Nov 13: Meeting with AHORA
11/13/1996
AHORA, Discussion of What wanted in Library of Future.
Wednesday November 13, 1996 Nyal Fuentes with many high school Latino students and a couple of tutors and Karen Carmean from Library 21
To provide access to all the people of Cambridge and to insure that we manage our resources well, Library 21 is gathering information from as many groups as possible about what the people want.
What would you like in the library?
A. Community Activity Center
- Oral tradition forum
- Mythology stories
- Stories of Aztecs and Mayans
- Stories of how Latinos came to US
- Stories of living in other countries
- Retain history of Latino culture
- Musical performers who are Latinos
- Displays- once a month have a theme from a different country-
- Coordinate resources with university museums from that country
- Display a ton of books, videos, tapes, music from that country
- Change the country displayed every month
- Art displays changing to motivate the students
- Displays change every month so it always looks different & interesting
- Displays on different cultures in local branch libraries
- Someone- volunteers read to children after school in library till parents can pick them up from work
- Movies in Central Square- any movies
- Nightclub for young people without going to Boston
B. Community Information Center
- Higher education information center
- Career education information center
- Fund finder for kids to find funding sources for higher education
C. Formal Education Support Center
- Room for writing and researching papers open late- a room like the writing center in the high school
- Access to a save place to do homework in own neighborhood
- Parent wonít let kids go to high school or main library at night
- Study group rooms
- Study carrels which have a broad end at the back so people can work together and are not cut off from each other like at the new Tufts library
- Have tutors available to help kids with work
D. Independent Learning Center
- Work individually on computers
- Sofa and comfortable chairs to sit at
- Radio available with place to work
- Separate room for doing papers and research
E. Popular Materials Lending Library
- Latest computer programs
- Resources to research Latinos. Want Latino philosophers, novelists, anything except politicians and politics
- Audio tapes to borrow-
- opera audio tapes
- Beethoven audio tapes
- Cassette players to borrow to listen to music
- Internet access
- Computers
- Separate room in library for children
- Internet access
- Internet access so we can talk to people from other countries
- Video- equipment to make videos
- Videos
- TVs
- New books and novels
- Access to banned books such as Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas
- Diverse population represented in the books and novels and autobiographies such as Piri Thomas
- Latino books
- Video collaboration- borrow old movies from other places to show
- Show old movies from Mexico- best if in subtitle so everyone could enjoy them
- Cantiflas (comen)
- Pedro Infante & Jorge Negrete (singing, musical)
- Resortes (comedy)
- Multi-media computer access
- Writing center to work on papers until late
- Access to Hispanic history in English
- Hispanic books available in English at different reading levels
- Critical thinking books available for students of different ages- donít just say ìML King was a great man.î
- Develop the analysis without difficult reading words.
- Use simple language but have complex thoughts
- Writing Center open after 4:00
- Sandra Cisneros, novelist
- Martin Espader, poet & novelist
- Musica Para Todos- program out of Washington D.C.
- Rodolfo Anaya
- Gary Soto
- Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, novelist
- Isabelle Allende, novelist
- Popular music available to borrow like Wu-Tang Clan
F. Preschoolers Door to Learning
G. Reference Library
- Librarian available to answer questions and help you research topics
H. Research Center
I. Other- important functions missing from list
- Big, big field- bigger than North Cambridge to play sports, baseball, soccer, football, track for mopeds
- Set up a consortium of libraries so if book not available it tells you where you can get it
- Mopeds to borrow
- Tools to borrow
- Carnival/fair
- Bicycles to borrow
- A million dollars- to borrow
J. An Important Civic Building