So many languages, so few books | Libraries struggle to reflect the places, people they serve

LOS ANGELES - Jennifer Songster roved the crowded aisles of the small mom-and-pop shop, riffling through books in Khmer, the official language of Cambodia. Outside, the streets of Phnom Penh bustled. The air was thick and humid. Beads of sweat trickled down her face.

She hadn't flown for 20 hours to marvel at Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world, or stroll the white-sand beaches of Sihanoukville. Instead, she spent eight sweltering days in the Cambodian capital on a five-figure shopping trip.

Songster works at the Mark Twain Branch of the Long Beach Public Library, home to one of the largest public library collections of Khmer (pronounced Ka-mai) books in the United States. She and fellow librarian Christina Nhek had traveled more than 8,000 miles on a mission that faces libraries across the country: to serve the readers of rapidly changing cities.

The task is neither cheap nor easy. But it is crucial, particularly in Southern California - home to burgeoning immigrant populations who speak scores of languages and have information needs that range from simple to sophisticated.

Songster scouted for books in more than a dozen shops. She juggled dollars and brightly colored riel at tiny cash-only operations. She wandered the aisles of the sprawling Cambodia Book Fair. By the end of her foray, she had shipped home 950 pounds of books, 75 CDs of Cambodian music, 14 posters and three wooden puzzles of the stout, curvaceous Khmer alphabet. The price tag? More than $14,000.

"We need to have materials they want," Songster said, as she recounted the journey the pair took 13 months ago. Cambodians are "a part of our community. The library is there to serve the community, and so it needs to reflect it."

Few systems send their librarians as far afield as Long Beach has, although Los Angeles Public Library staff members regularly travel to the Feria Internacional del Libro de Buenos Aires, LIBER Barcelona and Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara - the second-largest book fair in the world after the Frankfurter Buchmesse.

Libraries throughout the country especially struggle to broaden collections for their youngest readers. Children's librarians constantly hunt for books with diverse languages and characters - not just rosy-cheeked, English-speaking, blond girls and boys with straight, married parents.

At the Madison Public Library in Wisconsin, for example, librarian Beth McIntyre vowed to spend the entire easy-reader budget "on books with nonwhite characters and with no animals." But it was a struggle to use up that money, because "there just wasn't enough published." That, she said, is a real problem.

"Literacy depends on children's desire to read," said Loida Garcia-Febo, past president of the American Library Assn. "They must have access and be aware that books reflect their culture and language. [But] the percentage of the children's books released each year by a person of color or on a multicultural theme has remained unchanged for 20 years."

This matters now more than ever, because the United States - and Los Angeles County in particular - has changed dramatically.

In 1980, 65% of Los Angeles County residents spoke English at home; by 2018, the most recent data available, that slice of the population had dropped to 41%. Over the same time frame, the percentage of Spanish speakers rose from 21% to 37%.

The top 10 languages spoken in the county also shifted between 1980 and 2018. Nos. 1 through 4 remained the same: English, Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog. But Nos. 7 through 10 changed from German, Italian, Armenian and French to Hindi, Farsi, Vietnamese and Japanese.

Armenian rose from No. 9 to No. 6, which L.A. City Librarian John Szabo said is reflected in LAPL operations.

"When you think about the Armenian population," Szabo said, "you think of Little Armenia in East Hollywood, you think of Glendale. But Sunland-Tujunga has a growing Armenian population. And so we have an Armenian-speaking staff member, at least one, there, and we have [an Armenian language] collection there."

But being aware of demographic shifts is just the first step when operating libraries in the U.S. county with the largest Latino, Asian and Iranian populations. Understanding the differences within those communities is equally important.

"It's not just about, 'Oh, there's a Latino population within this neighborhood, therefore, we have to have lots of Spanish-language books,'" Szabo said. "In one neighborhood, it might be a third-, fourth-, fifth-generation Latino community. Whereas, in another community there might be many more newer immigrants, where it's important to have the materials in Spanish."

The interior of the angular, orange-and-yellow Mark Twain Branch is a quieter, more orderly version of the neighborhood it calls home: Cambodia Town in Long Beach.

With 467,000 residents, Long Beach is California's seventh-biggest city. More than 10% of the population is of Cambodian descent, the largest concentration of Cambodians outside of their home country.

In the 1950s and '60s, students from Cambodia arrived in Long Beach as part of an exchange program; many settled permanently.

Since it first opened in 2007, the Mark Twain Branch has made great strides toward serving the city's Cambodian population. Songster and Nhek survey the community to figure out what its members want to read. Nhek grew up speaking Khmer and is one of two branch staffers fluent in the Southeast Asian language.

But Khmer materials are hard to come by - which is what sent the two women on their international book hunt.

Upcoming Events