Melbourne’s Monash City Council is offering a range of free services to non English speaking residents within its five library branches.
People living in Monash speak 142 different languages, making the City one of the most diverse in the country. In response to this great ethnic diversity, Monash Public Library Service has been developing services to meet the needs of both emerging and prominent linguistic and cultural groups.
Monash Public Library Service currently holds a significant collection of books, CDs, magazines and newspapers in a range of languages, including Tamil, Hindi, Polish, Arabic and Vietnamese.
The collection is extremely popular, with almost 50,000 items borrowed last quarter alone.
A popular program offered by the library service is the Conversation Circle. Launched in 2009, Conversation Circles are held at all Monash library branches and are designed to help attendees practise their English with the help of a volunteer.
These sessions are also an excellent opportunity to meet other people from the local area.
In recent months, the library has added a free Urdu Storytime for children who are not yet attending primary school.
The Urdu Storytime is run by volunteers and is designed for young children and their parents or grandparents who would like to hear stories and sing songs in the Urdu language – one of two official languages in Pakistan.
Urdu Storytime complements long running, popular monthly Greek and Chinese Storytimes.
Another new successful program is fortnightly, introductory internet classcs for older members of the Chinese community.
These classes are run in English, with the assistance of Chinese speaking volunteers who act as translators.
Mayor Charlotte Baines said she is delighted Monash libraries are able to provide the community with such a comprehensive service.
“Monash Public Library Service is an excellent resource for people wishing to improve their English skills as well as enjoy reading and listening material in their native language,” she said.
For further information visit www.monlib.vic.gov.au
