Immigrant Nation
How public libraries select materials for a growing population whose first language is not English
By Barbara Hoffert -- Library Journal, 9/1/2008
In an August 14 story, the New York Times reported that ethnic and racial minorities will likely be a majority of the U.S. population by 2042. Many of the blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and others constituting this emerging majority will be immigrants or the children of immigrants; the number of foreigners hitting these shores is projected to rise to two million annually by mid-century, up from 1.3 million today. Currently, the foreign born make up about 12 percent of the population, but the guess is that by 2025 they will make up 15 percent, surpassing a high-water mark set in 1910.
And they won't all be speaking English, at least not right away.
Never mind what America will look like in 2025 or 2042; librarians know that they need to stock up on world-language materials today. According to LJ's 2008 book-buying survey of public libraries, fully 50 percent of respondents serving populations of 10,000 or more and almost all respondents serving populations of 100,000 or more have world-language collections. On average, these libraries add 600 world-language titles to their collections annually, with the largest libraries adding over 6500 titles on average. Even so, demand is ever outstripping supply, and the path to a good collection is never easy.
Spanish to Farsi, and much more
Among world languages, Spanish is of course the most important to U.S. public libraries; in the survey, 98 percent of libraries with non-English holdings included Spanish in their lineup. In general, both librarians and the vendors that serve them cite Spanish as one of the two or three top-circulating languages, and demand just keeps growing. “We feel that the demand for Spanish has not come close to peaking, based on birth rates, immigration, and interest in doing business overseas,” affirms Larry Bennett, Baker & Taylor's (B&T) VP of Spanish-language materials and print on demand.
Spanish may be on top, but it's not alone. At Chicago PL, where world-language materials make up 15 percent of the holdings—and much more at certain branches—collections in over 200 languages flourish. Besides Spanish, hot languages include Polish, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Ukrainian, Serbian, Croatian, German, Italian, and French. And besides Spanish, the language growing most quickly in demand is Chinese.
Folks are also clamoring for more materials in Chinese—and in Russian—at the Sunnyvale PL, CA, which limits its active collecting to eight languages, including Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Spanish, Hindi, and Farsi. Chinese, Spanish, Russian, and Japanese are tops at San Francisco PL, which collects in more than 60 languages; Spanish and Russian are making the biggest waves at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. At Multnomah County Library, OR, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Russian hold sway, despite a smattering of other languages. “We did a community needs assessment in 2006 and committed to spending five to six percent of the total budget on these four target languages,” explains collections manager Pat French.
Don't discount the more traditional European languages. According to LJ's book-buying survey, a third of world-language collections in public libraries include French and German, and just over a fifth make claims for Italian, putting it on a level with current in-demand languages Korean and Vietnamese. These collections are substantial partly because they've been in the works for some time, but they're not necessarily history. Columbus Metropolitan Library, OH, which collects everything fromAmharic to Urdu, still counts French, German, and Italian among its top half-dozen or so languages. As OCLC product manager Lisa Elliott observes, “We have quite a few requests for German and French. We thought those collections had been settled some time ago, but obviously not.”
Driven by demographics
Recent up-and-comers include Hindi and Arabic, says Patricia Blouin, ethnic materials evaluator, County of Los Angeles PL—and she's backed by both B&T's Bennett and Brodart's Lauren Lee. The Indic languages in general are gearing up, and B&T, Brodart, and OCLC all report a surge in demand for Portuguese, probably prompted by immigration from Brazil. Ultimately, however, what languages are in demand—and what languages are moving up in the ranks—depends largely on “region and demographics,” observes Rishi Kumar of Multi-Cultural Books and Video (MCBV), which carries materials in more than 40 languages. “We find that Asian languages are popular on the West Coast, as well as other pockets of the country, and European languages are popular on the East Coast.”
Since a sudden burst of Somalis or Gujaratis in the neighborhood will determine what language to invest in next, librarians would love advance notice on who's moving in. Lucky Queens Library, NY, has a full-time demographer on staff to do the job. Wai Sze (Lacey) Chan trained as a librarian and began working at Queens in 1997. But when the demographer position came open, she jumped at the opportunity. As information and data analysis librarian, she tracks down statistics on America's most diverse county, where people from over 190 countries chat in over 160 languages and seven of ten babies are born to mothers not originally from the United States.
