These notes were gathered as a part of a Talk Table session at PLA 2010 on Latinos and Public Library Perceptions. I co-facilitated the session with MaryKay Dalgreen from the Oregon State Library. After we introduced some of the published research about library use and perceptions of Latino’s nationally we shared some of the great Spanish language outreach that Oregon libraries have been doing. And then we let the group get some work done! Using the World Café model for discovery discussions and guided by the key findings of the research, we looked at ways to:

• Know your local Latino community
• Create and promote services for learning English
• Promote and provide access to computers and job related services
• Be welcoming and demonstrate respect for confidentiality
• Other

Know your local Latino community

•  Partner with groups also responding to needs of community
• When communities are scattered or there are few organizations in community, may need to do more investigating, community interviews.
• Hard to know the community when rapidly changing populations (when relying on census or other gov data)
• Local faith orgs are often aware of needs.
• Neighborhood meetings, business meetings, local networking groups eg. Latino roundtable, church, community newspaper.
• School district data about demographics.
• Co-host a school coffee time with parents.
• Talk to ESL teachers.
• Country of origin is important-census asks this.
• Understand cultural traditions.
• Know what materials and formats your community wants access to.
• Local needs can be very different as can needs of new arrivals vs. longtime residents.
• Do paper survey or hold focus group with a community leader, parents, childcare folks, teens.

Create and promote services for learning English

• Bilingual *family* storytime offered with dinner, monthly (Mondays at 6 pm), funded by donor, no registration (reduces barriers), market through newsletter and outreach.
• Headstart teacher brought moms to library for computer classes.
• Market in church bulletin, doctors offices, grocery stores, laundromats, water bill.
• Mango classes www.mangolanguages.com/
• www.intercambioweb.org/ Spanish/English language exchange
• Talktime for all different ESL folks to practice basic English, learn about each other's cultures.
• Handout with all local ESL classes - help promote.
• Spanish storytime with translator.

Promote and provide access to computers and job related services

• Remember one service that works for one library might not work for another
• Provide 1:1 computer classes by appointment (in any language, not just Spanish)
• Rotate class topics 2x/month, on varied days and times
• Success providing opportunities for peer groups of students to help each other learn, eg. with setting up email.
• Tax assistance in Spanish
• Basic computer classes.

Be welcoming and demonstrate respect for confidentiality

• Overcome barriers to registration for library cards
• Overcome concerns about raids - go to where the patrons work, schools, instead of library.
• Partner with Mexican Consulate to increase trust. Exchange of materials, books and have a reading fair.
• Spanish-speaking staff-engage patrons
• Language cards with common library phrases translated
• Recruit Spanish-speakers to do storytimes
• Work with trusted community members > grocery store folks
• Recruit students to translate or lead library tours in Spanish
• Make it easy to get a library card.
• Make sure your Spanish-language collection is in a prominent and welcoming spot.
• Be sure to add-Signage in Spanish.
• Librarians as a profession need to recruit the Latino community to becoming our next wave of librarians.

Other

• Use patrons to help evaluate collections
• A challenge was identified about how children are often the translator for Latino families. This creates awkward situations especially when privacy issues are addressed, eg. Tax forms.