Coming to America: Immigrant Services in the Library

7/28/2019 Coming to America: Immigrant Services in the Library

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Coming to America:Immigrant Services in the

Library

Rebecca KaplanKent State UniversitySchool of Library and Information Science


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According to the 2010 Census, there are fortymillion foreign-born people living in theUnited States, composing 12.9% of the

population. This is a 1.8% increase from the2000 Census.


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Unique Needs

Due to this population's unique place insociety, they require unique programming,focusing on:

Low English Proficiency (LEP) Citizenship / Legal Residence


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Low English Proficiency (LEP)

According to the 2010 Census, there are 25.2million people who are not proficient inEnglish, with these populations correlating

with the foreign-born population.


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Linguistic Isolation

This can lead to "linguistic isolation," which iswhen no member of a household above theage of 14 is proficient in English. For

example, in the Asian-American community,twenty percent of all households arelinguistically isolated.


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Naturalization / Legal Residency

Permanent Residency: While not a legalcitizen, a person with permanent residencyis allowed to remain within the country

without violating immigration law. This isgenerally signified by a green card.

Visa: A document that allows its user to

remain in a country for a period of time. Itis not permanent. Naturalization: The process of acquiring a

citizenship.


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Outreach

Hold tours of the library, specifically forimmigrant groups.

Hold roundtable discussions on immigration

issues. Advertise services that would appeal to

recent immigrants.

Print promotional materials in languagesthat are common with the localpopulations.


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Foreign Language Collections

This is would allow for people who are notfluent in English to find materials that relateto their interests.

The San Diego Public Library has an extensivecollection with materials in Arabic, Cambodian,Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Farsi, French, German,Greek, Hebrew, Hmong, Hungarian, Italian,

Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Norwegian, Polish,Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog andVietnamese.


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English as a Second Language Courses

This is a way to further acclimate foreign-bornpeople to a culture that is linguisticallydominated by English. It could be focused on

practical issues, such as speaking to people instores.

The Austin Public Library in Texas has

multiple English classes for their foreign-born population.


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Residency Programming

Many libraries with large populations ofimmigrants also have programming relating tocitizenship, visas, and permanent residency.

The Hartford Public Library offers these programsthrough the American Place (TAP).


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Website


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Other Possibilities

Conversation Circles. Bilingual Staffs. Cultural Events.

Coming to America: Immigrant Services in the Library

Documents

Transcript of Coming to America: Immigrant Services in the Library