The word 'libraries' with pictures of people in the letters

Issue 40, March 2024

Welcome

Welcome to the first issue of In the Libraries for 2024. This issue is dedicated to the many wonderful ways in which NSW public libraries support their multicultural communities. Highlights include activities for Multicultural March, Lunar New Year and Diwali, a Nepali oral history project and a new library with a whole floor dedicated to multicultural collections. With over 29% of people in NSW born overseas, and more than 284 languages spoken at home, these services are more important than ever.

This year, we are also celebrating 50 years of the State Library’s multicultural bulk loan service, which was introduced in 1974. Shifting immigration policies in the late 1960s and early 1970s meant demand for books in other languages grew steadily, and the centralised service was established to assist public libraries to support their communities. You can read about the history of the service in the Autumn issue of Openbook.

In the Libraries is published quarterly and welcomes submissions from public libraries across NSW. Please submit your articles here (maximum of 150 words) and don’t forget to include a photo.

Note: In the Libraries is a companion to the PLS eNews, which features short articles about the work of Public Library Services at the State Library.

Nepali community members viewing exhibition in museum

First info meeting with participating families and tour of Crossing Place Museum

Capturing and sharing the stories of our Nepali-speaking community

The Albury LibraryMuseum is using grant funding from Heritage NSW to capture intergenerational oral histories from our Nepali-speaking Bhutanese refugee community. With only English ahead of it, Nepali is the second most spoken language in Albury, and this project forms part of a number of library initiatives designed to represent and provide services for this community. This particular oral history project will culminate in an exhibition featuring personal stories of migration and settlement in conjunction with short documentary films and objects chosen by participants.

In association with this project, the library’s annual literary festival Write Around the Murray will also include a Nepali poetry event in which poets from our Nepali speaking community will share Nepali poetic traditions and forms with the festival audience. This will be a bilingual event, in English and Nepali, celebrating the power of poetry to connect individuals to each other, the past, present and future.

Sara Korman, Albury LibraryMuseum

Multicultural March events at Blacktown City Libraries

Multicultural March at Blacktown City Libraries

Blacktown City Libraries will hold the annual Multicultural March event again this year, inviting the community during the month of March for a range of multicultural activities to commemorate the United Nations’ International Mother Language Day.

Last year, we engaged the community in workshops and events such as Persian story time, Chinese painting, Bollywood dancing, universal board games, Italian story time and gelato making. There will also be a chess competition!

The events will be held again this March, along with pop-up community health stalls providing information in multiple languages. Multicultural March is the Library’s leading event which aims to bring the community together to celebrate the diversity and harmony of Blacktown City.

Joelmon Zungar, Blacktown City Libraries

storyteller reading a book to a group of children

Malay guest storyteller at Gunnedah Library

Multicultural March at Gunnedah Shire Library

Gunnedah Library runs Multicultural March each year, with displays of costume dolls, fabric items and mementos of different countries throughout the library.

Our greatest success has been liaising with the Gunnedah Multicultural Women’s Association, inviting members to be guest storytellers at our March Book Buddies sessions.

The women come from backgrounds including Māori, Chinese, Fijian, Brazilian and French and are thrilled to come in their national costume, tell stories in English and their own language, sing, and demonstrate handicrafts suitable for youngsters. The sessions are extremely popular and always fully booked, with school visits and everyone welcome! They also join the library and and connect with other library users. Definitely a win-win situation!

Christiane Birkett, Gunnedah Shire Library

Warrawong Library’s Multicultural Women's Group

The library: a safe space for vulnerable multicultural women

Wollongong City Libraries offer many services and programs for our multicultural community, such as English conversation, art and tech savvy classes. The newest program launched last October is the Multicultural Women’s Group at Warrawong Library.

The Warrawong community is one of the most diverse in the Wollongong LGA. Due to higher incidences of domestic violence in the area, vulnerable multicultural women need social connection and access to local information and services. We partnered with Women Illawarra and Welcome Studio to deliver a Multicultural Women’s Group.

Each week, women from countries such as Iran and Kenya meet to socialise and participate in an art therapy activity. Feedback has been extremely positive. Wollongong City Libraries is pleased to continue the group in 2024.

‘I’ve only been in Australia for five months and don’t have much English. This group, every week is family, my only family. My safe and beautiful place.’ — participant quote.

Thanoja Fernando, Wollongong City Libraries

Bilingual Hindi and English storytime

Fun-Festival of Lights for Diwali 2023

In November 2023, the Children’s and Youth team at Stanton Library held our first ever Fun-Festival of Lights to celebrate Diwali.

