PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND HISPANICS. Immigrant Hispanics Use Libraries Less, but Those Who Do Appreciate Them the Most.

This article caught my attention for some reasons:

First I am immigrant Hispanic, Spanish is my first language.

I teach  immigrants and first generation of Hispanic in United States all the time.

And, as a Librarian,  I am going to be working with this population in Brownsville, Texas, where I live.

Ninety-six percent of the American population are served by more than 17,000 public libraries with printed, audio and audiovisual materials to be used by the patrons.

But, in the later times, libraries also had developed into not only reading places, but also as community centers that offer different services to the people attending to their facilities.

Among the different groups that lived in the United States, Hispanics, considered the largest minority,  are rated among the least ones to attend to the Library.

One of the reasons that Hispanics are reluctant to go to the Library is the language barrier, and that some libraries have few Spanish resources to offer to this group.
Another reason is that Hispanics are less informed about the services offered in the public libraries, but once they know and/or use the services, they are more likely to be more appreciative to the assistance the libraries provide to the public, also considering them as a nice quiet place to go to read and study.


Even though the positive comments about the libraries only 51 % of Latinos have a library card (62% are US born and 40 are foreign-born) and most of them are young (16-29 yrs).
Women are more likely to have a library card than men.

Unfortunately 26 % percent of Hispanic 28 years and older did not graduate from High School and
42 %  have completed some college or more.
That indicate us that the level of education is a fact in the attendance and seeking services from the Library, and also in the use and visit of the library webpage.

Hispanic children are less in contact with libraries and books compared with the children from other groups, their parents do not take them to the library as often as whites and black parents.

Immigrants prefer audio and audiovisual more than printed materials (and I considered because they are learning the language) and say that finding information in different topics is hard for them, but immigrant Latinos are more likely to ask help from the library personnel in looking for information, and are equal in looking for information in electronic devices as the whites and blacks.
The Hispanic group feels overload but they like the large amount of information available in the library.


Libraries are important to the Latino community, considering that if the libraries close, that would be a big impact in their lives, they appreciate the services this institutions give to the society.




What I read in the article was very interesting, but not a surprise for me.
Living in a mostly Hispanic city, I can see that the information and data shown in the report are very much alike to our reality.



If we want our Latino and Spanish speaking community to be more educated and successful, we need to find ways to be more attractive to this group and make sure that Latinos are taking advantage of all the services that public libraries are offering to them and make this people to feel that, like other groups, Spanish speaking people belong to the Library community too.



Reference:

 Brown, A., & Lopez, M. (2015, March 17). Americans’ Views on Privacy and Security. Retrieved June 30, 2015, from http://www.pewinternet.org/ 

http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/03/17/public-libraries-and-hispanics/

37 pages.