1
Anthony Morris
INFO-520-901
June 1st, 2013
Meeting the Needs of a Minority:
Request for funds from the Provo City Library
Executive Summary
The Provo Public Library of Provo, Utah is requesting an American’s Historical and Cultural Organizations planning grant of $15,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to prepare a temporary exhibition for the grand opening of Provo Library's new exhibition floor. These funds will help to pay for meetings with various city leaders to discuss an underserved population, explore possible exhibition venues, and prepare the advertisement and publications that will accompany the exhibition. This initiative is intended to serve an underserved population, the fast growing Hispanic community of the Provo/Orem metropolitan area, to make them aware of Provo Library's services, and ensure that they can participate in the educational and cultural experiences that the Library makes available to its community. These objectives fall perfectly in line with NEH's requirements to deepen public understanding of significant humanities questions and encourage dialogue, and therefore we believe NEH's planning grant to be the ideal support for this initiative.
Setting
The Provo Library Community:
Provo is home to approximately 112,488 people, making it the third largest city in Utah (United States Census Bureau, 2010). Provo is the county seat of Utah County and is the principal city in the Provo-Orem metropolitan area, with a combined estimated population of 540,820 residents.
The city has always been a center of culture and education. It is the home of Brigham Young University, which is the largest religious university and the third largest private university in the United States In 2002, at the Peaks Ice Arena, it also served as a venue for the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics (Provo City Corporation, 2009).
The Provo City Library:
Provo City Library is the public library of Provo. In 1906, humbly founded in the Provo Courthouse’s basement, the Provo City Library officially opened with a collection of 1,425 books donated by individuals in the community. The collection doubled in the next two years, having 3,000 volumes by April of 1908, and in that year the Library needed to move into a new building. Due to rapid growth, Provo Library needed to move to a few different locations during the following century, until it came to reside at the historic Brigham Young Academy building, on 550 North University Avenue of Provo (Provo City Library, 2012).
Provo Library currently holds nearly 300,000 items, and maintains a total circulation of over 1.7 million per year (Provo City Library Board, 2009). Our mission statement promises to “provides our community with an inviting center for information, instruction, learning, leisure, and cultural opportunities” (Provo City Library Board, 2010). In addition, our vision statement goals promise to “[provide] a meeting area in which to gather and participate in educational, civic, and cultural events”, “have access, through technology, to current and relevant library resources and learning opportunities to help them live more fulfilling lives in a rapidly changing world” and “continuous development of services and programs which foster literacy, the use of libraries, and the love of learning”(Provo City Library Board (2010). Our latest endeavor to accomplish these goals is to renovate the 4th floor of the Academy building from a storage area into an exhibition space, a project that is nearing completion.
Provo Library's Demographics:
The majority of Provo Library’s patrons are from Provo and the neighboring city of Orem, since citizens from both cities may use all of the library’s services without charge. Both Provo and Orem have universities, Brigham Young University in Provo, and Utah Valley University in Orem. Both Provo and Orem have a high majority of Caucasian residents, approximately 80-85% in both cities. Of particular interest to this proposal is their minority demographic. In the past few decades, both cities have experienced a rapid increase in Hispanic residents, currently approximately 12-15% of both cities (United States Census Bureau, 2010).
Provo Library's Staff:
Provo Library currently employs a staff of 22 full time professionals and 57 part time employees. The Library is split into five departments: Adult, Services, Children’s Services, Support Services, Events/Security Coordinator, and Community Relations Coordinator. All five department managers report to the library director, Gene Nelson, who in turn reports to a Library Board of nine active and educated citizens, all appointed by Provo’s mayor, currently John Curtis.
Statement of Need
As mentioned above, the Provo/Orem area has a growing Hispanic community. Research at the University of Utah has noted that “the Hispanic population in Utah grew by 138% during the 1990s, while Utah’s population as a whole grew by 30%”, and “while the growth rate for Utah’s total population has been quite rapid, the growth of the Hispanic population in the state has outpaced even this rapid rate” (University of Utah, p. 1).
