HISPANIC LIBRARIES CONFERENCE TOPIC

MILWAUKEE - As the faces coming into libraries change, library services need to change.

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's School of Information Studies is co-sponsoring "Bridging Borders: Building Hispanic Libraries and Services in a Global Perspective," to look at issues and opportunities for those serving the growing Hispanic community. The conference, which is being held July 20-22 at the Ernie Pyle Center in Madison, is co-sponsored by UWM, the University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Library and Information Studies and the Trejo Foster Foundation.

Librarians can serve increasingly diverse communities, including the Hispanic community, by helping multicultural library visitors find existing resources and encouraging the development of new materials, say UWM librarians.

Michelle Harrell (right), academic librarian at the Golda Meir Library, is doing a presentation on the role of the multicultural librarian at the conference. She says that a great deal of what she does as a multicultural librarian at UWM's library is outreach to students of color, some of whom do not speak English as their primary language.

"They can be intimidated by libraries," she says. And, she adds, "like students in general, some of them avoid coming to the library until right before the assignment is due." She also works with the increasing number of students who are doing research on multicultural topics.

Harrell and the library staff work with students to teach them how to use the library and locate the materials they need. They may also work with students to help them learn how to use the Internet to find multicultural materials, and to learn how to evaluate that information for authenticity and usefulness. With professors and students doing multicultural projects in everything from visual arts to education classes, the Golda Meir Library includes a number of works involving a variety of cultures.

Although more multicultural references and materials are becoming available, librarians need to continue encourage publishers to produce more materials in Spanish and other languages, and more materials about different cultures, she says.

Ellen Greever, an assistant professor of library and information science at UWM and an expert on multiculturalism in children's literature, agrees with Harrell on that.

"The statistics on multiculturalism in children's literature are depressing," says Greever. In terms of sheer numbers of books that are rated as culturally diverse, the numbers haven't changed much since the Saturday Review published "The All-White World of Children's Books" in the 1960s. What has changed, however, is the quality of multicultural literature, says Greever. "In terms of quality, it's a whole lot better."

In the 1960s a book was considered multicultural if there was one non-white face in an illustration. Now the standards are much higher, and multicultural books must truly reflect the cultures of African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and other cultural groups, says Greever.

Multicultural books are valuable to all children, says Greever. Children from different cultural and ethnic groups see themselves reflected in stories and illustrations. For example, she says, n Latina author Esmeralda Santiago wrote in "When I Was Puerto Rican" that when she was young, she could never find any books about people like her.

On the other hand, says Greever, multicultural books give nonminority children a chance to understand the differences and similarities reflected in stories about other cultures. "Children from all-white rural Wisconsin can learn about children who are different from them."

One challenge is getting publishers interested in multicultural books, says Greever. When schools and libraries bought most books, the American Library Association had more clout with publishers. Now, with an increasing number of books sold through bookstores, the impact of librarians and teachers has lessened, and families aren't as organized to push for multicultural books. However, some small publishers are beginning to fill the gaps, she adds.

Talented new and established authors and illustrators are producing books that reflect a wide variety of cultures, says Greever. The number of children's authors writing about the Hispanic experience is increasing--Gary Soto, Alma Flor Ada, Saundra Cisneros and Pam Munoz Ryan are among the new crop of Latino children's writers. However, finding children's books written in Spanish is a challenge for librarians and teachers, says Greever. Currently, publishers are more likely to translate existing children's books, particularly for young readers, into Spanish rather than publish new books reflecting the Hispanic experience, she says.

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