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Minnesota State Library Services, the state library agency, has provided Latino outreach grants to sixteen public libraries, two schools and the Minnesota Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. The grant recipients’ successful applications are being posted here as our way of sharing ideas. As the programs are completed, the libraries will post reports of results. The grant money came from WebJunction for the Latino outreach workshops provided by State Library Services.

The Perham Area Public Library serves the small, rural west-central community of Perham, Minnesota. Our community's population is just over 2500 and we consider our primary service area to be approximately 5700. We are a single federated library and are a member of the Viking Library System. Our Latino population appears to be fairly small at first glance. The 2000 census figures showed that there were 29 people of Hispanic or Latino heritage in the community. Evidently, census figures aren't always reliable. As we moved further into our planning for our event, I became aware that, as our local ESL instructor had been telling me, there is a significant population of Latino people in our community if you choose to look for them. It just seemed that only the school district had been looking very hard. As you'll see when I finish posting the results of our of our program the attendance at our relatively small event was over 110 people!

Attachments:

Perham-Application-WJ.doc (71.5k)

Attached is the full outreach plan for Nobles County, described in the previous post.

Attachments:

Nobles_County-Attachment_A-Application_03-01.doc (74.5k)

Jackson County Library Application for Spanish Outreach

Children’s and adult materials in Spanish including magazines, books, and audios on learning English as a second language are being added to the library collection. The collection of Spanish/English materials will be increased with the focus being on children’s books. This step has already been implemented and expenses will not be part of this grant.

The Heron Lake Community Librarian and Jackson County Library Director will partner with a Spanish Instructor and ESL teachers from Southwest Star Concept School as well as member of the Latino Community. Our focus will be to create a plan to promote greater awareness of library services in the growing Latino community in Heron Lake, which will result in increased usage of materials, number of library cards issued and usage of the library.

Library policies and registration form will be translated into Spanish keeping the wording simple to accommodate a range of literacy skills. Colorful flyers, brochures, posters and bookmarks will be produced in Spanish and English for distribution. The outreach materials will emphasize that library services are free.

Materials will go out to the Latino families through a variety of agencies serving Spanish speakers such as Early Childhood Family Education, and Head Start but primarily through the school system. Materials will be distributed to the children to be taken home to the adults and also distributed at school conferences, and other school events. The goal is to reach the adult population through the children. 2000 census figures show a total population of 81 Hispanic or Latinos in the City of Heron Lake, 12 in Okabena and an additional 10 in the surrounding townships.

Money that is not used for printing will be used to purchase materials of interest to Latinos.

Library tours conducted in Spanish will be scheduled to introduce Spanish speakers to the library. Local high school students will be available after the tour to introduce the use of computers and Internet access. A translator will be present to answer questions and help with the registration process and to get an idea of what the library should provide. Our goal is to provide materials and service that the community wants, not just what we think they want or need.

The library does not track library cardholders by ethnicity but library staff will count the number of completed Spanish registration forms when library cards are issued. Staff will also document if there is an increase in Spanish speakers using the library. The increase in Spanish/ English materials will also be documented. The library will continue to partner with area organizations to effectively serve the Latino community.

Attachments:

Jackson_County-Final_Application.doc (73.5k)

Two of Lake Agassiz Regional Library's branches, Crookston and Moorhead, were eligible to apply for and were awarded Latino Outreach Grants. Attached you will find a copy of the application for each site. Once the programs are completed, a report of results will be posted.

Attachments:

Latino_Outreach-Report_of_Results-Crookston.doc (40.5k)    Latino_Outreach-Report_of_Results-Moorhead.doc (47.5k)    Latino_Outreach_application_-_CR.doc (47.5k)    Latino_Outreach_application_-_MH.doc (52.5k)

Report of results of Perham Area Public Library Spanish Language Outreach project attached.

Attachments:

Latino_Outreach-Report_of_Results_(4).doc (63.0k)

Nobles County Library, Worthington, MN. Report of Results: 27 librarians, school, and social service employees attended a workshop to obtain skills in order to provide bilingual Spanish-English story times. The Nobles County Library is located in rural southwestern Minnesota and serves a total population of 20,500, of whom are Spanish-speaking. The full report is attached.

REPORT OF RESULTS FOR THE
NOBLES COUNTY LIBRARY
WORTHINGTON, MN

TELL ME A STORY: Bilingual Story Time-Best Practices Workshop
June 8, 2007

1. Describe the project

This library is the headquarters of a county library system located in rural southwestern Minnesota, serving a total population of 20,500, of whom 3,000 are Spanish-speaking. Librarians and school and other social service employees attended a workshop to obtain skills in providing their first Spanish-English story times while simultaneously offering computer classes in Spanish to children’s mothers and care givers. The library also increased its collection in children’s Spanish story books.

2. What were the short and long term purposes of the project?

The short-term purposes of the project were: a) to learn the techniques for bilingual story telling in order to begin our own bilingual story time activities, b) to identify Spanish-speaking and/ or bilingual volunteers for story telling, c) to acquire additional bilingual materials to support bilingual story time activities. The long-term purposes were: a) to introduce bilingual story time on a weekly basis, b) to foster multiculturalism in the community through oral tradition, c) to introduce basic computer skills in Spanish so that our Spanish-speaking patrons may become and remain “connected,” d) to introduce Spanish-speaking preschoolers and their parents to the library and its services.

