Intentional Service Design for Multilingual Readers

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. In this session, the audience will learn about impactful service design for multilingual readers informed by a combination of research and practical experience from two urban libraries.

The program will draw on the findings from a recent IMLS-funded study focused on speakers of Arabic, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, Russian, Spanish, and Ukrainian. Case studies and strategies from participating libraries will offer practical steps for making collections, reader services, and cultural programming more inclusive of multilingual patrons, as well as enhancing the capacity of public library staff to serve multilingual communities without burnout.

Specific areas of intentional service design touched upon will include: understanding of reading practices and preferences of multilingual readers; knowledge of leisure activities outside of reading; the preferred formats and languages of reading; the chosen strategies for discovering information, and making decisions on program participation, among others. This session will also provide information and guidance for library managers and decision makers on creating sufficient training and other support mechanisms for library staff working with multilingual patrons.