The evening festival drew around 120 children and family members, bringing together community members who celebrate Diwali with those who wanted to learn more about the celebration and included:

Hindi and English bilingual storytelling
how to wear a sari — story and demonstration
henna hand painting
dancing along to traditional Indian folk music
beautiful rangoli sand art creations
delicious Indian snacks to try.

We also had book displays, an online storytime, and our beautiful Explore Indian Stories guide for children and their families, with recommended reading for all levels as well as activities and further information about Stanton Library and our collections.

Bec Shelberg, Stanton Library

Burwood Bollywood beats and dance

Bollywood dance and henna workshop at Burwood Library

Celebrating Diwali, Burwood Library hosted a successful Bollywood dance and henna workshop. The event was attended by a diverse group of people who were eager to learn about the exuberant, colourful and theatrical culture of dance and henna.

The workshop began with a talk about the history of dance and its significance in Indian culture. The attendees were then given a dance demonstration and participants were encouraged to try the moves themselves. There was some interesting individual choreography!

The henna station was set up in the library foyer so anyone passing by could have the beautiful designs applied to their hands.

The event was great fun, with attendees expressing their appreciation for the opportunity to learn about a new culture and art form. To further enhance the experience, Indian sweets and cakes were available throughout the day for library visitors to enjoy.

Helen Kassidis, Burwood Library

a group of people standing in front of a book display

Bayside Libraries English class students with new book posters

Judge a book by its cover!

Faced with the challenge of decreased usage of community language collections, we needed to spread the word to the multicultural communities, but how?

Something simple and easy — judge a book by its cover!

When new books arrive, the images of the book covers are incorporated into a poster with features including:

an item barcode underneath the book cover
bilingual messages to help both staff and readers to find the items, such as: ‘Please ask the library staff for assistance’, ‘Please let us know if you like reading these books’ and the language the book is written in.

The multicultural new book posters are promoted through Facebook, on media screens inside the libraries, in the SGS (St George Services) eNewsletter and through local multicultural networks.

We took the challenge as an opportunity to promote the multicultural collections. This resulted in a 52% increase in loans for October–December 2023 compared with October–December 2022.

Stephanie Lee, Bayside Libraries

Council Ranger Ayman with books in Arabic from the State Library of NSW

Summer reading in different languages

We love to spotlight the rich collections available to our culturally diverse community. For this year’s summer reading display, we featured a mix of community language titles targeting both children and adults, sourced from the Multicultural Bulk Loan Service at the State Library.

Members have requested books in languages including Arabic, French, Italian, Bulgarian, and Portuguese since the year began. The display includes popular English titles alongside community language books, creating an appealing mix to spark curiosity and promote the materials available. Ayman, a Council Ranger, was delighted to discover and access Arabic books for him to take home and enjoy.

Michelle Cairns, Ku-ring-gai Library

two children standing in front of book shelves

Franek and his sister browse for library books

Supporting a child’s LOTE needs at Campbelltown Library

At Campbelltown Library, we have the pleasure to serve people from many different cultural backgrounds and are dedicated to meeting the language and literacy needs unique to each customer.

Staff member Ania Milczarczyk has worked in multicultural services for 20 years at Campbelltown Library. During her time, a Polish family brought their son Franek to the library. Franek wasn’t confident speaking English, and so was introduced to our Polish collection to encourage his reading.

Franek is now an avid reader of Polish and English, and still regularly visits us at the library. When leaving, he and Ania say their special Polish goodbye: ‘uwazaj zebys nie wpadla w dziure’ (be careful, don’t fall into the hole).

Alexandra Chandler, Campbelltown City Library

the interior of a library, with shelves and stairwell

Community Language Collection floor, Liverpool City Library

Multicultural at the Yellamundie

On 3 December 2023 the Liverpool City Library opened the door of Yellamundie, the Story Teller.

The new multi-level library and community hub has an entire floor dedicated to the Community Language Collection. Books, magazines, newspapers, CDs and DVDS are available in 18 languages. We also have a Pacifica Collection, which includes material in Māori, Samoan, Fijian and Tongan and is growing all the time.

There is also a space allocated for the State Library multicultural bulks loans and the English Learning Collection.

The area offers quiet and relaxing space, which is used not only for borrowing material but also a space to read newspapers, and catch up with friends.

