“Although some patrons have praised the library’s vision, the Language and Learning idea has met with resistance from those who say that the proposal is another step toward placing Spanish on an equal footing with English as the national language.
“‘The library is a purveyor primarily of written information, and it should be provided largely, say 95 percent, in the native language of our country, which is English,’ said Fred Elbel, president of Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform.”
First, there is no “national language” of the United States. Those bills, have yet to pass. Second, last I checked, any of the “native language” of this country can be found on the Native Languages of the Americas site.
Michael Sauers is currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
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