Queens Library Literacy Zone Welcome Centers Open In LIC

There’s something new in Long Island City: Queens Library Literacy Zone Welcome Centers. They offer new cutting-edge urban library services to the kind of information and referrals Queens Library traditionally provides, but more intensely.

The New York State Education Department has awarded the Queens Library a three-year grant of more than $950,000 to help improve the economic futures of the residents of Long Island City /Astoria by helping them to improve their educations and job skills. The new Welcome Centers are located in a high needs community. At the Welcome Centers, Queens Library will assist with referrals in other areas of library customers’ lives: health care, housing problems, social services, tax services. Queens Library is the only public library to be a lead agency on this kind of project.

Specially trained, dedicated outreach staff and counselors are taking the time and have the training to sit down with patrons and find out what they really need. A big part of the agenda is eliminating the barriers that keep people from enriching their lives, whether that means improving English-language conversation, getting a hearing aid or simply learning how to navigate the bureaucracy to access help.

Envision a library customer who asks the library what to do about a landlord problem. The library typically would refer to a list of government agencies and Web sites that would be helpful. Quite possibly, the customer cannot take advantage of the resources he's been given because he does not understand or cannot read them, or simply does not feel empowered enough to walk into a city office and ask for help. The Welcome Centers bridge the gap between library service and social service by giving the customer more assistance.

Sandra Michele Echols is the Welcome Centers’ project coordinator/case manager. She and the whole staff of the Elmezzi Adult Learning Center at Queens Library at Long Island City have had in-depth training in referring customers to partner agencies for services, to complement the array of educational services already provided by library staff. They are able to spend more time and give customers more attention. They will also be able to do a thorough assessment, which will uncover additional ways the library can be of service. For instance: why can’t the customer with the landlord problem phone 311? Does he need ESL training? Is he undocumented and need a legal referral? Is literacy a problem?

Echols also does extensive outreach. Queens Library needs other agencies in the community to know where they are and what they can do. They also need to introduce themselves to populations who are new to the area and new to the concept of public libraries. Arabic- and Bangla-speaking groups are just coming into Long Island City. The library hopes they will join the rest of the community and become frequent library users.

The big factor in relieving poverty is improved literacy and education. Through the Welcome Centers and the annexes at Ravenswood and Queensbridge, customers will be encouraged to enroll in literacy and ESL training and job readiness workshops. The Family Literacy programs in that community have done so much to give the families with which they work the tools needed to succeed. The new Welcome Centers are the next step.

Queens Library is an independent, not-forprofit corporation and is not affiliated with any other library. The Queens Library serves a population of 2.2 million in the most ethnically diverse county in the U.S. With a record 23 million items in circulation for Fiscal Year 2009, the library has the highest circulation of any public library system in the U.S. and one of the highest circulations in the world. For more information about programs, services, locations, events and news, visit www.queenslibrary.org or phone 718-990-0700.