Wagga’s burgeoning international community has received a pre-Christmas boost after the State Library of NSW donated more than 2600 non-English books to the Wagga City Library.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It comes after the library’s highly successful Language Café program targeted at improving conversational English and community integration decided to extend its operation into the new year.
Dubbed the Community Language Collection, the bookshelves now feature adult and children books in 14 different languages – Arabic, Chinese, Persian, Sinhalese, Vietnamese, Sri Lankan, Hindi, Tamil, Tagalog, Burmese,Urdu, Croatian, Serbian and Kurdish.
Library manager Claire Campbell said the selected languages were determined by census data.
“There’s a lot of data we look at and that’s all matched back to what people really need in the community,” she said.
“A lot of people just want to be able to read their own language – it’s so much easier and it can be very comforting.”
Arranging the collection was no mean feat with thousands of books changing places within the library.
We moved the entire non-fiction section and those 2600 books all had to be shifted into the ground floor,” Mrs Campbell said.
“It’s been a big job but it’s so worthwhile.”
The benefits of the Language Café and Wagga’s Community Language Collection are already apparent to library assistant Mahsa Nikzad, who relocated from Iran just 12 months ago.
“The Community Languages Collection helps to put my mind at rest as I am very busy learning English all the time,” she said.
“The Language Café is a good way to improve my self-confidence as an English learner along with improving my conversational English.
“It’s also the best way of making new friends.”
Mrs Campbell believes the collection will suit anyone looking for a familiar text or non-English read.
“People can just come in and get the books they want whenever they like,” she said.
“We’ll swap the collection again after 12 months, too.”