Your library welcomes you

In a sunny classroom on the lower level of the Franklin Community Library in Minneapolis, students from all over the world worked with volunteers on English, citizenship, math and computer skills.

In St. Paul, an administrator recounted the opening of the new Rondo Area Library last year, when a line of patrons wearing dress from all over the world, speaking several languages, snaked around the corner.

At the Brookdale branch of the Hennepin County Library, a group of Asian and African-American teenagers has created the International Teen Club to work on poetry, podcasting, book reviews and tutoring younger kids.

The Carver County Library in Chaska has just ordered the first set of library brochures to be printed in Spanish.

The Minneapolis and St. Paul library systems have long worked to serve a changing spectrum of immigrant patrons. And as the metro area's immigrant base -- largely Hispanic, East African and South Asian -- spreads to suburban cities and counties, the libraries are hosting bilingual story times and beefing up their non-English collections.

The Shakopee branch of the Scott County Library, the branch most heavily used by Hispanic patrons, recently received a shipment of new Spanish-language materials, thanks to a federal grant.

But in Washington County, many of the visitors to the bilingual story time are English-speaking families with kids who are learning to speak Spanish. And many of those who come for English instruction resources are the families of highly educated 3M employees.

The larger systems -- Minneapolis, St. Paul and Hennepin County -- are multifaceted service centers that collaborate with other agencies to offer classes in English, computer skills, citizenship and career counseling. Those library systems have tremendous collections in many languages; Minneapolis libraries have books and electronic media in more than 100 languages, and collections (more than a shelf full) in 18 languages.

"We're the only ones who have that free access to technology, the resources in many languages that reach out to them -- to adults and to children," said Amy Ryan, director of the Hennepin County Library system. "It's really part of the pathway for new residents to be successful."

Hussein Samatar will be ending his term as a Minneapolis library trustee when the system merges with Hennepin County's. He walked through the doors of the Franklin Library as a new Somali immigrant 14 years ago, seeking English instruction in preparation for graduate school. Now his wife, Ubah Jama, an education student at Concordia College, is getting English instruction. His three children have grown up in the library, discovering literature and researching their own interests.

"After learning the language, you move on and start reading anything you can read," he said. "Our children, the fact that we are going there, the fact that we made a habit every week to get up to go there and do some reading ... it became for them just a place not even to think to go, but second nature to go."

'Going back to our roots'

Ryan noted that the new focus on immigrants is a return to the past.

"We're going back to our roots with many new immigrants, just as we did at the turn of the 20th century," she said. "People are looking to librarians to be their teachers, mentors and information navigators."

A century ago, the Minneapolis library opened four branches to cater to immigrants; two of those, Franklin and Sumner, still work with immigrant communities. And when the new Minneapolis Central Library opened last year, it was designed with the New Americans Center for English classes and other programs.

In a conference room off the children's section of the Brookdale Library in Brooklyn Center, a handful of teenagers gathered Monday for a meeting of the International Teen Club. The teenagers, who are mostly Hmong, do service work, learn literacy skills, and socialize with events such as a karaoke costume party they were planning this week.

"It's a safer place," said Melanie Pha, 16, of Brooklyn Center. "Parents trust it more. ... and they actually learn, too."

Learning from one another

There's no one-size-fits-all strategy to feed a wide range of languages, desires and needs.

Administrators in the county library systems are studying their communities and looking to each other's programs to decide how to proceed.

Alice Neve, St. Paul's coordinator of outreach services and Rondo Area Librarian, said: "We're so excited that we're finally starting to see there are things we have been working on so long and now [the suburban communities are] starting to develop those resources."

That's the goal for many of the suburban library systems, for whom the first step is getting immigrants through their doors.

"We just want more people to come in and find out what wonderful things we have in our library system," said Eilenne Boder, multicultural outreach liaison for Ramsey County Libraries.

She pointed to the Minneapolis system as a model. "That's what we aspire to be, but it's going to take a while because they've had a long track record. I'd love to have something like what they have."

Maria Elena Baca • 612-673-4409

Maria Elena Baca • mbaca@startribune.com