Jadwiga Krejza, Liverpool City Library

Here 2 Help volunteer tutor, Denise Perry with
Pinit Smits. Photographer Carol Holden

Here 2 Help for migrants

Bega Valley Shire Library in collaboration with TAFE NSW offers a free drop-in adult literacy and numeracy service called Here 2 Help to assist people make sense of conversational language, job applications, resumes, work courses, online forms and more!

There has been a significant demand to help migrants with the citizenship test and with study support. Pinit Smits came to Here 2 Help at the beginning of 2022 when she began an online vocational course. Pinit wanted support with some of the English as it is her second language and she has now successfully completed her qualification.

‘I couldn’t have done it without the one-on-one, face-to-face support I have received from Denise at Here 2 Help and at study centre at TAFE.’

Here 2 Help runs out of Bega Library weekly. Volunteer tutors provide one-on-one help. There are no enrolments or assessments, just help with whatever is needed.

Linda Albertson, Bega Valley Shire Library

Early literacy Song Book

Early literacy song books in your language

In response to the NSWPLA Learning Starts at the Local Library report in March 2023, we created an early literacy song book for children aged
0–5.

The aim of the song book is to inspire and encourage singing, talking, playing and reading at home. Brains are built from ages 0–5 which makes it the optimal window to develop lifelong language and literacy foundations. Our song book has the additional benefit of being available in six languages other than English, representing the languages of the CALD community within our locality.

Additionally, the book has the added accessibility of QR codes with video links if the song is unfamiliar. Over 1000 of our song books have been distributed into the community through early education centres, kindergarten orientation programs, the local Multicultural Centre, other local support agencies and to families via our early childhood programs in the library.

Amy Frazer, Goulburn Mulwaree Library

library and council staff with a jaga band

Opening night with Jaga Band

Let’s go Ukrainian!

Let’s Go celebrations at Canterbury Bankstown libraries give our customers a unique experience of different cultures.

Last year, from 1 September to 30 November, we celebrated the rich Ukrainian culture and history. The celebrations were officially launched with an inspired performance from the Jaga Band who entertained us with Ukrainian traditional songs.

Over three months our customers experienced an introduction to Petrykivka, a traditional form of art painting, enjoyed a musical evening with world-famous soprano Larissa Kovalchuk who thrilled audiences with her bandura, and joined in craft sessions to create vibrant ‘coral’ necklaces.

Younger audiences were treated to Ukrainian traditional folktales at preschool story times and discovered the sweet art of cookie decorating in exclusive masterclass sessions led by My Uki Cookie.

We concluded with the screening of the documentary Masha & Valentyna by Simon Target, a film that took us into the real lives of people forced out of their homes by the war.

Renata Rekiel, Canterbury Bankstown Libraries

Ling Huang and Angela Phippen presenting a bilingual talk about Chinese market gardeners

A bilingual talk on Chinese market gardens: colleagues, collaboration & community

City of Ryde Libraries presented a bilingual talk in English and Mandarin about Chinese market gardens and gardeners of the Ryde and Eastwood municipalities as part of Lunar New Year festivities in February 2023.

I prepared a full script and the Powerpoint one month in advance and then handed it over to my co-presenter and colleague Ling Huang who prepared the translation. This gave her ample time for the task, which cannot be left to Google Translate! Also, it gave her time to become familiar and confident with the content.

There were 23 attendees at the event: some English-only speakers; some Mandarin-only speakers, some bilingual. SBS Chinese was there too.

We were pleased with the audience response and learned valuable lessons about what works and what does not work in such bilingual presentations.

Angela Phippen, City of Ryde Libraries

a group of people showing craft they have made

Dragon Craft Workshop at Lionel Bowen Library, Maroubra, hosted by Ina Tan

Lunar New Year at Randwick City Library

Randwick City Library celebrated Lunar New Year with a series of inclusive and culturally enriching activities.

The festivities included Doughy Dumplings and Wonky Wontons, a playful workshop for children to craft playdough dumplings, symbolising family unity and prosperity. The Year of the Dragon Craft Workshop followed, inviting participants to create dragon balls that embody good fortune and positive energy in Chinese culture. A Chinese calligraphy and watercolour painting demonstration by master artists showcased the intricate artistry and allowed attendees to bring home a piece of art, signifying a prosperous year ahead. Lastly, the Dragon Lantern Making Workshop provided a hands-on experience for youth to engage with traditional Chinese art, ‘illuminating’ the importance of cultural heritage.

These activities highlight Randwick City Library’s commitment to an inclusive environment where the community can appreciate and learn about different cultures.

