Holistically Serving the Latine Community
Anythink Libraries
Innovation Synopsis
Anythink serves a majority minority county, with 43% of residents identifying as Hispanic or Latine. In 2024, Anythink Libraries conducted a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) assessment that identified opportunities to better serve this community.
Our new DEIB strategic plan established a district-wide goal to dedicate 15% of resources to serving Latine costumers. Branches were provided with demographic and market segment data to help them identify the composition and needs of their local Hispanic communities. Branches hired more Spanish bilingual staff and collected feedback from the Latine community on their needs. Armed with a goal and resources, branches were given flexibility to ideate, create, and iterate programs to meet this need.
This combination of clear goals, data-informed decision-making, and local flexibility has transformed our services, broadened customer engagement, and strengthened our role as a connector in the communities we serve.
Challenge/Opportunity
Our 2024 DEIB Strategic Plan was informed by an internal assessment of Anythink's DEIB culture based on feedback from a survey completed by 77% of staff via surveys, focus groups, and interviews.
A committee of nine employees in various positions across the district developed the plan and solicited feedback from all staff; the final plan incorporated more than 100 edits. Staff identified that we were underserving our Latine community.
Our leadership team strengthened our capacity to authentically engage our Latine community by:
Hiring more Spanish bilingual/cultural staff
Promoting more part-time staff to full-time who have experience with their communities
Providing training on cultural awareness
Soliciting feedback from the Latine community to understand their needs
Using PlacerAI to understand hyper-local Latine market segments
Setting a goal in our 2025 operational plan to dedicate 15% of district resources to serving the Latine community
Key Elements of Innovation
Anythink took an innovative approach to achieving its 15% goal: It provided organizational support to increase services for Latine residents without prescribing how branches achieved the goal.
Staff were empowered with resources to create experiences that resonated with their community. Collections Development implemented genre translation signs for our Spanish section and expanded the catalogue. Branch staff collected information on community interest by reviewing PlacerAI data, reaching out to their Latine customers at the branch, and customers who may not currently use the library.
This feedback supported development and promotion of programs for Latine customers and allowed branches to innovate on programs that resonated with this community. This included offering Spanish versions of programs like story time and new intergenerational programs like Cafecito con Chisme, Día del Niño Fiesta, and Studio Colombia.
Achieved Outcomes
Anythink set a 2025 goal for all staff to identify and complete two actions to support their branch's 15% Latiné goal. At the end of 2025, 97% of staff exceeded or achieved this goal, and 3% partially achieved this goal.
Spanish/bilingual program attendance increased 20% in 2025, while Spanish digital and physical checkouts grew 46% and 120%, respectively. Cafecito con Chisme fostered connections among Latine customers and staff, and Día del Niño Fiesta attracted 200 guests to a branch previously viewed as monocultural.
Based on community feedback, we now only translate descriptions of programs offered in Spanish or that do not require English fluency. We created Spanish Thinktank as a district-wide space to share best practices for Spanish/bilingual programs and offered bilingual pay for Spanish-speaking staff, which is estimated to pay $38,000 to 56 employees this year.
Due to this success, branches increased their goal to 25% of resources for serving the Latine comm
