Case Study: Café a las siete/Coffee at Seven

In my final posting about Library Services for Multicultural Patrons: Strategies to Encourage Library Use, I'll be highlighting a series put on by the Greenburgh Public Library  Westchester County, NY.  The library set out to create a programming that would highlight the culture and talent of local Latinos, simultaneously welcoming the community's Hispanic population into the library and also increasing cross-cultural understanding in the community as a whole.  

• The programs were held weekly over 4-6 week periods.  Although they started out thinking it would only be one-time series, a third year of programs has already been funded and planned. There have even been off-shoot programs that developed from the series, like a series on Spanish cooking and a Spanish-English conversation group.
• Why "Café at Seven"?  The programs were held at seven, always with coffee and light refreshments.  Also, the idea of the café as a social gathering place was appealing to librarians.
• The programs have been funded each year by matching funds grants from the local branch of the NY Council of the Arts, ranging from $1,000-1,600.  The Friends Group provides money for the refreshments.
• They try to alternate between a musical event and another kind of event each week.  Past themes have included bilingual health fairs, cooking demonstrations, art workshops put on by local artisans, movie showings, and book discussions.
• In addition to often agreeing to perform for reduced rates, musical performers often bring contacts from their professional networks into the library for the events, increasing the attendance and diversity at the events.
• PR: The library designed a colorful, special logo for the series that they used in all the materials and advertising associated with the event.  Through a partnership with the local photographic society, the librarians hung posters around the library featuring pictures of each event taken by society members.  Besides multi-lingual media outlets, they also really emphasized word of mouth marketing (obviously that will be a huge takeaway message for me from all these readings!), encouraging staff to mention the events often, as well as asking known Latino patrons to spread the world within the community.
• Multiple local restaurants were happy to donate food for the events, and some patrons also happily volunteered to share their cooking.
• Each year the final event is a concert featuring the same local band, with a "special fiesta atmosphere" with patrons and employees dancing.

Overall, I think the idea of a series of programs can be a particularly good idea, creating a sense of continuity from year to year; I liked the emphasis on creating a special logo for the series.  I also got excited about the musical possibilities; I think music should be more present in public libraries in general!  And of course, as other case studies have pointed out, food is a huge draw.  If you are going to bring people in with food, you might as well do it right instead of just buying grocery store cookies and artificially flavored "fruit punch." I think we should all think about public libraries as a place where "fiestas" can and should happen!