This country has always had an uncomfortable relationship with foreign languages. For the most part, it has dealt with this problem by not learning them. And yet, it is also a destination of immigrants from all over the world, most of whom are not native speakers of English and feel more comfortable accessing information in another language. Nowhere is this more visible than in New York City. When one goes to the Midtown Manhattan branch of the New York Public Library (NYPL) or the Central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) one finds massive World Language sections with shelves and shelves of books and other materials in a variety of languages. Branches that serve neighborhoods with high immigrant populations have particularly large collections of materials in other languages, such as the Russian collection in the Brighton Beach branch or the Polish collection at the Greenpoint branch. To say that knowledge of foreign languages is useful for librarians in the city public libraries is an understatement. And yet library schools are not preparing future librarians to deal with barriers to access resulting from foreign languages, and past research on the topic in library science journals has been sparse. In order to understand this vital yet ignored part of public librarianship, I will analyze the different approaches that the NYPL and BPL take in developing foreign language collections, and I will make recommendations for future changes in the field.
wschlect