Three years ago we stepped up our efforts to connect with our non-English speaking residents. Over 100 different languages are spoken at home by Saint Paul Public School students and one-third of the students are English language learners. Continued immigration, the growing diversity of our non-white population and the recession combined to spur us to think differently about library services for non-English speakers. The challenge we sought to address was two-fold: effective library services for non-English speaking customers and the lack of sufficient staff diversity. For many non-English speakers, including newly arriving immigrants, their lack of computer literacy contributed to their isolation, keeping them from connection to commerce, job search, public services, and communication with family and friends. With respect to their children’s literacy, many parents, intent on their children learning to speak English, didn’t read to their children as often as desirable lacking confidence in their own English speaking skills. We want to reinforce a message that learning to love reading, narrative and story is as important as learning to speak English. Offering story times in their native languages supports the parents’ roles as their children’s first teachers.

We started by creating the Mobile Workplace program, offering basic computer training in Spanish, Somali, and Hmong, and later adding Amharic, Oromo and Karen. Native speaking community liaisons, ten laptops, and a small car bring training to non-English speakers where they are gathered in community organizations, housing developments, and faith communities. We expanded this approach to story times, which are now offered in Spanish, Somali, Hmong, Amharic, Karen and Mandarin in libraries and at community sites. Originally we offered these services with funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Otto Bremer Foundation. When we realized how we were enabled to reach more effectively all Saint Paul residents, we sought to build the funding into our permanent budget. Our proposed 2013 budget, which funded world language community services by cutting back existing services, reflected our priority for connecting with new customers. Ultimately the Mayor and the City Council funded both existing services and world language community services, and 2013 was the first year these services were part of our regular budget. In order to engage enough different community liaisons, the original staffing model was liaisons who worked relatively few hours a week offering computer training or story times. While services were grant funded, these liaisons were retained by the Friends of the Library. Part of making these services a permanent part of our budget was creating two new job titles: community services coordinator and community liaisons.

Our world language community services have changed the face of the Library - in the community and in libraries. Over the past three years we have offered between 400-560 computer classes each year in 18-20 different community places in six languages. Thousands of learners have participated and hundreds have earned digital literacy certificates of mastery through the Northstar Digital Literacy Project. Over one-third of our story times in 2013 were world language story times. World language community services have boosted our efforts to diversify our staff. Some of our community liaisons have taken other library jobs; some of our multi-lingual clerical staff have been trained and promoted to library associates to offer world language story times in their communities. Permanent funding for world language community services has had an unanticipated outcome: the expansion of other community-based services. Our community services staff, including community liaisons, are now offering basic computer training in English at the Ramsey County Women’s jail, the downtown homeless shelter, and Agape High School, a program for pregnant or parenting young women. Without the uncertainty of grant funding, staff have been able to make broader and deeper commitments to community organizations. We see world language community services as a civic engagement initiative. They are a door to inclusion in the community. We are connecting with new residents where they are, around activities important to their daily lives, with staff who look familiar.