Determining Needs

Referring back to Beaulieu’s surprise party metaphor, we know that—as staff—we cannot simply make assumptions based off what we perceive to be community needs, especially for a minority community. (2013, p. 13) There are several ways to accurately determine those needs, as well as initiate conversation, communication, and collaboration between the public library and the minority community being served.

Listening is the ultimate foundation for success. Librarians and library support staff members need to have a way to take note of when they are asked about materials or services that the library does not offer. For example, if library staff is asked about English as Second Language (ELL) classes or conversation groups, library staff members should keep count of how frequently the question is asked. If the question is asked several times a week, or frequently within a three- to six-month period of time, that is a good indicator that it is time to make those classes or groups a reality. This does, however, rely heavily on strong communication within the library; this may be difficult for a library that sees frequent staffing changes or is divided into several departments, but ultimately it is crucial for the success of a multicultural collection and collaboration with a multicultural community. After all, if a library cannot promote and maintain healthy communication between members of staff, how can they be expected to promote and maintain healthy communication with outside partners and the community they are trying to serve?

A suggestion in this case would be to keep a form ready and available for library staff members to access while on the desk. If the library is large enough to be divided into several departments—such as reference, youth services, and circulation—then there should be a form at each desk, and available in a digital, physical or mixed-media format. As librarians, we know the value of the reference interview, and often make note of when we have a reference transaction with a library patron. We keep track of that statistical information in order to see how we serve our communities. However, making a note of having a reference transaction may not necessarily mean that the library user’s information need was met, especially if that information need requires specific material or technology. Tracking the results of those incomplete interviews would be vital for future reference interviews and library development. This form would be designed to do just that, and allow for library staff to record when library users make the request for materials in a specific language, or for services that the library does not offer, such as ESL conversation groups. This form could also be used to track a need for other non-multilingual needs such as public notary services, specific computer software, etc. Statistical information from these forms would be incredibly beneficial for presenting a need for these services and allocations from the budget to library managers, directors, board members, and other authority figures for the library.

The next step is to find community partners and establish relationships. The ESL department of the school district is a good place to start, as they are already regularly communicating and interacting with multilingual families in the community. These teachers and other educators can be a valuable ally in fighting for more multilingual collections and services in the public library, and may have their own additional insights on the issue that LIS professionals may not have from within the walls of the library.

There are, however, other community institutions that would serve as valuable partners, as they are places that are already serving these minority populations. However, there are two things to be kept in mind and may require additional discussion among library staff prior to seeking out these institutions. The first is that there may be some considerable distance between the library and these partners; the second thing to keep in mind is that several of those community institutions may be based in religion. Asian and Hispanic markets, Mosques, Temples, and churches who host multilingual or non-Christian congregations are just a few community institutions that may be potential partners for the library. For immigrant and minority populations, these organizations are important for keeping cultural ties to homelands and home languages. For recent immigrants or those moving to the area, these are places to gather and meet new people with whom they already share a connection with by experiences, culture, religion, or language. Most importantly, the leaders of these organizations know their community the best. They know what the needs of the newest members are, as well as the needs of the members of the community who have been there longer. These leaders can serve as valuable resources and prominent voices when establishing a multilingual collection and services, and some may even wish to play a very active role. In addition, these organizations serve as a great word-of-mouth way for new arrivals to learn of what the library has to offer, which means that the library and partner organization have a strong symbiotic relationship.

Another method of determining needs is admittedly more time-intensive, and can be more difficult to initiate, but provide much clearer answers directly from the multilingual community being served. This method is the use of surveys, interviews and focus groups to communicate directly with the library users being served and serve as the primary means of collecting statistical information as well as anecdotes about real issues that these members have experienced.

A mixed-methods approach, the combination of surveys, interviews and focus groups involves combining qualitative and quantitative research methods to create a larger framework from which to work with. Quantitative data is numerical and utilizes statistics, whereas qualitative data is non-numerical and relies typically on intangible concepts. This is most appropriate for learning the needs of a multilingual immigrant community as this combination allows to collect demographic data of the participants—quantitative—as well as the opinions of the participants—qualitative. The quantitative data is the starting point that leads to the qualitative data. The quantitative data gathers information about library use, family size, comfort with English, and other factors. The qualitative data builds off of the quantitative, leading to questions such as:

• Are children the leading factor for library use in immigrant families?
• Are members of the community seeking a way to strengthen their English language skills?
• If a participant doesn’t use the library for themselves, why?

Initially, this research study was focused entirely on the results of surveys and interviews, which provided the author with a great deal of new information and ways to look at the needs of the Indian community that her library serves. For example, the author learned through surveys that—in addition to Hindi and Gujarati—Tamil was a prominently spoken and read language in the local Indian community. Surveys can also provide information about where to begin a new collection, and an age-range of materials to look for. For example, if survey results show that in a family there are predominately very young, school-age children, materials for teenagers may not be as high of a priority. Or, if the survey shows that several generations of families have immigrated, there may also be a priority in finding large print type materials. Focus groups and individual interviews are important because they allow for new information to be gathered that the researcher may not think to ask, as well as gather a broader scope of the experiences, needs, and opinions of the community they wish to serve. This also promotes discussion within the minority community as they discuss what they wish to see in library services, or not wish to see.

These are just a few suggestions and recommendations for information gathering. As stated in the introduction, it is not the information gathering that is particularly difficult. What is difficult is finding resources for turning the information into action, whether that is through programming, collection development, or other methods. The following is a small listing of resources that are currently available.

Sample Reference Transaction Forms, Letter to Participant, Surveys, and Focus Group/Individual Interview Guides can be found under Materials.

Works Cited

Beaulieu, T. (2013) “No surprise, community engagement works.” From Smallwood, C. and Becnel, K. (Eds) Library services for multicultural patrons: Strategies to encourage library use. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc. Pp. 13-20

The following is a sample Reference Transaction sheet created by the researcher. The top two rows represent successful reference transactions, marked with tallies. General reference questions are easily answered questions (“What call number is X books at?” “What is the capital of X?”), technology questions may relate to computers, phones, tablets, etc. Career/Workforce Questions may relate to “What is a good website for applying for jobs” or “Do you have a sample resume/cover letter?” while Library Services Questions may be “Are you going to have X program again?” or “Can I fax from the library?”.

The lower two columns represent reference transactions in which the library staff could not give an answer (such as for medical or legal advice, or questions they simply couldn’t find the answers to), while the other three columns are broken down into distinct categories: technology requests (This space is used when the answer to the question “Do the public computers have X software on them?” is no), Services and Programming Requests (This space is used for when the answer to “Do you have ESL groups?” is no, or if someone asks if the library would ever consider hosting a program about X topic.), and Language Requests. This is the space to be used when library users ask if there is a section of books in that specific language, recording the language requested. These two rows are beneficial for evaluating library services informally, and evaluating the community needs. If the requests are made by multiple users over the course of time—a week, a month, six months, etc.—then there is statistical evidence to bring these requests to the table in staff and board meetings.