thursday's article in Georgia's Mundo Hispánico spotlighting the work of libraries in Clayton County and DeKalb County in the Atlanta metro area.

Here the story about wonderful activities for a specific linguistic group reaches those folks directly in their preferred language. They can read about weekly bilingual storytimes followed by hands-on activities in Clayton County, where the library has been pleased to see the attendance of fathers and entire families. Somehow that message has an awfully nice ring to it when you read, "...esa es la idea, que vengan las tías, las abuelitas, todos..." from the lips of Youth Services Librarian Janice Arcuria, conjuring up an image of aunties and grannies lining up to enter the library.

DeKalb County Public Library hooked up with their local Univision broadcaster for their Vamos a Leer (Let's Read) program, now in its second year in the town of Chamblee where the 2000 Census reported a majority Hispanic population. Last year Vamos a Leer contributed to a 20% increase in checkouts by patrons with Hispanic names, a spokesperson told the reporter. Who we presume was duly amazed that the library has a way to measure something like that. (By the way, DeKalb County Library's Spanish-language website is exemplary.)

Is your library getting this kind of attention from the local Spanish-language papers? Have you made contact with them? Do you help distribute them in your free publications area? Do you give them space on your periodicals shelves?

Sometimes it helps to be able to supply press releases and library feature articles in Spanish. An old friend of ours wrote a bunch of these a while back, and freely offers them up to all libraries for local revision and adaptation. We know this guy only as the enigmatic Ratón de Biblioteca. You're welcome to take his stuff and make it your own if it will help draw some more attention to your library. 



Ratón de Biblioteca

Posted by Bruce Jensen on February 8, 2008 | Comments (3)