Like most people, I am a fan of statistics. I can rattle off the total number of library staff members that have participated in the Spanish Language Outreach Program over the last three years at the drop of a hat (3,733 at the moment). But a story is worth so much more than a statistic.
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend the New York Library Association Conference and participate in a follow-up session for library staff who participated in NY SLO workshops last year. One of my co-presenters was Mary Elizabeth Wendt.
Mary Elizabeth is the recently retired associate director for Staten Island Libraries. She talked about New York Public’s rich history of serving immigrant populations. She noted that library annual reports from the 1910s and 1920s detail library efforts to provide English classes for recent immigrants.
After attending a SLO workshop in New York, Mary Elizabeth wanted to build connections between the twelve Staten Island libraries and local English as a Second Language service providers. She provided her staff with a comprehensive directory of all the local ESL providers and worked with these providers to bring their students into the library for tours.
Mary Elizabeth also praised the efforts of four of her staff from a mixture of job classifications. The outreach activity these staff members decided to take on was developing computer classes for Spanish speakers. Using resources from WebJunction, they developed a curriculum and marketed their computer basics and email classes in Spanish to the local community. They provided childcare for parents attending computer classes and timed their classes to occur in the evening to reach as many people as possible.
The response from the Spanish-speaking community was immediate. The first class provided training to seventeen community members. Evaluations of the class were very positive. One class member remarked that by attending the class she was able to learn to use email and used her new skills to contact her son whom she had not been able to communicate with in seven years!
The classes were so successful that the staff members from Staten Island received a follow-up grant from the New York State Library to hold an additional series of computer classes for Spanish speakers. Planning is underway for two series of classes that will each meet four times. Each student will receive a thumb drive containing all the course materials. Childcare will also be provided and each class series will culminate in a fiesta – complete with a piñata created by the children attending the childcare.
I can’t think of single statistic that captures what the Spanish Language Outreach Program is all about better than Mary Elizabeth’s stories.