Jonathan Doyle, Randwick City Library

a man showing a group of people some paintings

Artist Xian-Lai Xu introducing his paintings, which depict the Blue Mountains and La Perouse, during an artist talk he presented at Ryde Library last December

Exploring appreciation of Chinese arts and literature at Ryde Library

In October 2023, Ryde Library launched a Mandarin-focused Chinese Arts & Literature Reading Group in collaboration with the Community Migrant Resource Centre (CMRC), aiming to foster community engagement, showcase the library’s Chinese collections, and facilitate cultural exchange.

The group meets monthly at the library, exploring literary themes, authors, and featuring artist talks. Promotion through the council website, library enewsletter, and bilingual flyers has proven effective. During the three-month trial, the group actively engaged with the Chinese community, hosting a successful artist talk by Xian-Lai Xu in December. This initiative strengthened connections with local Chinese artists, leading to four art displays exhibited across libraries. The effort also nurtured the Ryde Library–CMRC partnership, resulting in a further joint Chinese Tea Ceremony program in February, celebrating Lunar New Year.

The Ryde Chinese Arts and Literature Reading Group emphasises the power of literature in fostering cultural understanding and community engagement.

Kathy Yang, City of Ryde Libraries

a group of women looking at library books

Members of the community enjoying Maltese resources during a recent outreach visit

Multicultural outreach in The Hills Shire

A long-running partnership between The Hills Shire Libraries and Hills Community Care, bringing library services to less-mobile members of the community, has continued to grow since it began in 2016.

Hills Community Care provides a social day program that arranges transport to the centre for many people, including the elderly, people with a disability, and their carers.

During these outreach visits, library staff identified a need to provide books for the culturally and linguistically diverse communities that attend. In particular, the Maltese and Chinese groups expressed a desire to borrow books written in their native language. Utilising the State Library’s Multicultural Bulk Loan Service has enabled this to happen and in many cases is the only opportunity they have to read in their native language.

This service has turned into a much-loved and valued activity that facilitates connection and lifelong learning.

Maryann O’Harae, The Hills Shire Library Service

Reading and learning together

One-on-one reading assistance for our adult our diverse communities

Cumberland City Council was excited to launch a One-on-one Reading Assistance Program in 2023. Reading Buddies for Primary School Children were very popular; and at the same time, some parents requested reading assistance too. The One-on-One Reading Assistance for Adults Program was born!

Cumberland is one of the most culturally diverse areas in Australia — 65.2% of people used a language other than English at home in 2021. This program complements our existing English Conversation Classes to improve the self-confidence of the new migrants so that they can practice what they need as individuals. We offer a variety of multicultural volunteers to allow for practice hearing different English dialects.

This program caters to the specific needs of our diverse communities and new migrants, and the interaction between volunteering tutors and participants defines the true meaning of modern libraries as a community hub for our local communities.

Stella Tay, Cumberland City Libraries

Leeton Shire Library Languages Section

Leeton Shire Library Multicultural Services

Leeton Shire Library is fortunate to have an extensive English as a Second Language section. The collections began in 2014 when the ESL/LLN TAFE teacher approached the library manager and asked if the library could purchase some resources for people learning English. She was very receptive and, with a sizable grant from the local Rotary Club, the requested items were purchased.

Since then, the collections have steadily grown because the library values the importance for our CALD communities and learners of English/LLN. We are also so grateful for the free State Library of NSW Multicultural Bulk Loan Service, which our patrons request regularly.

Our service English Help is for Leeton’s CALD members to receive assistance, where there is an English barrier, for example with phone calls, form-filling or computer use. On Saturday mornings our English language classes are taken by volunteer tutors, and students enjoy the atmosphere while improving their English skills.

Many from our CALD communities see our library as a safe haven, so they come and sit quietly or chat together.

Susie Rowe, Leeton Shire Library

English conversation class at Georges River Libraries

English conversation classes at Georges River Libraries

Half of Georges River community residents are from non-English speaking backgrounds and community interest in English classes is high. Georges River Libraries offers four classes each week and run for nine weeks, but this does not meet demand.

The term starts with an introduction session where students register, meet their tutor and get to know the library. In following weeks, students obtain library cards and are shown English learning and LOTE resources. They are also guided through discussion of useful topics and given opportunities to ask questions and practice speaking in small groups.

Volunteer tutors were recruited through social media posts and posters in the library. Each tutor has been offering their own curriculum, but this term library staff are developing a structured nine-week program of activities that can be delivered by less-confident tutors or library staff to expand the program. We will be able to share this program with other libraries when it is complete.

Vickey Foggin, Georges River Libraries