This BBC reportage (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-27281414) says a London (UK) school has 600 children with 42 different languages among them. Is it that unusual? It made me think of a local Canadian public school which I personally witnessed (as a parent). The school is also amazingly multi-cultural, perhaps on a smaller scale (around 250 kids and fewer languages). I'm sure in other countries there is no less diversity, even with a single (official) language as a common denominator.
So, the question the BBC reporter asks is "what are the implications for education"? I ask a question from an information scientist perspective "What does it mean for such schools' libraries and and their online resource management?"
In their words, what is a school librarian to do (assuming there is one) in such environments to support learning, reading, and information seeking across languages?
Your thoughts, experiences, pointers to similar situations and best practices are very welcome! I'm also looking for research on this topic (from case studies to robust stats). Much appreciate it!
You may also ask about cultural centers. Many cultural centers have their own libraries. Ukrainian center in London, ON, for example, has a large collection of Ukrainian books. I am sure that Chinese centers have similar libraries.
Olga, hi! I can see cultural centers with a focus on one language (e.g., Italian American or Ukrainian Canadian) solving this problem by hiring a bi-lingual librarian or other staff. That person could select and order materials, maintain the collection, provide reasonable subject heading for access (e.g., in Italian and Ukrainian respectively). It gets trickier when the number of languages increases and it's no longer possible to have professional expertise to cover multiple languages. I am curious about creative solutions for providing a reasonable juvenile literature collection to speakers of multiple languages at once. So, for instance, does the UK school choose none, some, or all of the 42 languages to be represented in its library? What's the rationale for either choice? What are some of the known practices?
I was interested in that question too some time ago. I asked a school librarian from Illinois. She said that she buys some books in foreign languages if users requests. All recommendations come from users. But usually her budget is so small that she cannot afford to buy many books. She has just a few books in foreign languages. In that case the problem with retrieval does not exist. All books are placed on one shelf.
As to cultural centres, I meant something different. There are many unofficial centres where people donate books. Such collections can be at churches or cultural centres. They are usually created for children who come to Sunday school or some other cultural activities. You may ask about such collections during Panorama week in London. You can take a tour bus and visit each centre. The Chinese centre in London has a school. The centre might have a small library.
Foreign language teachers also have collections for their students...
Russian collection at London Public Library does not have a collection developer. But there is a Russian lady in London who donates books to LPL and translates book titles from the catalogue, makes a list in Excel and shares it with London Russian community. I do not know whether she does this on a regular basis. She did it in the past.
Indeed, we increasingly live in multicultural environments, but a multicultural policy will succeed in a state built on the basis of national identity and the ideology of one language, one state, one nation. The multicultural policies would not only serve to calm the cultural minorities and not to ensure their rights?
A practical way would be to contact the cultural sections in the embassies and ask them to provide the school library with information resources that introduce their culture and language.
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