Provo Library has been increasingly concerned that this demographic is consistently underserved in library services. There are several professional studies that suggest that Hispanics, especially Hispanic immigrants, are receiving poor educational support. Very briefly, here is what some of the most pertinent studies find. First, studies have found that many immigrants, especially Mexican immigrants, are unaware of how the United State’s public services and education systems work, and therefore often make very little use of them (Schneider, 2006, p. 179). Second, research has suggested that Hispanics in our education system have received poor instruction on how to conduct research or how to use a library’s services (Haras, 2008, p. 425). Third, many Hispanics experience negativity and even hostility when using public services, likely due to preconceived notions about immigration status. Because of this hostility, many Hispanics feel ambiguous towards, or even wary of, library services, even when they are aware of their existence and have been taught how to use them (Adkins, 2006).
Provo City Library has multiple programs to assist the Hispanic community. Services include English language courses, Spanish divisions of technology, software, and literacy programs, and adult and children's cultural programs from various Hispanic and Latino cultures. There is also a quickly growing Spanish language collection of books and media. However, anecdotal evidence from our full and part time library professionals suggest that these programs and collections are much less frequently used than their English counterparts.
These factors can be difficult for any public library to surmount. The Provo Library has an additional difficulty, for the city of Provo does not currently have a local TV or radio station, or a local newspaper. Because of this, disseminating information in the Provo/Orem area has been very problematic in the past. Provo Library has a limited budget, and without support from NEH, it will be extremely difficult to overcome these obstacles.
Proposed Initiative
In order to combat this issue, Provo Library wishes to make use of our new exhibition floor, which will have finished construction by the end of the summer. Our desire is to use the grand opening of the exhibition floor to 1) clearly advertise to the Provo/Orem area that a new cultural venue is available 2) entice the Hispanic population to participate in Provo Library’s services, by making them aware of the Library and helping them feel welcome in it, and 3) foster understanding between this growing demographic and the established community. To be fully prepared to meet these goals, we wish to implement three phases, designed to ensure maximum efficiency.
Phase 1:
Danae Friel, our Community Relations Coordinator, will spend two months collecting particular data about Provo’s Hispanic population. This will include meeting with several of Provo’s leaders, including the mayor, the Utah Hispanic Latino Coalition, and Utah La Raza, holding focus meetings with library staff, meetings with leading scholars from BYU and UVU, and meetings open to library patrons, in order to determine the Hispanic population’s relationship to our library. How does the Hispanic community perceive the Provo Library? Are they aware of the services available? How often do they use the library? Why don't they use the library? At the end of these two months, Friel will submit a written report and a presentation to Gene Nelson, our library director, and to the Provo Library Board.
Phase 2:
Carla Martell, our event coordinator, in cooperation with Friel will then perform an exploratory study of possible exhibitions, based on the data collected by Friel. She will have one month to do this. Her objective will be to select a number possible exhibitions that best fit these needs: 1) the exhibition should be timely, interesting, and attractive to the Hispanic population, 2) should celebrate Hispanic culture and art, and 3) should foster the values of openness and community. She will then prepare a written report and presentation of these possible exhibitions, and present this to Gene Nelson, our library director, and to the Provo Library Board. Informed of both the community and the possible venues available, Nelson and the Library Board can then make an informed decision and authorize the best option.
Phase 3:
The final phase will be advertisement preparation. There will be two major focus points; first, preliminary design for the coming exhibition, and second, redesign of several of Provo Library’s existing Spanish programs. The preliminary design will include the design of a facebook page, twitter account, and blog. It will also include design for physical advertisements that will displayed at particular locations and geographic areas, discovered in Friel’s report. Part of Friel's research will be to determine how to best communicate with Provo's Hispanic population, and we will make specific use of that during this phase. We will also be asking for the support of the organizations in that Friel has made contact with in the course of her research.
The redesign of existing programs is intended to first, update these programs in light of Friel's findings, and second, ensure that all of these programs are presented in a unified way.
