a little more progress

Today I received the articles from the MNSU library that I requested through inter-library loan, and I am glad that I requested them.  I found one of them particularly useful because it was about a library in Australia where the librarians had very similar questions as I have for this inquiry project, and showed how they approached to the problem.  Again, I was assured that this year’s census would be a wonderful chance for the libraries to acquire valuable information in the demography of the community the library is located in.  The census will show not only the percentage of minority people in the community but also what languages they speak, their income and education level, and their ability to speak English.  I believe this kind of information will be pivotal in fine tuning the direction of library services.  Once you grasp the characteristics of your community members, it will be much easier to understand their information needs.

Another interesting thing that I found is that the library in Australia implemented a multicultural portal called “My Language Portal” which supports more than 60 languages. I got very interested in this portal because the article says it will bridge “the inevitable gap in collections caused by an inability to immediately provide in-house appropriate resources for recently arrived and diverse migrant communities”  I will need to further investigate how it works or if there are other multicultural portals.