Immigrant Nation

In an August 14, 2008 story, the New York Times reported that ethnic and racial minorities will likely be a majority of the U.S. population by 2042. Many of the blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and others constituting this emerging majority will be immigrants or the children of immigrants; the number of foreigners hitting these shores is projected to rise to two million annually by mid-century, up from 1.3 million today. Currently, the foreign born make up about 12 percent of the population, but the guess is that by 2025 they will make up 15 percent, surpassing a high-water mark set in 1910. And they won't all be speaking English, at least not right away. Librarians know that they need to stock up on world-language materials today. This article describes how public libraries select materials for a growing population whose first language is not English. According to Library Journal's (LJ's) 2008 book-buying survey of public libraries, fully 50 percent of respondents serving populations of 10,000 or more and almost all respondents serving populations of 100,000 or more have world-language collections. On average, these libraries add 600 world-language titles to their collections annually, with the largest libraries adding over 6500 titles on average.