Library Services to Refugees

A UK program called "Welcome to Your Library: Connecting Public Libraries and Refugee Communities" recently won the Libraries Change Lives award. The objective of the program is to "improve access to and quality of public library services for everyone" by sharing information about good practice, planning guidance, training opportunities, and other resources that can help libraries deliver services to refugees and asylum seekers. Documents on the pilot project that led to the development of this program are available in the "background" section.

Examples of other library programs and services designed specifically to target refugee and/or immigrant populations are described in the following resources:

- Brathwaite, T., A Place for the Displaced: A Consideration of the Types of Caribbean Libraries Should Provide to Refugees, Paper presented to the Association of Caribbean University Research and Institutional Libraries (ACURIL) XXXVI Conference: “Information and Human Rights", Wyndham Resort, Aruba (2006) [text]

- MacDonald, M. and D. Kane, Public library services to refugees and asylum seekers in the North East (Centre for Research into Quality, 2005) [text]

- Takafumi, M., "Libraries for Refugee Camps: The Shanti Volunteer Association," ABD: Asian/Pacific Book Development, vol. 33, no. 1 (2002) [text]

- Thorhauge, J., Danish Strategies in Public Library Services to Ethnic Minorities, Paper presented to World Library and Information Congress: 69th IFLA General Conference and Council, Berlin (2003) [text]; see also Finfo: Information for Ethnic Minorities in Denmark

- USCIS, Library Services for Immigrants: A Report on Current Practices (2006) [text]

- Virgilio, D., "InfoBUS: Serving Immigrant and Refugee Populations," excerpt from From Outreach to Equity: Innovative Models of Library Policy and Practice (ALA, 2004) [text]

Posted in Publications and Web Sites.