Chan highlights two tools that help facilitate her work. First, because the U.S. Census takes place only every ten years, she relies on the American Community Survey (ACS) for a more current picture of Queens. Launched by the Census Bureau in 2005, the ACS is a short form of the standard census survey, delivered to smaller populations on a rotating basis “every month, so that over time the bureau can generate a large enough sample to get data estimates,” explains Chan.
In addition, Chan relies on data from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which records the country of origin of every mother giving birth in the city. “This statistic is very interesting,” she says, “because unlike the census it is not self-reporting. It's a good indicator of nationalities we should be looking to serve.”
Through such efforts, explains Mary Catherine Little, technical services director at Queens, Chan can provide a “service area–by–service area snapshot” of the borough, essential because the languages represented at each branch will change over time as newcomers flow into and through the various communities—before heading across the East River to the great beyond. “Immigrants tend to move around in fairly predictable patterns,” says Little, but the exact who, where, and when require some calculating—even with long-established languages like Spanish. “We used to serve many South Americans, but there has been a dramatic increase in Mexicans, in terms of percentage and numbers,” notes Little. “This has a big impact on selection because their interests are very different.”
Materials and community needs
Tastes do vary from nationality to nationality. “We have had numerous requests for newspapers from India, Japanese music CDs, and nonfiction in Spanish,” confirms Sally Gildea Smith, King County Library System, WA. Broadly speaking, though, librarians agree with Little that newcomers are “looking for the same thing anybody else is looking for,” mostly children's books, fiction, and how-to/self-help titles. In fiction, works by natives and translations of popular English-language authors are embraced in equal measure, and though how-to/self-help runs the gamut, parenting, cooking, and health seem particularly popular. In the end, the materials at a given branch reflect “community needs, level of education, and age,” says Blouin. “Some communities will focus more on popular materials, while others focus on more expansive subject coverage”—just as English-language communities do.
Collecting goes way beyond books, of course. San Francisco PL offers newspapers in Spanish and Chinese; magazines in European and Asian languages; DVDs in 33 languages, especially Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Spanish; and audiobooks, mostly in Chinese but also in Russian and Spanish. In addition, patrons can enjoy music CDs, databases, and online news services in a range of languages.
Unquestionably, AV materials are hot commodities in world-language collections. At MCBV, says Kumar, “AV is 40 percent of the business, and it's growing at a tremendous pace,” while Brodart's Nerissa Moran confirms that “the demand is greater than we can fill.” Part of the problem is finding good, reliable sources. “Distributors abroad would rather work directly with DVD houses,” confidesLectorum Publications president Teresa Mlawer. As for audiobooks, “The concept is not well known outside the United States,” says OCLC's Elliott, whose company includes only books, videos, and DVDs in its popular Language Sets. “People in Vietnam are not driving around in cars listening to them.”
A multilingual staff
Most libraries collecting widely in world languages have language specialists on staff, commonly native speakers, to work with vendors and to catalog materials. As Multnomah's French notes wryly, “Someone must be able to key in orders”—especially for smaller, more specialized vendors. Queens has committees for Chinese, Spanish, Russian, and the Indic languages, made up of staff members from the community libraries and some support departments like tech services. While high-demand titles are ordered centrally, many titles are selected independently on the local level, with the committees helping to vet vendor selections and offering backup at the local bookstore for librarians who lack language skills.
Unfortunately, libraries can have trouble hiring bilingual staff. Creating new positions isn't always feasible, and current staff can resent the reallocation of existing positions. In addition, advertising for ethnic-specific staff may violate union rules. A one-on-one with human resources may be necessary to explain the need for a specific language requirement.
Despite such headaches, Multnomah has been able to cobble together a workable system, converting one cataloger position to Asian cataloger while hiring a library assistant in acquisitions with a Russian background and enticing a half-time library assistant who speaks Vietnamese to the tech side. “We have a bit of flexibility to offer staff in the system extra hours,” says French. “So far, they are thrilled, because they are wedded to the idea of improving the collections.”
Striving for equal access
To catalog world-language materials, libraries take many avenues, availing themselves of OCLC's records, for instance, or repurposing the bibliographic data provided by international vendors. Queens employs 15 full-time catalogers and 19 clerical staff to support cataloging in 30 languages; the rest are handled through a mixture of partnerships and services purchased through vendors and the like.
