Weekly activities for people from linguistic minorities at many libraries

libraryOslo.Young man on the Oslo public library. Sit and look on an ipad. Photo: Thomas Brun / NTB scanpix

One-third of the country’s libraries have weekly activities adapted to people from linguistic minorities. But the libraries can still do more for the integration,  the Norwegian Library Association believes.

The Association has surveyed the facilities, documents and activities offered by public libraries that are for or are particularly relevant to minority language speakers, Klassekampen writes. The survey includes 218 libraries, about half of the public libraries in Norway.
Six out of ten libraries report daily visits from people from linguistic minorities that use the PCs and the internet.Three out of ten are daily lending out language courses, Norwegian courses, dictionaries and the like. One out of three three libraries have weekly activities or events tailored to minority language, including language cafèes, where people can practice speaking Norwegian.The libraries also provides assistance in reading letters and filling out forms.
Camilla Sørbye in Library Association believes the figures show that the libraries do a lot to help the integration. At the same time she says that libraries can do even more, but that they would need to have access to more resources in order to do so.
Many libraries do not get to do all they can potentially do, because they have small budgets.The municipalities can not take it for granted that the libraries will engage in the integration tasks without them also being given more resources, “ Sørbye said.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today