Going to Mexico

As a graduate student in the School of Library and Information Science at Emporia State University I have the great opportunity to do a service learning project. I am one of eight students going to work in the Biblioteca Publica in San Miguel De Allende, Mexico. Although we don't know the specifics yet; we will be working with the library helping with (and learning about!) their collection development, cataloging and database maintenance.

The week before we leave I'm attending a conference, Connecting Communities: Reaching out to Latino Youth and Families, in Corvallis, OR. The timing seems ideal and the conference should be a valuable compliment to the class.

This course was particularly appealing to me since my children attend a Spanish dual-language immersion school. Many of their classmates are Latino and I have watched their struggle for services and community support. My hope is that this class and the conference will help teach me how the library profession can improve services to this unique community.

This blog will provide me the chance to reflect about the course readings, course activities, the trip to Mexico, and the role of librarians in providing services to Latino patrons.