For convenience, libraries generally transliterate non-Roman materials, but these imperfect renderings often trip up native speakers using the catalog. Unicode, an underlying computing language that facilitates the display of non-Roman characters, allows them to see the vernacular. The results aren't perfect, however. In San Francisco, for instance, Chinese speakers can do keyword searches via their home computers but not at the library itself. The problem is that most current ILS vendors can't use Unicode, though they're trying hard to find a way. “Unicode compliance is one of the biggest hurdles we face in attempting to work with the vernacular,” says Little.
Nearly half the populace of Queens speaks a language other than English at home, and, if projections hold, more people will soon be doing so nationwide. And plenty of English speakers would love to brush up on their rudimentary French. Unfortunately, as a percentage of the materials budget and as the collection as a whole, world-language collections at many libraries still don't measure up. It's time to start speaking their language.
Coping with a sputtering supply chain
Inevitably, what librarians stock in world languages is determined by what’s actually available. Spanish-language materials are not only more varied than materials in other languages but are easier to obtain, and librarians wish they could offer the same richness to all their readers. “I think, for instance, that our Arabic speakers would enjoy more fiction if we had a steadier supply of it,” observes Megan McArdle, collection development director at Chicago. “Genre fiction seems popular in Russian collections, but there is also more published.”
On the flip side, sometimes when books are available readers don’t want them. Says Multnomah’s French, “Some members of our Vietnamese community want nothing from Vietnam because they fled from there in the 1980s and find all the material biased, even fiction.” At other libraries, the same issue pertains to anything published in China. Inevitably, dealing with immigrant populations means dealing with politics, but each situation is complex and subtle. Notes Kumar from a vendor’s perspective, “A lot of patrons from Vietnam don’t want to support publishers there, but we find they want exactly the same books if they come from a West Coast or Canadian publisher.”
Librarians looking to buy Spanish-language materials need not go far afield. Except for the occasional scholarly purchase or DVD request that can be conveniently filled, Baker & Taylor is currently restricting its world-language efforts to Spanish. So is Brodart, which carries only instructional materials, dictionaries, and bilingual children’s books in other languages. Other good sources for Spanish-language materials include Lectorum and the Bilingual Publications Company, which have been servicing this market for decades.
Bilingual now focuses exclusively on public libraries, reports President Linda Goodman, while Lectorum stands to reach a larger audience when it moves its recently shuttered New York City store online in November. Regulars at the Spanish-language book fairs—Spain’s LIBER and FIL, held in Guadalajara directly after Thanksgiving—both vendors now build their lists throughout the year by trading weekly emails with publishers abroad. They face ongoing fulfillment headaches, particularly with publishers and booksellers who attend FIL expressly to dump excess inventory and then can’t complete subsequent orders. But something important has changed. “Because of the economy and the euro, price is a criterion for the books we pick, which it wasn’t five years ago,” explains Lectorum’s Mlawer.
Tapping the sources
For world languages beyond Spanish, librarians must seek out an array of vendors and bookstores, some of which they find at international book fairs in Hong Kong, Taipei, and South Africa, as well as LIBER and FIL. Queens even partners with the National Library of China. Ingram tackles world languages from Arabic to Vietnamese, while OCLC’s Language Sets cover 15 languages. Drawn from a core collection, these sets are always customized; the “Custom Sets” OCLC also advertises may involve a particular format or a language OCLC doesn’t offer. “A typical order is for multiple languages at one time,” explains Elliott. “One-stop shopping is the appeal.”
International bookstores, located in many urban areas, are a terrific resource for world-language selection. Queens cultivates metropolitan-area stores assiduously, even giving them hot links to vendors. “That way, 35 libraries aren’t buying up all of the store’s stock, and the store doesn’t hold back high-demand types of material to sell to retail,” explains Little. “It becomes a partnership.”
Booksellers
Arte y Cultura
Attica Editions, 262 Rivervale Rd, River Vale, NJ, (201) 664-3494
Aux Amateurs de Livres (Paris)
Bai Seng USA, 3711 Main St, Queens, NY 11354-4106, 718-353-4650
Baker & Taylor
Bilingual//Bilingual Books for Kids, Inc.270 Lafayette Street, Suite 705, New York, NY 10012
Tel: 212-431-3500, FAX: 212-431-3567lindagoodman@juno.com
China Book Store, 652 N Broadway, Los Angeles, CA90012, (213) 680-9230
Downtown Book Center Inc.
