[Libs-Or] FW: Multicultural

[Martín Blasco]

Hello all!   A few of us in Washington County, Oregon are exploring how to better serve immigrant and refugee communities in our county.  We have access to some demographic data (age, national origin, language spoken at home, etc.) but we’re hoping to also get an initial picture of cultural nuance, and delve into how to best reach, serve, and meet the needs (surpass the needs) of all of the communities within our community.

My question is this- we are wondering if any of your libraries have contracted with a consultant or research group to produce a study on the linguistic diversity in your community, and how best to reach various linguistic communities and serve them in meaningful ways?  We are also interested in gathering straight-up demographic data, but we’re particularly interested in knowing if any of you have had success in getting assistance from an outside consultant in really studying your communities, and getting a cultural snapshot through interviews, stakeholder meetings, focus groups, etc.

If you have sent out RFPs for this sort of study and are interested in sharing your experience, I would love to speak with you further about it.  Please reply to me directly (off list) at:

Christina Hanson
Adult Services Librarian
Beaverton City Library | 12375 SW 5th Street | Beaverton, OR 97005
chanson at beavertonoregon.gov<mailto:chanson at beavertonoregon.gov> | p:  503-350-3617 | f: 503-469-9258



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/libs-or/attachments/20170207/0ded726a/attachment.html>