AboutAnnotations is the place to read about issues, trends, and uses for new technologies for all libraries, especially public libraries. NSLS staff member Anna Yackle is a librarian with many years of experience who has worked in all types of libraries, but maintains a special fondness for public libraries. Recent Posts:Categories:Archives:BlogrollMeta: |
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AnnotationsAnnotationsDecember 18, 2007 Grupero, Narcocorridos, and DeathI live and work in a community that has a sizable population of people of Mexican decent. The local library (where I also work part-time) has a collection of Spanish language materials and does programming in Spanish. Even though a few of the staff are bilingual the library has paid for instruction for those wishing to learn Spanish. We feel pretty good about the work we are doing. However, today I read an article about how 13 stars of Mexican country music have been murdered in the past year and a half. This is a mixture of current events, pop culture, and true crime that must be of interest to several people in our community. Yet, we missed it. Even though libraries try to connect to their non-native English speaking patrons we don’t always hit the mark. What I find most frustrating about this is I clicked on the links to YouTube videos of performances by two of the slain artists (Zayda Pena and Sergio Gomez) I liked their music. This all leads me to the question that is driving me crazy, how can you find out about a culture if you are not of that culture and you do not speak the language. As a citizen, I think I could be a better member of the community if I understood my neighbors. Being a librarian, I view the library as a place for this exploration and understanding to begin. How are you doing this in your library? No Comments »RSS feed for comments on this post. Leave a comment
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