Public Libraries and Immigrant Populations in Spain

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Public Libraries and Immigrant Populations in
Spain
IFLA Satellite Meeting. Utrecht, 11th August 2003

• Mª Antonia García Moreno
• University Complutense of Madrid

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Topics

• Multiculturality concept
• Challenges for the Public Libraries
• Public Libraries and Immigrant populations
• The globalisation of migrations
• Immigrant population in Spain
• Multicultural Libraries. Spanish projects
• Spanish Research. Complutense project

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Multiculturality concept

• The confusion of the term multiculturality
  comes from the coexistence of three dimensions at
  the same time
• multiculturality as a social fact?
• multiculturality as a political model?
• multiculturality as an ideology?
• Identity and culture
• Both terms are included in the concept of
  multiculturality
• The combination of identities-culture has
  resulted in different ways to understand the
  multicultural phenomena

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Culture and cultural diversity

• Culture may be defined as a body of knowledge and
  patrons of perceptions, thinking and actions
• Every person has access to more than one culture,
  but only adopts parts of each one of these
  cultures
• All culture developments take place through
  cultural exchanges and interactions
• There is cultural diversity wherever there is a
  physical presence of cultural groups that differ
  from the majority culture
• Usually the differents are ethnic groups or
  groups associated to poor socio-economic contexts
  and/or marginals

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Challenges for the Public Libraries

• Must play a main role in the Information Society
• Must take on their users information problems
  and needs.
• Must develop actions to achieve better personal
  and social conditions of the population that they
  serve.
• Must contribute to create new social spaces for
  integration and discussion.
• Must go out of the exclusive professional circle.

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Public Libraries and Immigrant populations

• Cultural actions
• Preservation of cultural diversity
• Promotion for the integration of different
  cultures
• Educational actions
• Training in languages
• Training in information technologies
• Social actions
• Creation of information services for immigrant
  populations
• Promotion for the coexistence of cultures

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The globalisation of migrations

• One of every 35 persons in the world is an
  international migrant.
• The total number of migrants all over the world
  is estimated at more than 175 million of people
  (el 2,9 of the global population). Almost 50 of
  international migrants are women.
• United States (35 million) and Russian Federation
  (13,3 million) lead the list of the first 15
  countries with greater quota of migrants. Other
  countries on this list Germany (7,3) Ukraine
  (6,9) France (6,3) India (6,3), Canada (5,8),
  Australia (4,7), United Kingdom (4,0).
• Source IOM. Cuestiones de Políticas Migratorias,
  2, marzo 2003

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Immigrant populations in Spain I
Total spanish population 40.847.371 Immigrants
1.572.170 38
Source INE. 2002
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Immigrant populations in Spain II
Source INE. 2002
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Immigrants distribution in I
Source Ministerio del Interior. 2002
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Immigrants distribution in II
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Evolution of immigrant population in Madrid
municipality
Source Madrid Municipality. 2003
Almost an increment of 50 in 2 years (2001-2003)
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Immigrants in Madrid, by countries (84)
Source Madrid Municipality. 2003
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Multicultural Libraries. Spanish projects

• Andalucía
• Cataluña
• Extremadura
• Madrid
• Murcia

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Spanish projects I

• Andalucía
• Multicultural Libraries in Andalucia
• Integral Plan for Immigration in Andalucia,
  promoted by the Junta de Andalucía (Regional
  State Government). The main objective is to
  create multicultural information services for
  immigrants in andalusian public libraries.
• Cataluña
• Group of catalonian public libraries of the
  UNESCO network
• Professional Seminars Les biblioteques
  publiques espais de integració social.
• (http//www.unescocat.org)

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Spanish projects II

• Extremadura
• Juan Pablo Forner, Meridas Public Library
• Multicultural Public Library Project. Development
  of multicultural library services addressed to
  latin-american and asian immigrants.
• Murcia
• CUMANDA Project. Multicultural Public Library
  Project. Development of multicultural library
  services addressed to latin-american immigrants.

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Spanish projects III

• Madrid
• Fuenlabradas Public Library. Multicultural
  Public Library Project. Development of
  multicultural library services addressed to
  arabian and eastern european immigrants.
• Libraries for the Coexistence. Development of
  activities related to the integration of
  immigrants.
• Complutenses Project. A research to determine
  the information needs of immigrants living in
  Madrid and a proposal to create library services
  to facilitate sociocultural integration.

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Spanish Research. Complutense project

• Financed by University Complutense of Madrid
• A project in free competence, which at least
  demonstrates some interest for the subject
• Participants from several knowledge areas
  library and information science, education,
  sociology and philosophy.
• Open new lines of research
• To help libraries to
• To know immigrants communities better
• To detect their information needs
• To demonstrate the value of library services
• To detect those aspects in which public libraries
  must be supported.

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Theoretical aspects of the research

• How are we going to refert to the immigrants?
  
• The other, the stranger, ethnic minority
  or rural immigrant or urban immigrant or
  paperless.
• Its necessary to define conceptual referents
• Its necessary to name or rename the
  immigrant population to analyze
• Its expected that they name themselves and
  collect this discourse that belongs to their
  identity.

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Methodological Aspects

• Taking as base the municipality census
• To count immigrant population and select the
  groups to study
• To select the libraries to study
• To select the secondary schools nearest to the
  libraries
• To select immigrant associations
• To elaborate and to process the polls
• To analyze the data
• To elaborate the recommendation for the creation
  of library services
• To create a web portal to serve immigrants and
  public libraries

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About immigrants

• Information about their origin, habitat
  conditions, familiar situation, etc. Its also
  very important to know their profession and level
  of education.
• Obviously it is necessary to distinguish
  information needs for someone working in domestic
  services or agriculture than someone working in
  the service sector in big cities.
• Libraries may create databases and newsgroups to
  create a kind of virtual community
• Libraries may have influence in the development
  of new economies, facilitating contact between
  people and ideas.

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About secondary schools

• Schools and public libraries must work together
  with institutions that promote and generate
  information and knowledge.
• In many schools the percentage of foreign
  students are above 80. These are the potential
  users of libraries in present time and in the
  future.
• Besides selecting a collection that represents
  all communities culture, the library must create
  useful and attractive services for an important
  group of users.

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About libraries

• The speed of changes produced by the arrival of
  immigrants to their communities make that
  libraries dont know the situation of these
  communities well. Public Libraries need to follow
  their users behaviour but especially that of
  immigrants.
• Public libraries need to go out of the
  professional circle and convert the libraries in
  real sociocultural spaces. Must promote
  activities such as language learning, distance
  learning and information technologies learning.
  And also other kinds of courses, like cooking (to
  help women to find job in domestic service)

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Thank you!

• Acknowledgement
• This project is financed by University
  Complutense of Madrid
• Project title Public Libraries and
  multiculturality. Study for the development of
  libraries services that contribute to the
  sociocultural integration of the groups of
  immigrants in Madrid
• Reference number PR/03-11614
• Researchers
• M Antonia G Moreno
• M Jesús Romera
• Cecilia Fernández
• Maite F Bajón
• Rosa Garrido
• Juan Gracia