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Public Employee Press
Queens Library
#1
With 21 million items circulated every year,
the nations most diverse library system is also the busiest. By GREGORY N. HEIRES
If you were
brought blindfolded to any branch in the Queens Library system, no one could blame
you for feeling you were at the United Nations.
The library serves the
most ethnically diverse community in the country. In addition to English, during
a library visit, you are likely to hear an immigrant from New Delhi speaking Hindi,
a recently naturalized citizen from Moscow talking in Russian, a native of Beijing
conversing in Mandarin and a Dominican-American requesting books in Spanish.
Greatest
asset: library workers About a third of Queens residents come from
abroad, and the library system devotes a lot of its resources to immigrants. Their
high demand for library services helps explain why Queens hit number one in circulation
in the country in 2007, according to the American Library Association.
We
are very proud that the library reaches out so well to its constituency,
said Local 1321 member Anita Citron, who manages the Adult Learning Center at
the Central Library in Jamaica. The center helps patrons with reading and writing
in English, citizenship and employment.
Director Thomas W. Galante calls
staffers like Citron the key to the systems ability to meet the needs of
the 2.2 million residents of Queens. Queens Librarys greatest asset
is its staff, Galante said.
They
are genuinely concerned about helping customers access everything the library
has: locating a useful Web site, completing a homework assignment, learning to
use a computer or finding a novel theyll stay up all night to finish.
Karen
Heau, another member of Queens Library Guild Local 1321, is the youth services
manager at the Flushing Community Library. The library system recently replaced
a smaller branch there with the new, $35 million four-story building with expanded
resources that better meets the needs of the community with its large Asian population.
In
a sense, the libraries went through a rebirth in the 90s as they responded
to the needs of immigrants, said Heau, a 16-year veteran of the Queens library
system.
Branch Manager Steven Nobel works at the Middle Village CommunityLibrary,
which caters to a working-class population. The union member noted that a generation
ago, some people predicted that the personal computer would lead to the demise
of public libraries. In fact, libraries have adapted by beefing up their computer
services, providing patrons Internet access and software programs like word processing,
according to Nobel. These days, patrons are as likely to visit the library to
work at a computer as to check out a book or DVD.
Whats ironic is that Queens
recognition as the library with the highest circulation occurred as we were called
upon to continue providing quality services and expand to six days a week despite
a staff shortage, said Local 1321 President Margalit Susser.
Many
of our members in Local 1321 love the neighborhoods where they work and have become
an important part of these communities, Susser said.
Its
thanks to their commitment and dedication that Queens has won its recognition
as number one. | |