The end result will be a unified program, prepared for the first exhibition of Provo’s new floor in conjunction with the redesign of Provo’s existing programs, in order to provide Provo’s Hispanic community (and Provo’s community at large) with a strong, vibrant, and timely educational and cultural experience. This large push, combined with attractive and unified programs already in place, will clearly communicate a welcoming and able image of the library to the community.
In order to determine progress, NEH will be sent the same reports and presentations that the library director will receive at the end of each phase. NEH will also have access to all advertising materials as they are being designed. In order to determine success, all library departments are to beginning tracking program use immediately, and will continue to do so on a regular basis. We believe that the programs will increase in attendance and use during and after the proposed exhibition. In addition, at the completion of the exhibition, Friel will once more gather information from the Hispanic community and determine whether rates of library awareness, interest, and self-reported use have improved.
Proposed Budget
The expense for this planning proposal is mainly related in the cost of time to Friel and Martell. In addition to their own time and travel, both have requested allowing an additional 20 hours a week to the part time staff under their supervision, in order to balance their current duties with the additional tasks they will undertake. Some additional expense is required to prepare advertising materials, and redesign the current Spanish programs.
Budget:
Staff:
Salary of full-time staff @12.5% of $65,000 x 2 = $8,125
Salary of part-time staff @ $10/hr., 20 hrs. a week, for 3 months = $2,400
Full-time benefits @ 12.5% = $2,500
Total staff cost: $13,025
Travel:
Phase 1 travel (primarily travel about the Utah county area) = $150
Phase 2 travel (travel required for exhibition exploration) = $350
Total travel cost: $500
Supplies and materials:
Photocopying: $200
Office supplies: $250
Printing costs: $1,000
Total supplies and materials: $1,450
Total cost: $14, 975
Conclusion
A young Hispanic college student named Felicita said, “When I was growing up, I remember not really having cultural books. Sometimes there’d be a cultural display, but it wasn’t like a multicultural library. I think that would be just ideal … having books about every culture so that you don’t just learn about your culture but you could go get a book and learn about somebody else’s culture. But I haven’t, you know, seen that” (Adkins, 2006, p. 456). Provo Library wishes to become a multicultural library such as this, and in order to do so, Provo's Hispanic community needs to be included and embraced. We greatly desire to ensure this demographic uses the library as much as any other group does. NEH's stated requirements and goals for its planning grants are exactly in line with our needs. As things stand, the Hispanic community is not using the library, either because they are unaware of its services, or they believe they are not welcome. Provo Library needs to show this community that they are welcome, and that there many services for their use, enjoyment, and aid. Provo City will undoubtedly suffer if any portion of its community is educationally or culturally impoverished. It is in Provo Library’s mission and value statements to enrich of all the community, and we believe this to be the ideal way to make this happen.
References
Adkins, D., & Hussey, L. (2006). The library in the lives of Latino college students. The Library Quarterly, 76,4, 456-480. Retrieved from
Haras, C., Lopez, E. M., & Ferry, K. (2008). (Generation 1.5): Latino students and the library: A case study. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 34(5), 425-433. Retrieved from
Provo City Corporation. (2009). About Provo City. Retrieved from
Provo City Library. (2012). Academy history: Provo Library at Academy Square : Library and Building History. Retrieved from
Provo City Library Board. (2010). Mission and vision statements.Retrieved from
Provo City Library Board. (2009). Provo City Library Strategic Plan. Retrieved from
Pugmire, G. (2012). Attic of dreams to become reality at Provo Library. The Daily Herald. Retrieved from dreams- to-become-reality-at-provo-library/article_341d7151-614e-5c35-9031- 90cca2d8088f.html
Schneider, B., Martinez, S, & Owens A. (2006). Barriers to educational opportunities for Hispanics in the United States. In M. Tienda & F. Mitchell (Eds.), Hispanics and the future of America(179-227). Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
United States Census Bureau. (2010). Community facts: Provo City, Utah. Retrieved from
University of Utah. Mexican immigrants in Utah : demographics and employment. Retrieved from