RUSA Guidelines for the Development and Promotion of Multilingual Collections and Services

After all of my outside reading, it was interesting to read something that actually detailed the "official" professional stance on multicultural and multilingual services.  Although RUSA's guidelines highlight many of the same concepts as my other readings, they don't really give you too much guidance about how to best reach those desired levels of services; I can now see how important it is for individual librarians to have to keep with the latest resources and literature relating to Spanish-language services.  I'd say that overall, these are just that: "guidelines," when really so much more goes into properly providing these services.

The guidelines are introduced through the frame of the Library Bill of Rights: providing "equitable levels of service" to members of all linguistic and cultural communities is a responsibility of all libraries.  These services should not seen as "additional" or "extra," instead they should be seamlessly incorporated into a library's daily functioning.

Selection: 

• Should be based on community analysis, census data, focus groups etc.  
• Should include a wide cross-section of subjects, genres, time periods etc. of interest to the target community, in both English and their native language.

Formats:

• Make a variety of formats available in the community's preferred language.
• Make literacy materials and language learning materials available, including ESL materials for specific language backgrounds.

Bibliographic Access:

• Cataloging should be done in the original language of the item.
• Bibliographic access should be provided in both English and the original language.

Physical Access:

• Multilingual collections should be housed separately and visibly.
• Make sure there is sufficient multilingual signage.
• All major library forms should be translated.

Collection Maintenance:

• Multilingual collections should be analyzed on a regular basis like any other collection.
• Don't hold materials to the same physical standards as other collections: bindings and paper quality are often not equal to those of materials published in the US or Canada.
• Special measures should be taken to preserve original materials relating to and produced by the target community.
• Demand shouldn't be used as a sole determining factor for collection development.

Programs, Services etc.:

• Services should be held to the same standards as those for the general public.
• Consider additional factors such as various subcultures, various degrees of bilingualism, the retention of linguistic identity, and the level of assimilation.
• Provide multilingual "mirror sites" for the library website
• Provide multilingual services for those who aren't able the visit the library: the housebound etc.
• Provide multilingual ILL services.
• Provide multi-lingual bibliographic instruction.
• Provide multi-lingual reference services, as well as information about local multilingual and multicultural resources.
• Bring library outreach to non-library spaces that are familiar to the target community.
• Form "non-traditional" partnerships with media, social service agencies, and other community organizations that serve the target population. 

Staffing: 

• Employ multilingual staff.
• Provide staff development surrounding multilingual services.
• Actively recruit multilingual and multilingual individuals to the library profession.