Hedberg Public Library Visit: Programming and Outreach

So, let me start off this post by saying that René has my perfect job.  She makes her own schedule, spending about 50% of her time in the library and the other 50% out in the community.  She is on multiple committees (the School District of Janesville's Diversity Committee and their Dual Immersion School committee, downtown business district, etc.) and tables at many community events.  Here are are an assortment of highlights from our conversation about the other aspects of her job beyond collection development:

• School Partnerships: True to the essay I read earlier in the summer , public school ESL teachers are one of her most important contacts; every year they send her a list of the ESL students by nationality, which is one way she gets an idea of the shifts in the demographic make-up of Janesville's Spanish-speaking population.
• PR: Don't just hang a poster somewhere.  Talk to the manager and the employees, tell them about the program.  Information spreads most efficiently through the Latino community by word of mouth; they'll tell others!
• Documentation for Library Cards:  When she arrived at the library a few years ago, René was influential in changing the policies of the library system so any photo ID could be used (along with proof of address) when applying for a library card.  Now all staff are trained in how to "read" identification cards from Mexico and Latin America, which has removed a huge access barrier for immigrant populations across the county.
• Bilingual Storytime:  At first René offered a monthly bilingual storytime, but when she talked to Latino parents she realized that the majority were happy to bring their children to the regular storytime and expose them to English, and many told her that they didn't feel a separate bilingual session was necessary.  Every community is different; and all she had to do was ask!
• REFORMA/ALA: One of the most important career development tips René gave me was to make myself known at conferences and to make sure to stay active in groups like REFORMA.  She said that she goes to the conferences now and when she meets new people they say "oh you're René!"  Plus, it gets you places: This year she was recommended by a publisher for an ALA grant, offered to only 25 librarians each year, to go to Liber, the International Book Festival held in Spain.

We spent the last hour of my visit putting on the summer reading program, "hosted" by a different librarian each week.  We read Niño Wrestles the World by Yuyi Morales, which was just awarded this year's Pura Belpré award at ALA a few weeks ago.  The book was a great example of multicultural children's literature done well.  The main character, Niño, imagines himself lucha libre wrestling all sorts of different tropes from Mexican folklore like La Llorna.  René read the book with wonderful dramatics and they were all enthralled.

Afterwards, they got to make their own lucha libre masks (René got templates online from the book website) and we all marched out to the mirror in the children's area so they could see their handiwork.  We also had a mini-raffle for the book posters and a copy of the book she had brought back from ALA, and even we did a quick lesson in Spanish numbers when we read off the winning tickets. An all-around success!

Spending the day at Hedberg and seeing so many things I had read about coming together has only made me more excited about the possibilities of a future career as a Spanish-language librarian!