Working Group on Multicultural Library Services (NSW) 10:00, Thursday the 18th June 2016 Rockdale Library
Welcome by Paula Pfoeffer – Coordinator Library Services Rockdale City Library Paula shared with the Group the good news on the new Rockdale Library building. It was opened on 31/07/2016 with Council’s commitment to extend the services in the new facility. Extra opening time has become possible thanks to two new full staff positions and a pool of casuals. The new building comprises of three levels and offers 2200sqm usable space. The service model had to be changed to effectively operate this brand new facility. The new structure has the staff divided into two teams – Customer Service and a set of specialist responsible for outreach and programming. The staff feel that everything is working amazingly well and are focusing on changing the public’s mind about what libraries are about and what they should be in the future.
Chairperson Due to changing jobs Laurence McDonnell was unable to chair this meeting. He promised to continue in his role from the next meeting onwards. Oriana volunteered to play the part just for this meeting.
Apologies: Abby Dawson, Jann Debenham, Wendy Ford, Kay Johnson, Lawrence McDonnell, Lisa Marschall, Shauna Miller, Sarah Wilde
Business arising from the previous minutes There was no business arising
The minutes were accepted by Pauline Chan and seconded by Joelmon Zungar
Evaluation of Auburn English Conversation Classes (Kemal) Kemal, representing Auburn Library, now part of Cumberland Council, informed the Group about his plan to run, at the end of September, a survey aiming at assessing the efficiency of the English Conversation Classes. Auburn is currently offering 30 English Conversation Classes at different times, aimed at people with varied level of English fluency and run from various locations. The success of these classes depends on the training, dedication and skills of the 30 volunteers working as tutors, the materials and teaching resources made available by the Library, the conditions available in the training facilities and attitudes of the students. Kemal is hoping to capture some valuable data to improve the quality of the training and validate the importance of this service. Action: we will send a request to Pamela Davis at Auburn City Library to have access to the draft research.
Ideas for a professional development seminar (Oriana) Oriana advised the Group that organising of any such event may prove difficult due to the planned new development on the site of the State Library taking place between January and November 2017. Most of the meeting rooms are to close and those available have been booked out in advance.
On Saturday the 18 February, 2017 a seminar coinciding with “International Mother Language Day” is being organised in cooperation with community groups. fearing the disappearance of their languages Language in Australian context is one of the possible theme discussed for the seminar. Issues of preservation of unwritten languages, maintaining of the mother tongue in the context of old age, failing health, isolation etc. will be addressed in the course of this seminar.
Cultural Awareness training has been organised by the State Library towards the end of every year to keep the public libraries staff aware of all the relevant issues. Any suggestions to make this training pertinent to the needs of public libraries staff are welcome.
Bulk loans in community languages (Oriana) The State Library has been exploring new models for sharing multicultural collections with NSW public libraries. Demand for the State Library’s multicultural collections has enjoyed significant growth in recent years, and a move to a distributed model of service has been recommended. This model will make more of the collections available to public libraries on long term loan, resulting in immediate access for local communities. We will be working with NSW public libraries to transition to this new model in 2016/17. Background The team has regularly reviewed procedures and implemented a range of alternate approaches for bulk loans since 2010. Consistent annual growth in demand from public libraries has resulted in the current model of distribution becoming unsustainable, due to the high number of orders and returns which require packing, dispatch, unpacking and check-in. Service updates and discussion of distribution models have taken place regularly at the Public Libraries Consultative Committee and NSWPLA Zone meetings over the past year. Demand in 2015/16 exceeded the capacity to deliver, and exploration of alternate models over the year included: • Leichhardt and Blacktown piloting a centre of excellence approach, which involves housing and distributing the Italian and Gujarati collections respectively. • Large volume and long term loans are in place for a number of libraries, while other libraries are participating in a floating collection arrangement for large print and talking books. However it is clear that there are many libraries that have high demand in a number of languages, and we would like to provide these libraries with long term loans of a larger number of items. Distributed Model The State Library proposes to lend hundreds, or thousands, of items across multiple languages to public libraries for a 12 month period. Libraries that are medium to heavy users of the bulk loans service will be approached to participate. We envisage that participating