Eco-Brazil, 250 W 94th St., Rm. 13J, New York, NY
(212) 222-1285, FAX (212) 222-1154
European Book Co.//European Book Company
Greek City Video, Records & Tapes (Toronto)
Han Yang Book Plus, 320 Broad Ave, Palisades Park, NJ 07650
(201) 947-1717
HARRASSOWITZ (Otto Harrassowitz )
International Book Import Service
Madera Cinevideo, renamed Spanish Multimedia
Mustafa Lalic (Toronto)
NG Hing Kee Books and Newspaper AgencySite currently suspended
Oriental Culture Enterprises Co., Inc.
Opes Inc. 2785 W. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90017 213-739-8107
Pacific Books and Arts, 524 Clement St, San Francisco, CA 94101 (415) 751-2238
Philippine Cultural & Educational Services//+
Tatak Pilipino//Tatak Pilipino.com
Toan Thu Bookstore, 2115 Pedro Avenue, ilpitas, CA 95035, 408 292-2788, FAX 408-292-2788
Tsai Fong//Tsai Fong Books
Tu Luc Bookstore
Unicont
V & W Culture, 18850 Norwalk Blvd., Artesia, CA 90701, (562) 865-8882
World Journal Book Store, 10122 Bandley Dr., Cupertino, CA 95014, (408) 973-9587
| Albanian | ||
| Books | Russia-on-Line | |
| Arabic | ||
| Adult books | Arabic Book Outlet, Dar Al Kitab Al Arabi, Ingram, Jarir Bookstore, OCLC | |
| Children's books | Multicultural Books & Videos (MCBV), OCLC, Scholastic/ My Arabic Library | |
| DVDs | MCBV, Midwest Tape, OCLC | |
| Music CDs | Midwest Tape, Rashid Music Sales | |
| Bengali | D.K. Agencies (India), MCBV | |
| Chinese | ||
| Adult & children's books | Actrace, Book House, Chiao Liu Publications, China Book Store, Chung Hwa Book Co., Eastwind Books and Arts, Ingram, Kingstone LLC, MCBV, NG Hing Kee Books and Newspaper Agency, OCLC Oriental Culture Enterprises Co., Pacifica Books and Arts, Pan Asian, Soyodo LLC, Totorro Game Comic Books, Tsai Fong, V & W Culture, Wong's TV-Radio Service, World Journal Book Store, Yesasia.com | |
| Audio | MCBV | |
| DVDs | Bai Seng USA, MCBV, OCLC, Tsai Fong, Yesasia.com | |
| Music CDs | MCBV, Yesasia.com | |
| Croatian | Ingram, MCBV, Mustafa Lalic (Toronto) | |
| Farsi | ||
| Adult books | Ingram, MCBV, RAHA Books | |
| Children's books | MCBV | |
| DVDs | RAHA Books | |
| Music CDs | RAHA Books | |
| French | ||
| Adult books | Aux Amateurs de Livres (Paris), European Book Co., Ingram, MCBV, Renaud-Bray (Montreal) | |
| DVDs | MCBV, Midwest Tape | |
| Music CDs | Midwest Tape, Renaud-Bray (Montreal) | |
| German | ||
| Adult books | European Book Co., Ingram, International Book Import Service, German Book Center, MCBV | |
| Children's books | ABC Kinderladen, MCBV | |
| DVDs | MCBV | |
| Greek | ||
| Adult Books | Attica Editions, Ingram | |
| DVDs & Music CDs | Greek City Video, Records & Tapes (Toronto) | |
| Gujarati | D.K. Agencies (India), MCBV | |
| Hebrew | ||
| Adult books | Gefen, Ingram, Sefer Israel, Sifrutake | |
| DVDs | Midwest Tape, Sifrutake | |
| Music CDs | Sifrutake | |
| Hindi | ||
| Books | D.K. Agencies (India), MCBV, Ingram, OCLC | |
| DVDs | MCBV, OCLC | |
| Music CDs | MCBV | |
| Italian | ||
| Adult books | Casalini Libri, Ingram, MCBV | |
| DVDs | MCBV, Midwest Tape | |
| Music CDs | Forzano Italian Import | |
