CAMARILLO : State Funds Study of Ethnic Library Use
Cheryl Duran of Camarillo has received a $41,457 grant from the California State Library to study how American Indians, Latinos and Asian-Americans use the library as a resource.
Duran, assistant dean of UCLA’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science, said the grant will be used for a yearlong study examining whether members of those ethnic groups throughout Southern California use the library as a primary resource or instead go first to authority figures within their communities.
For example, Duran, who is Cherokee, said members of the Indian community will often go to an elder in the tribe when seeking information.
The study will compile the names of such people, and librarians will work with those community sources to improve library services for the various ethnic groups.
The study will also examine limited English-speaking skills as a factor in library use.
Duran will oversee the study, which will be conducted by a doctoral student and other research students from UCLA’s library program, she said.
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