Imperial Valley Libraries Entice New Patrons through Spanish-language Videoconferences
by Dan Theobald, Principal Consultant, i2i Communications
"What's a public library?" Now, who would ask a question like that? How about the large percentage of Imperial County's Hispanic population who are recent immigrants from Mexico.
"The public library is not a staple of everyday life in Mexico," says Sandra Tauler, director of the Camarena Memorial Library in Calexico. "Libraries have traditionally been used only by university students. In our community, we have a lot of Spanish-speaking residents who think we are a bookstore and charge for books and services."
So how do you market public library services to folks who have little or no knowledge about what a public library is or does?
Faced with that stumper, Tauler and colleagues Marjo Mello (Brawley Public Library) and Connie Barrington (Imperial County Free Library) dreamed up Proyecto Televista. The project, funded by an LSTA grant, uses interactive videoconferencing to provide residents with live, interactive Spanish-language programs featuring nationally prominent Hispanic role models and subject matter experts.
"By featuring prominent persons, particularly figures that people know from TV or radio, we hope to attract new users to the libraries and educate them about all the Spanish-language services we have to offer," says Tauler. "Once we've got them in the door, they're a captive audience for our message, at least till the videoconference is over. No one leaves without a library card!"
Another benefit of working with media personalities is that local affiliates of the big Spanish-language TV and radio networks are willing to help with local publicity if it also helps promote their own programming. So far, the Proyecto Televista team has made friends with the local Radio Unica and Telemundo affiliates, and is camping out on the doorstep of the local Univision affiliate.
Their tenacity is paying off. The first Proyecto Televista program, held May 7, featured Radio Unica's Dr. Isabel Gomez-Bassols, a psychologist with a popular daily program on family and relationship issues. The one hour program attracted 90 attendees among all three libraries. A second program on May 21, involving attorney Cristina Perez from the Telemundo television network's "Family Court" show, pulled in more than 100 guests. The librarians estimate that at least 25 percent of each program's audience was comprised of first-time library visitors. In addition to getting library cards, many of these new patrons have signed up for various library programs such as English language literacy and Internet classes.
Proyecto Televista has a third videoconference scheduled for September, and has applied for a second year of LSTA funding in order to produce six additional programs.
"Both Dr. Isabel and Cristina Perez were very supportive of our project goals, and have offered to speak again," Tauler says. "That would be great, because we had people standing in the aisles to ask them questions when the program ended - and to think we initially thought that our audiences would be shy about asking questions via videoconference! In addition, there are number of other Radio Unica and Telemundo on-air personalities we want to pursue, as well as Spanish-language authors like Carlos Cuauhtémoc Sanchez who are immensely popular with our target audience.
"Without this technology, there is simply no way that we could present a speaker series like this, involving three public libraries in a rural community two hours away from the nearest big airport. But thanks to videoconferencing, we can open a window on the world for our patrons, while opening their eyes to our library resources at the same time."