Having visited New York before I already had a feel for its geography and wasn’t as overwhelmed as I might otherwise have been on arrival. With extremely hot and humid weather for the first day or so I decided not to rush round all the obvious “must-see” tourist sights before my scheduled library visits. So I got myself a Metrocard, took the (free) Staten Island Ferry, and instead of turning round and coming straight back to Manhattan, as most visitors do for the stunning views, I continued by bus to Snug Harbour Cultural Center and the adjacent Staten Island Botanical Gardens, home to the lovely New York Chinese Scholar’s Garden. Not only was this relaxing, enjoyable and completely unexpected, it also meant I fortuitously avoided being caught up in a major blackout that affected much of the east side of Manhattan and Queens that day.
I didn’t avoid drama altogether, however. A few days later, an apartment in a high-rise block only a few yards from where I was staying, went up in flames and the whole neighbourhood was full of wailing sirens and fire engines. I have never seen such long extending ladders and hoses. Standing on the street corner the whole scene felt like something out of a film. Thankfully, so far as I was aware, nobody was hurt, but the damage was considerable.
Otherwise, my touristic activities were without incident. I’d definitely single out a tour of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum as something thoroughly worthwhile for anyone interested in multicultural relationships in New York.
Knowing something of New York’s geography was also helpful in understanding how New York’s public libraries are organised. New York Public Libraries cover Manhattan, Staten Island and the Bronx, with separate services in Queens and in Brooklyn (although I didn’t get to Brooklyn on this occasion).
My two days with library staff in Queens and two with staff in Manhattan and the Bronx involved fascinating discussions and visits and I give my warmest thanks to everyone I met for their hospitality.
In Queens, my visit included speaking with members of the long-established New Americans Program (NAP) team. This covers an extensive spectrum of activity, from collections, public programmes (cultural programmes and coping skills programmes), production of various resource guides (including one member of staff who spends much of her time on demographic studies to provide the necessary community analysis to inform planning and development of the services and collections offered) and a range of other services. I was very impressed with the Adult Literacy and ESOL classes offered, one of which I was able to sit in on.
In the Bronx Library Center a few days later, I also spoke with the head of the Center for Reading & Writing and with staff in other branches where ESOL and literacy classes take place. Yes, these are all about giving people the confidence to improve their spoken and written English at one level. At the same time, they also:
- enable sharing of experiences and information that has a practical value and immediate relevance to people’s lives, for example on topics such as health or family issues
- create bridges between people who may be neighbours but come from very different parts of the world, bringing with them different cultures and backgrounds. Suddenly they realise, through inter-action at the library, that they are all grappling with the same life problems and challenges
- introduce notions of rights and responsibilities, sometimes in a very subtle way. For example, seeing people from their own background or living in their own block of flats working in a voluntary capacity to provide English language support to others, is one way that students have then decided to offer to volunteer themselves to help others after they have reached a certain level.
In Queens, the library service consciously sets a target for its cultural programmes of getting 50% of their audience from the culture that is celebrated in the programme and 50% from other backgrounds. All of the programmes are geared towards building trust so that those attending feel comfortable with accessing other services that the public library offers. This is particularly important for those who may not be familiar with the concept of a public library in their country of origin and feel it is “not for them, only for academics and scholars” or whose experience of a library (eg because of censorship) is so different, that they need an informal introduction and orientation before they are likely to take advantage of what’s on offer.
At present, they are also embarking on the Queens Library Health Link programme, a five-year Federally-funded research and partnership programme exploring how the library service, with relevant health agencies, can be a partner in community outreach to increase access to cancer screening and care among medically underserved communities in the area. Another example of reaching out in a way that is likely to have real long-term consequences for literacy in relation to health.
What these visits and discussions did, was to crystallise thoughts I have had for some time about the particular nature of the role public libraries play as places where positive, non-judgmental and life enhancing exchanges take place informally. Traditionally, public libraries are viewed more as places of consumption of knowledge on an individual basis, where the library as a a civic space provides an unthreatening environment for individuals to borrow or use materials for study or leisure purposes or find out information. At best, the inter-action is between one individual and a member of library staff, but it it may involve no inter-action at all.
I believe we need more of a balance between public libraries as places of consumption and as places of exchange, using the exchanges that take place to develop further how the resources held in public libraries are made accessible to and used by everyone.
Perhaps a rather passive approach in many public libraries in the UK, combined with the notion of impartiality, is how the word “neutral” has come to be used so frequently in relation to public libraries by librarians themselves. Public libraries are not neutral. When they are run well, they are welcoming places that provide both opportunities for individuals to pursue their own appetites for reading, learning and information, but also can facilitate informal opportunities to inter-act and give or get support from others that wouldn’t happen in the same way anywhere else.
As one of the staff members in the Bronx Library Center pointed out, classes in most other institutions involve either attending at a set time each week, and/or having to pay. Given that many who attend have several, usually low-paid part-time jobs, which often involve shifts, and have childcare or other family responsibilities, they are not in a position to sign up to more formal learning. In addition, it’s possible some people who may be interested may not be documented, in which case there would be every reason for them to be reticent about formal registration. The flexible, drop-in arrangements at the public libraries I visited clearly open doors that would otherwise be closed. Reading some of the work produced immediately provides an insight into how such activities enable people’s skills, self-esteem and confidence to develop.
Migration as a phenomenon is here to stay. Public libraries are in a strong position to provide the welcome, the orientation, the understanding of life in the UK that will make it a lot easier for everyone to feel connected and part of a local community. This work does not necessarily have to be led by library staff, but they do need to acknowledge and articulate their role effectively, not just as places where knowledge can be consumed, but as facilitators of positive exchange between people from very different backgrounds, so that everyone is better equipped to access the resources public libraries hold. What follows from an acknowledgment of this role involves some real challenges in terms of management, attitudes and skills required to make this a core part of the future of public libraries and what they are all about and how library staff work with people from different sectors.
The nature of the way public libraries are organised in the UK means that there is a danger of fragmentation. There needs to be more co-ordination and sharing of demographic intelligence, action-learning, good practice as well as effective advocacy on behalf of all those already engaged in excellent work on the ground. It wouldn’t cost a lot, but it could make a very big difference to practitioners and to policy makers in positioning public libraries at the forefront of community-building.
The next part of my trip will be to Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium for two weeks in late September/early October 2007 so this is the last posting for now.
