SPLAMBA & MOBAC Reference Committee Joint Meeting
April 17, 2009
Present: Deborah Ruiz (MPC), Frank Gravier (UCSC), Esmeralda Martinez (San Benito), Susan Nilsson (Watsonville), Jean Chapin (HML), Bill Rawson (Hartnell), Georg Romero (Cabrillo), Jane Ward (MPL), Karen Brown (MPL), Mary Hausel (MCFL)
Plan of Service overview – Frank Gravier
Under-served group identified: Non-English and limited English speaking and specifically Spanish speaking.
What services can be shared?
What services can be developed?
With what other community agencies could we partner?
Goal: Share local knowledge amongst the member libraries and create an online resource that can be used by all MOBAC libraries.
Discussion
Possible new partners/ sources
ELAC (English Learner’s Advisory Committee) – public schools
DLAC (School District level of ELAC)
Family Resource Centers
Reforma (ALA), Biblioteca Para la Gente (local chapter of Reforma)
Health agencies
Questions:
Is the focus to help people learn to speak English or to give assistance and provide resources to those who speak Spanish?
Who is the target audience for the proposed online resource? Is it for library professionals, service/education professionals or for the actual Spanish speakers who need resources?
MCFL has created a pathfinder to assist in finding resources in other languages; Mary will email.
Suggestions: SPLAMBA create a Bilingual bookmark, SPLAMBA create a web storytime calendar
Suggestion: MOBAC create a print item that can be handed out when doing outreach (or make the online resource easily adaptable to this use)
Idea: Presentation about outreach to speakers of indigenous languages (Triqui, Zapotec), perhaps by a Community Health speaker?
Ideas to strengthen communication between committees
- Sign up for each other’s mailing lists.
- Have an annual, face to face meeting of the chairs of all the committees.
- Be sure to put SPLAMBA dates on the MOBAC internet calendar.
- Report on committee activity to colleagues in individual libraries.
Reference Committee has two annual workshops:
Hands On: Third Friday in October and workshop in the spring (usually Infopeople)
SPLAMBA has one annual workshop usually the third Friday in March
NEXT JOINT MEETING: Tentative date – Third Tuesday in April 2010