Críticas Magazine

Loida García-Febo

Public Libraries & Immigrants
February 19, 2008

Timely report shines light to serve immigrants.

The Urban Libraries Council just released Welcome, Stranger: Public Libraries Build the Global Village,a report about how public libraries in the USA are serving immigrants. It includes results of a survey conducted in March 2007 (35 member libraries) and another survey from 2003 (75 libraries).

I see this report as a powerful tool that could be used by public librarians when approaching possible donors, proposing programs and services to serve their diverse library service area, and in general to develop new strategies to meet the needs of immigrants in their communities.

When you read the report, look for Five Strategies for Success. These are currently being used by libraries meeting the needs of immigrants all over the country.  Nothing too new for libraries successfully serving immigrants - aha moment! Speaking from the experience that working with multicultural populations gives me, these are tried-and-tested strategies:

• Libraries Understand Local Immigration Dynamics
• Libraries Bring Cultural and Language Sensitivity to Service Delivery
• Libraries Build English Capacity
• Libraries Create Connections to Local Institutions
• Libraries Encourage Civic Engagement

The report also highlights the importance of partnering to develop initiatives to serve our ever-changing communities. In 2007 the three top areas of Public Library Partnerships with Community Agencies for Immigrant Services were: Immigrant/Refugee Agencies, Schools (K-12), and Social Service Agencies.

This is all I’ll say about the report. Read it, share it with others, and pretty soon you will be using it when developing programs and services for your community!

Here is the announcement on the page of Urban Libraries Council:

In March 2007, ULC conducted a survey of its members, gathering data on the ways in which urban public libraries are involved with the transition of immigrants into American life. The findings of the survey, augmented with data collected in another 2003 member survey, are summarized in this report. They show that urban public libraries are in the forefront of the effort to make their cities stronger by welcoming and integrating new residents from all over the world.

Download the full report "Welcome Stranger: Public Libraries Build the Global Village" file here. This large [118mb] file will take several moments to download.

Posted by Loida García-Febo on February 19, 2008 | Comments (0)