Midwest Chapter of REFORMA organized a workshop at the Aurora Public Library for librarians to share information on positive and negative experiences with programs reaching out to their Spanish-speaking patrons. Vita Ciraulo shared information about bilingual publicity flyers, media contacts, performers, bilingual storytimes, early literacy and family literacy programs she has been a part of creating and presenting to local area Spanish-speaking patrons. She then passed out copies and a binder of examples for the group to review. Next, others at the meeting shared their experiences and needs for resources on this topic. For example, Becky Tatar of the Aurora Public Library, discussed how she keeps local high schools aware of new books that are catalogued in Spanish with a bibliography. A librarian from Berwyn shared information about her library's English learning literacy computer station that contains the Rosetta Stone program and her ESL book group program for low level English speaking adults. Patricia Conroy shared information about her ESL family game nights.
Highlights of the business meeting: The group discussed new membership dues procedures, the need to do outreach to librarians in Wisconsin, Indiana and southern Illinois and then, finally, proofread the changes to the website. Vita announced that if the group wanted to send her suggestions of websites and other information pertinent for the website to please send it to her by November 14, 2004.
