According to the United States Census Bureau, 22% of people in the U.S. speak a language other than English at home. That’s more than 1 in every 5 people. Because public libraries emphasize serving everyone in their communities, it makes sense that addressing language diversity should be among their top priorities. But how linguistically diverse are U.S. public library patrons and which languages do they speak?
To help meaningfully benchmark the linguistic diversity of U.S. public library patrons and their desire for multilingual content, PressReader collaborated with Library Journal to create the Building Community Connection report.
(If you haven't read the report yet, you can download it here.)
The report draws on the insights of over 200 public librarians nationwide regarding their communities, their patrons and their libraries’ foreign-language content. In this post, we’ll delve into some of those insights, specifically focusing on the linguistic diversity of U.S. public library patrons.
The Building Community Connection report received responses from a wide range of libraries, from those serving areas with fewer than a thousand residents to those in metropolitan hubs of 2 million people or more. The overwhelming consensus is that U.S. public library patrons are increasingly diverse.
80% of librarians who answered the survey said that over the course of their careers, and specifically over the last 10 to 20 years, they had observed an increase in diversity among their patrons. 35% of respondents reported a significant increase in patron diversity while 45% noted a moderate increase.
It’s important to note that when libraries describe diversity, they’re not just talking about the growth of singular minority groups that speak English as a second language. They’re talking about a community that collectively speaks numerous languages (more on that in a moment).
It goes without saying that the proportion and population of patrons who speak a foreign language differs from one library to the next, but there are some observable patterns when it comes to linguistic diversity in U.S. public libraries.
Spanish is widely spoken by library patrons across the country, with 26% of librarians citing it as one of the most common non-English languages spoken by their communities. Next up were Cantonese and Mandarin, which were collectively cited by 6.5% of respondents as being among the most common languages used by their patrons. Following this were French at 6.4%, Arabic at 6.0% and Russian at 5.2%.
Interestingly, there are similarities and differences when comparing these results to those documented by the U.S. Census Bureau. When the last survey was conducted in 2019, it found that across the U.S., the most common non-English languages spoken by people at home were Spanish, the Chinese languages, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Arabic.
Though these are among the most common languages spoken by U.S. public library patrons, 19% of respondents in the Building Community Connection report noted that their patrons collectively speak at least eleven different languages. Meanwhile, 11% of respondents reported that their patrons collectively speak more than 20 languages! Both of these statistics highlight the high degree of diversity in U.S public libraries.
No matter who comes through the doors, one of the main goals of every public library is to provide materials and resources that will engage patrons and allow them to feel connected to their culture and the stories that matter most to them. That objective becomes much more difficult to achieve as the language diversity of communities continues to grow.
In fact, the Building Community Connection report found that approximately four in five respondents recognize that foreign-language content is important to their patrons, yet when asked how they would rate their present capacity to meet international or foreign-language needs, most said it was only moderate or slight.
This highlights how essential it is for public libraries in the U.S. to explore effective, efficient ways to expand the diversity of their collections. Digital resources like PressReader can be a huge help here, delivering access to thousands of global publications, in multiple languages, without taking up shelf space or requiring librarians to manage dozens of individual digital publication subscriptions.
For more insight into the foreign-language content and linguistic diversity needs of U.S. public library patrons, as well as actionable strategies and solutions for libraries, download the full Building Community Connection report here.