New Jersey State Library Awards a Latino Heritage Festival Grant to Elizabeth Public Library

The New Jersey State Library, with funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), has awarded a $10,000 grant to the Elizabeth Public Library for a Latino Heritage Festival.

Elizabeth Public Library, located in a community with a 59.5% Latino population, according to the 2010 census, will use the grant funds to conduct Connect-Explore-Discover/Conéctate-Explora-Descubre, a library campaign designed to reach English and Spanish speakers of diverse backgrounds, socioeconomic and cultural, and individuals with limited functional literacy or information skills with services and opportunities which Elizabeth Public Library can provide.

As part of the outreach effort Connect-Explore-Discover/Conéctate-Explora-Descubre, the Elizabeth Public Library will work with Literacy Volunteers of America to increase the number of volunteers who are residents in Elizabeth, or who have connections to Elizabeth, and who will train as literacy volunteers, to meet with students at the Elizabeth Public Library. This program will also improve cultural awareness in library staff by making Connect-Explore-Discover/Conéctate-Explora-Descubre the topic of the library’s 2012 Staff Development Day training.  It will increase the library presence on the web in the Spanish language with pages that focus on library offerings, a survey for patrons who use the Spanish pages, and a blog for Spanish speakers that would be monitored by the project coordinator.

The Latino Heritage Festival grant will also allow the Elizabeth Public Library the opportunity to plan and execute informational, educational and cultural programs in celebration of National Library Week in April 2012.

The Elizabeth Public Library's main building is one of New Jersey's original 36 Carnegie Libraries and opened in 1912.