Speaker. the Queens Borough Public Library has enjoyed its overwhelming popularity due to the very trait that makes Queens. and indeed all of New York. so very special. namely the diversity of its inhabitants. One in three Queens residents hails from another country and nearly half of the Boroughs residents speak a language other than English at home. Queens Borough Public Librarys New Americans Program was established in 1977 to provide special services to the areas many new immigrants. The librarys collections include. at the Central Library. 101.000 items in Spanish and 93.000 items in Chinese. the countrys largest collections in those languages. In addition. the system has thousands of items in Korean. Russian. and South Asian languages. Mr. Speaker. aside from its impressive collection of books. the Queens Borough Public Library offers a wide array of services designed to ease and facilitate immigrants assimilation into American society. Queens has the largest librarymanaged EnglishasaSecondLanguage program in the country. annually serving nearly 3.000 students. representing 88 countries and 50 languages. It also publishes the "Queens Directory of ImmigrantServing Agencies." a compilation which includes over 150 agencies that provide free or lowcost social services to immigrants in Queens in 50 different languages. There are many other free lectures and programs available to the librarys users. Mr.
Keywords matched
ImmigrantServing immigrants