| Japanese | ||
| Adult books | Ingram, Kingstone Bookstore, Kinokuniya, Tsai Fong, Yesasia.com | |
| DVDs | DVDAsian.com, MCBV, Tsai Fong, Yesasia.com | |
| Music CDs | Kinokuniya, Yesasia.com | |
| Korean | ||
| Adult books | Hanyang Book Plus, Ingram, JES/ The Korean Book Center, Koryo Books, MCBV, Pan Asian, OCLC, Opes Tsai Fong, Yesasia.com | |
| Children's books | OCLC, MCBV | |
| DVDs | DVDAsian.com, MCBV, Midwest Tape, Opes, Yesasia.com, | |
| Music CDs | Korean Books (Chicago), Tsai Fong, Yesasia.com | |
| Marathi | ||
| Adult books | D.K Agencies (India), OCLC | |
| DVDs | MCBV, Midwest Tape | |
| Music CDs | MCBV | |
| Panjabi | ||
| Adult books | D.K. Agencies (India), MCBV | |
| DVDs | MCBV, Midwest Tape | |
| Music CDs | MCBV | |
| Polish | Ingram, MCBV, Polish Bookstore, Szwede Slavic Books | |
| Portuguese | ||
| Adult books | Ingram, MCBV, Raker Library Services | |
| DVDs | MCBV, Midwest Tape | |
| Music CDs | Eco-Brazil, MCBV, Midwest Tape | |
| Russian | ||
| Adult books | Directline II USA, Globus Slavic/Russian Bookstore, Ingram, MCBV, OCLC, RusKniga.com, Russia-on-Line, Russian Publishing House, Szwede Slavic Books, Unicont | |
| Children's books | MCBV, OCLC | |
| Audiobooks | Directline II USA | |
| DVDs | Directline II USA, Globus Slavic/Russian Bookstore, MCBV, Russian Publishing House, Souz Video Film | |
| Music CDs | Directline II USA, Globus | |
| Serbian | Ingram, MCBV, Serbica Books | |
| Somali | MCBV, Scansom Publishers | |
| Spanish | ||
| Adult & children's books | Arte y Cultura, B&T, Bilingual, Brodart, Downtown Center Books, EuropeanBook Co., Fondo de Cultura Económica, Ingram, La Casa del Libro, Lectorum, Libros, MCBV, OCLC | |
| Audio | B&T, Bilingual, Lectorum, Ingram, MCBV, Recorded Books | |
| DVDs | B&T, Ingram, Madera Cinevideo, MCBV, Noda Audio Visual, OCLC, Rincón Musical | |
| Music CDs | B&T, MCBV | |
| Tagalog | ||
| Books | Arkipelago, Philippine Cultural & Educational Services, Tatak Pilipino | |
| DVDs | OCLC | |
| Tamil | ||
| Adult books | D.K. Agencies (India), MCBV | |
| DVDs | MCBV, Midwest Tape | |
| Music CDs | MCBV | |
| Telugu | ||
| Adult books | D.K. Agencies (India), OCLC | |
| DVDs | MCBV | |
| Thai | MCVB | |
| Turkish | Ingram, MCBV | |
| Ukrainian | MCBV | |
| Urdu | ||
| Adult books | MCBV, OCLC | |
| Children's books | MCBV | |
| DVDs | MCBV | |
| Vietnamese | ||
| Adult books | Ingram, MCBV, OCLC, Pan Asian, Toan Thu Bookstore, Tsai Fong, Tu Luc Bookstore | |
| Children's books | MCBV, OCLC | |
| DVDs | MCBV, OCLC, Tsai Fong | |
| Music CDs | MCBV, Pan Asian | |
| This list is based partly on contributions from Pat Fahrenthold, San Francisco Public Library; Fred Gitner & Constance Hsi, Queens Library, NY; Marsha Pollak, Department of Libraries, City of Sunnyvale, CA; and Sally Gildea Smith, King County Library System, WA. It is necessarily incomplete; further suggestions for the online version, which will include contact information, may be emailed to hoffert@reedbusiness.com. | ||
| Author Information |
| Barbara Hoffert, Editor, LJ Book Review, has a passion for languages |