libraries will receive long term loans of collections that reflect local language needs in volumes that are based on demand over the past year. Libraries are being contacted for consultation, including discussion of languages required and the number of items to be loaned. A distributed model will make more of the collection directly available to the public from local libraries, rather than being stored in the State Library’s stacks awaiting order. The State Library will continue to hold a smaller central collection and circulate items to libraries that have lower levels of demand. Demand is very low for interlibrary loans of individual titles. In the event of an individual title request, we would put a hold on the item and recall it from the borrowing library. English large print and talking books These changes will not affect bulk loans of English large print and talking books. A number of libraries are already borrowing larger and longer term loans of these collections and this is available to those interested. Timeline Our timeline for transitioning to this model is June – August 2016, with items being distributed post-August. Libraries are being contacted to discuss participation and potential loan volumes. During this time, bulk loan requests will still be processed but there are likely to be delays while we work on the new model. We may also recall items by language in batches to facilitate the distributed model implementation. Planning The team will contact libraries over June and July to discuss allocations and languages. To improve the efficiency of the process by saving time on issuing and returning items it has been decided to lend at least 150 items for a period of six months in the languages identified by the libraries. Libraries are advised to order more items, return the ones that are found not needed and keep the rest for circulation. The renewals will be granted upon request. Providing the Bulk Loans department with a selection profile would streamline the process of selection. Tech Savvy Seniors – CALD Clients Funds have been granted for the community languages training for the coming year. Edwina is working on the details of the application process for the libraries and will email them as soon as the course of action is decided on.
The conditions should be very similar to previous years. The number of participants in the country areas can be negotiated depending on the needs of the local community. Sessions can be run in different blocks and any translated and available on the Telstra website language is on offer.
The funds for TSS – English speaking clients – should become available later in the year.
Multicultural March 2017 (Oriana) Alex Byrne, the State Librarian, who is leaving the Library to retire, has been always interested in services to NSW diverse communities, in order to progress a proactive and inclusive participation of communities, the State Library formed the Cultural and Linguistic Advisory Board .
The members of the committee are:
Mr Ngo Thang Dr Eman Sharobeem Ms Najeeba Wazefadost Mr Frank Newah- Jarfoi Mr John Arkan Mr Anthony Pang Ms Randa Kattan
Refugee Week June 2017 (Oriana) The Refugee Council has been offered the venue for the celebrations in July 2017.
Refugee Welcome Zones In July 2016 Oriana sent a letter to a number of Local Government officers to offer the support of the State library in some the activities that they may organise. No response have been received.
Multicultural Health Week (Oriana) Oriana spoke about this year celebrations, themed: ‘Caring for Carers: Supporting people who look after someone.’ The main event is on Monday 5th September at the NSW Parliament House, Macquarie Street, Sydney and will be launched by the Hon. John Ajaka, MLC, NSW Minister for Ageing, Disability Services and Multiculturalism.
Oriana took this opportunity to talk about a survey conducted by Mylee Joseph with Home Library Service Group in 2016. The survey indicted a decrease in number of people using the service. Many libraries provide services not only to housebound individuals but as well to aged care facilities and health care providers. The number of people receiving material in LOTE is comparable with those requesting English only.
Unclassified DVDs The State Library of NSW received advice form the Crown Solicitor on the 1 of April 2016. The advice covers: 1 Lending unclassified materials 2 Foreign language translation 3 Online access to unclassified material 4 Purchase and possession of unclassified materials 5 The State Library 'selling' unclassified materials to public libraries
The Multicultural Services Librarians need to read carefully the legal advice.
Discussion ensuing amalgamations All the librarians representing the amalgamated Councils reported that at the moment they were expected to carry out business as usual. There are investigations taking place to come up with the recommendations for the future operating models and structures. One of the important decision would involve the selection of LMS for the amalgamated service.
General Business
Blacktown – Joelmon asked the Group about their experience in the area of collecting the statistics on the usage of e-books in community languages.
Mona Vale Library offers conversation classes in French, Spanish, Italian and other languages with a great success.
Spanish conversation class is very popular at Marrickville.
Next meeting: Thursday 17th November – City of Sydney, Customs House .