Reaching the Hispanic Community through Bilingual Storytime Outreach

Abstract

Though the Hispanic population is one of the largest in the United States, the average public library user is a native English-speaker. This is a conceptual paper about increasing awareness to the Hispanic and Latino members of the community though their children, using bilingual storytime in an elementary school setting to increase awareness of library services. By partnering with local schools for regular classroom visits, librarians have a captive audience at their disposal. Showcasing books and reading stories in both Spanish and English, librarians are able to market their Spanish-language collection, promote library services designed for Hispanics, and reach entire families by extension.