Minutes of the Working Group on Multicultural Services Quarterly Meeting held on Tuesday, the 24th August 2010 at Surry Hills Library
Present Shauna Miller State Library of NSW Oriana Acevedo State Library of NSW Victoria Scarf Hurstville Library Anne Hall Fairfield Library Jo Lloyd Hornsby Library Janelle Anderson Kogarah Library Pauline Chan Parramatta Library Danju Wong City of Sydney Library Wendy Gindi Canterbury Library Katherine Zhu Randwick Library Weili Fu Willoughby Library Kathy Yang Marrickville Library Yan Ping Lu Holroyd Library Vivien Chung Willoughby Library Noel Willis Fairfield Library Ros Strange Warringah Library Bethany Abbott AMES Jane Greville Ryde Library
Apologies Dimitri Symeonidis Marrickville Library Vicki Smith Manly Library Pam Young Western Riverina Libraries Jacinta Craine Sutherland Library Jann Debenham Bankstown Library Stephanie Lee Rockdale Library
Chair Shauna Miller chaired the meeting for Jane Greville who has resigned her position in Ryde Library.
Welcome Peter Condie, Team Leader of Customers House Library, welcomed everyone to the Library.
Minutes of Previous meeting The minutes were accepted by Victoria Scarf and seconded by Jane Greville.
Matters Arising
The Birthday Gift One hundred and fifteen dollars was collected at the last meeting for the reversed present for the Group’s 27th birthday. The Group donated the money to buy books and writing tablet and pencils for the needy children overseas through the program organised by the Salvation Army.
Nomination for the positions of Chairperson and Secretary The term for the chairperson and secretary has expired. Shauna has prepared and distributed the nomination forms for these two positions. Members are encouraged to nominate themselves for these positions at the next meeting in November (AGM).
History of the Working Group Project The Group decided to put the Project on hold.
Bulk Loan Update Oriana reported the new bulk loans team consisting of 5.5 staff will now come under Public Libraries and Community Learning Division.
AMES (Adult Migrant English Service) Publications Bethany Abbott from AMES, Department of Education and Training, came and introduced their services and publications. They provide free services for migrants, including career courses, ESL and literacy courses and an online English course. There are 6 centres in Sydney. She introduced and showed members some of their publications such as “Language of Childbirth”. The issue of work book problem was raised and she will investigate any solution, such as looking at special print run or digital printing for up to 200 pages. For more details on AMES please visit http://www.ames.edu.au. Grant Application for “Magic Cloak’ Exhibition Anne Hall reported that the people who put up the Islamic Exhibition can reproduce a set of their materials for the Group for AU$40,000 which includes everything such as delivery. The Exhibition materials are not only for the exhibition but also workshop and story telling and the Group can own the materials. Anne, Oriana and Wendy Ford will investigate any possible grant application.
CALD Communities in US Public Libraries Anne Hall presented the highlights of the CALD services in some US public libraries, such as Chicago Public Library, Columbus Metropolitan Library, Northern Lights Branch Library, Seattle Public Library and New York Public Library, she visited on a tour organised by Victoria State Library in July. Her presentation was very informative and gave the members lot of insights on the multicultural services in the libraries.
Library Tour A library tour was conducted during the break by Paul Garbin, Team Leader of Surry Hills Library.
Report on the Mylanguage national Conference 2010 Oriana reported that the Conference was very successful. 187 people registered while the capacity was 160 people.
Report on the Library Cultural Banners Survey Jacinta Craine prepared the “Analysis of the Multicultural banner survey”. Vivien presented it in the meeting in her absence. Please see the full analysis in the attachment. Oriana will check the situation of the banners in the stock and report it in the next meeting.
Little Big Book Club Oriana mentioned that the State Library of NSW does not have the budget to purchase the packages from the Little Big Book Club. The working group should contact Mylee Joseph- State Library consultant for youth and the elderly, to ask for more information.
Meeting closed at 1pm
Next Meeting (AGM): Thursday 25 November 2010 at the State Library of NSW
Attachment:
Analysis of the Multicultural banner survey
• 24 people took part, 3 of whom did not previously know about the banners.
• Chinese, Arabic and Vietnamese have all been used equally.
• It was most common for a library to have used them 2 – 5 times, with only 2 libraries using them more than this.
• It was most common to display multiples of the same banner.
• Inside is currently the most common place to display. (Sorry the option was not given to indicate that you had displayed in both areas!)
• 2 people who knew about the banners have not used them.
• Although most people thought the banners were structural sound, the following comments were made: When displayed outside needed to weigh them down for safety They fell over a lot. Not strong in windy conditions
• 64% of respondents said they would display outside if they knew the banners were built for it, as opposed to 9% who had previously displayed outside.
• ¾ of respondents thought the design elements should stay the same. Comments were: Need to be inclusive of new elements & are relating to libraries Happy with new ideas Can’t picture the banner to be sure. So maybe I have only used the advertising for all the languages [not the cultural ones] Need more community languages
• 21 respondents said they would display more cultural banners if they were available.
• The most popular cultural groups for new banners were African, Mediterranean, European, Pacific Islands. Many suggestions of specific groups were also given.
Therefore need to take into account…
If new banners are made, then there should be more than one of each culture made.
The banners should be able to be displayed outside i.e. choose an appropriate structure to withstand some windy weather
More banners for more cultural groups could be created if the costs are kept down….. The current design could be used to help save costs and get a greater range OR Go for a more eye catching (memorable) design, but have fewer cultures Which cultures to choose for new banners….either Go with those highly rated in the survey OR Create a wish list from the survey results and send it to the group again so they can be ranked