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Diversity Fair Poster Session

Public Libraries in Patrons’ Own Words: The Visualization from Multilingual Surveys (Poster 22)

Sunday, June 29, 2025
3:30 PM – 5:00 PM EDT
Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Ballroom A
Public libraries are committed to welcoming all, but often struggle to provide inclusive and equitable resources for multilingual patrons, including immigrants, refugees, seasonal workers, international students, and American-born patrons who prefer to access the library in languages other than English. Our poster will provide a visual summary of the most salient findings from seven multilingual surveys completed as part of an IMLS-funded study.

The poster will draw on the survey responses by Arabic-, Chinese-, French-, Haitian Creole-, Russian-, Spanish-, and Ukrainian-speaking community members who live in the states of Colorado and New York. It will provide a visual roadmap into the reading and other leisure preferences of multilingual readers; their preferred ways of engaging with public libraries; the preferred formats and languages of reading; the chosen strategies for discovering information and making decisions on program participation, suggestions for improving collections and services, and satisfaction with library services, multilingual collections, programming and other resources.

Learning Objectives:

  • Understand the preferences and practices of multilingual community members in the context of reading, leisure, cultural programming, and multilingual library collections.
  • Learn about their vision and suggestions for improving library collections, programming, and community engagement.
  • Identify ways of translating research findings into practical applications that will enhance the capacity of public libraries to serve multilingual communities.