Minutes 27th May 2021, Liverpool Library, Multicultural Working Group
Apologies: Kira Paznikov (Central Coast), Joanna Bragg (ACT), Sujatha Thadakamalla (Fairfield), Vivien Chung (Willoughby), Kathy Yang (Ryde), Stephanie Lee (Bayside), Oriana Acevedo (SLNSW), Sarah Wild (Canada Bay), Vicki O'Rourke (Wollongong)
Attendees: Helen Williams (Inner West), Sandra Jamal (Parramatta), Ayse Ersay (Waverley), Eugenia Ng (Burwood), Kasia Malicka (Burwood),Joelmon Zungar (Blacktown), Irena Tichackova (Hornsby), Jadwiga Krejza (Liverpool),) Lindsay Williams (Liverpool) Shauna Miller (SLNSW),) Oriana Acevedo (SLNSW), Vanessa Maino (Ryde), Hwiwan Yang (Ryde), Sujatha Thadakamalla (Fairfield), Katherine Zhu (Randwick)
Confirmation of previous minutes was accepted by Shauna Miller (State Library of NSW).
IndyReads eplatform will be launching more books in languages other than English. Spanish, Italian, Chinese, French and Romanian language books are coming. State Library will make a short video on how to use IndyReads.
PressReader: Oriana also mentioned PressReader which‘is a service which allows anyone who lives in NSW to read newspapers in their own language at home. Over 5,000 international newspapers and magazines from more than 100 countries in 60 languages are available.’
TSS Shauna Miller: Department of Communities and Justice will contribute $200,000 and Telstra will contribute $50,000 in the new financial year. Grant applications will be sent out next week. 40 libraries are participating.
Shauna also mentioned Youngster.Co which is an intergenerational social enterprise connecting tech savvy juniors to seniors that need help with technology. State library is looking into this programme. There are some participating regional libraries and the sessions are more One-on-One and approx. 10-15mins in duration.
Guest Speaker :Rebekah Thielemans, Census Engagement Manager. 10 August is Census Night. This year the ABS would like an 85% on line completion rate and people will have 2 weeks to complete the census. Engagement Officers have been hired to increase the participation rate of people who are from LOTE backgrounds. Pop Up hubs will be in places like Parramatta and Liverpool to help answer questions about the census and why it is important for everyone to participate. A slide has been emailed out via PLN.
Strategic Plan 2017-2021. The plan will expire at the end of the year. A small group will need to meet to review it. Kira Paznikov from Central Coast, Mary Gissing (Newcastle) and Sujatha Thadakamalla (Fairfield) will meet at the State Library with Oriana in early July.
New Collections at State Library (Oriana): The state library will be adding a new collection in the Telugu language. They are hoping to add approximately 500 titles. Cumberland and Blacktown have a large number of residents that speak this language. At this stage the State Library will not be offering Long Term loans of this language. The State Library is also looking at finding a new home for the Slovak collection which has had very low usage.
Other business and information sharing:
Joelmon from Blacktown shared 2 videos using Language Ambassadors. One was in Punjabi and the other in Serbian. Videos are subtitled in English and available on Blacktown Library’s FB page. More language videos are coming in Hindi and Russian.
Oriana is working with CSU on a research project. 15 people will be interviewed about reading in their Mother Tongue. She currently has Polish, Bulgarian, Korean and Burmese participants.
Next meeting will be held at Burwood Library on 26 August.