3. How and/or why did the library determine to do this project? Describe the community leader.

Since 2003, the library has offered a Spanish only story hour for Spanish-speaking preschoolers, hosted by various native Spanish-speaking volunteers and an English story hour. A need for bilingual programming was realized two years ago when mothers and caregivers asked about the possibility of having story hours in Spanish for the preschool children who understood little or no English, as well as in English, for English-speaking children, and Spanish-speaking children who would benefit from hearing the story in English. We saw this as an opportunity to provide cultural entertainment, a language-learning experience, and an opportunity for the citizens of the community to better understand each other’s cultural diversity.

Many mothers, whose children did not need them to be present during story time, wanted something to do while waiting for story time to end. Several mothers expressed a desire to learn to use computers. Informal instruction, utilizing WebJunction materials in Spanish, to teach parents basic computer skills while their children attend story time, was discussed with local community leaders, Mr. Nelson Bonilla, Director of Community Education’s Community Connector Program, and Sharon Johnson, Coordinator of Nobles County Integration Collaborative. The Coordinator of the Collaborative agreed to provide a bilingual staff member to teach basic computer usage, free of charge, during each story time. Both community partners agreed that bilingual story time would help promote cultural understanding in the community and that bilingual computer instruction is vital to sustaining connectivity in our rural area. The computer - training component of the project will begin in August, along with bilingual story time programming activities.



4. Describe the activities of the library staff and agency or agencies that participated in the project.

Library Staff Activities: The Director was responsible for workshop design, implementation, evaluation and preparation of publicity in English and Spanish. The Children’s Librarian assisted with program design, implementation, evaluation and attended the workshop. The Secretary sent out the publicity. The Workshop Facilitator prepared and presented the workshop. The Head of Adult Services ordered materials to support future bilingual story time activities. Total time invested: 93 hours.

Agency Activities: The Nobles County Integration Collaborative Coordinator assisted with program promotion and recruitment of attendees. One bilingual member of staff will be provided, free of charge, to conduct training in computer usage when bilingual story time activities commence. Total time invested: 35 hours.

5. What immediate results did you anticipate and what results actually occurred? Give your opinion on why the project received the results it did.

Ms. Tammy Pineda, former Spanish Outreach Librarian, Hennepin County Library, an authority on bilingual storytelling, facilitated a half-day workshop on best practices in bi-lingual storytelling. We anticipated learning successful techniques and strategies for bilingual story telling. This is what actually occurred. We expected 12-14 people would participate in this workshop. Actually, 27 participated. In attendance were elementary teachers, Head Start employees, a community education representative, school parental aides, and librarians. The majority were educators who work with elementary age children and their parents. There was excellent audience participation. Much discussion ensure around the role of pre-school education, the role of the parent in the educational process, and the necessity of early childhood literacy and how it is linked to story telling. Successful techniques for teaching early childhood literacy were discussed among the participants, including language acquisition. Since the majority of attendees were educators, it was natural that their concerns revolved around early childhood literacy rather than the mechanics of story telling, though many excellent story-telling strategies were introduced by the workshop facilitator and woven into the audience discussions. This laid new groundwork for the Library to strengthen its partnership with local schools, especially the relatively new charter school, which is devoted to bilingual education.

The library purchased 100 bilingual books to support story time. When bilingual story time begins, children will have an opportunity of checking out library materials. In addition, to encourage participation, a bilingual book will be given to children the first time they attend. We anticipate beginning bilingual story time in early August.

6. Describe any project continuation or follow-up.

This project may be thought of as having two parts. Part One is the bilingual story time training component for which this grant was sought. Part Two is the actual presentation of bilingual story time activities and the introductory computer training in Spanish and English.

The Director of the Community Connector Program, whose office advises newcomers on economic, housing, educational, health, and recreational opportunities, will recruit limited English proficiency families to participate in bilingual story activities. The Coordinator of the Nobles County Integration Collaborative will provide a bilingual trainer for the computer instruction component, and also will assist in recruiting Spanish-speaking families to take part in bilingual programming activities.

In addition, 100 bilingual books, purchased with funds from this grant, will be added to the collection.

To determine the success of this second phase: (a) the number of participants attending the bilingual story time workshop will be recorded as a measure of interest in the first half of the project. Once bilingual story time begins, (b) a weekly count will be made of the number of children attending story time and the number of parents taking computer classes. These statistics will be compared monthly, (c) circulation of materials will be compared monthly, (d) the number of books given away will be recorded and compared monthly.

7. As the project manager, what did you learn from this project that will be useful for future projects?

From this project, it was learned that early childhood educators have much in common with children’s librarians and the philosophy behind their service. Their concerns regarding early language acquisition, the role of the parent as the child’s first educator, early word recognition and comprehension, and the role of first language in language acquisition also are matters of concern to the library storyteller. This is a useful basis upon which to build our future bilingual story time activities and new partnerships with educators.


8. Other Comments (Optional): (Include here any anecdotes, observations, and examples that are important but did not fit into any of the questions.)

The Redwood Falls Library is located in Southwest Minnesota. The population of our town is 5,500. We were excited to host an El dia de los Ninos/Libros event to help welcome Latino families to the library and to promote multicultural activities in our community. Our event was somewhat successful, although we had initially planned for more people. Overall, it was fun, very worthwhile and a program we will most likely replicate in the future.

Attachments:

Latino_Outreach-Report_of_Results.doc (61.0k)    Redwood-Application-WJ.doc (71.0k)