The Reference and User Services Association, a division of ALA, also has a resource in their topic guide, which is the Guidelines for the Development and Promotion of Multilingual Collections and Services. These guidelines aid library professionals as they develop their own multilingual collections, from researching what language to add, to formats to acquire, to how to catalog those materials.
When developing a new language collection, one of the most valuable resources is from the ALA affiliate group, the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS). ALCTS maintains a Foreign Book Dealers Directory. This list of vendors is sortable by region of the world—Middle East, Africa, Asia, etc.—and allows the user to search by where the material is published. As of November 2019, the subcommittee that maintains this list is in the process of being updated, with defunct publishing companies being removed. Currently, there are some limitations to the directory. A user cannot search by language, nor is there a way to determine which publishers produce books in specific regional languages—which is critical when purchasing for library users from India and China. Currently, western European and Central and South America have no representation. Again, this comes back to specific regional languages and dialects; any Brazilian will tell you that the Portuguese they speak is different from that spoken in Portugal and vice versa. Perhaps some of these issues will be addressed when the new edition of the Foreign Book Dealers Directory is released.
The researcher, however, found no resources that could suggest how to make room for a new language collection, but that is due to the fact that every library will have different collections, available space, and budgeting for shelving. Some libraries may just barely be able to comply with Americans with Disabilities Act requirements in their small libraries, for example. Others may have the space, but need to utilize that space for other services. Evaluating and weeding the current collection is a good first step in this endeavor, however, and looking for ways to create a new section within existing shelving. It is also important to keep in mind that this new language collection needs to simultaneously stand out to users but not in a sore-thumb sort of way. The patrons who utilize that collection need to be easily able to locate the materials on their own, but not further emphasize the “otherness” of the multilingual patrons. If the multilingual collection is found only in a far off corner of the library, for example, feelings of shame and distance can hinder the use of the collection. Perhaps instead the multilingual collection should be before a nonfiction collection begins, or at the end of the collection. Again, these are only suggestions and may not be the best fit for every library, for every collection.