Is your library serving all of your patrons in the best possible way? If you aren’t using MessageBee, then the answer may be “no.”
According to the US Census Bureau, approximately 1 in 5 households in the United States speaks a language other than English at home. For your ESL or non-English speaking patrons, sending communications in English may be an alienating and counter-productive exercise. More libraries are establishing Spanish-language sections, and communication to the patrons should reflect the multilingual nature of the library’s usage and the community it serves in the 21st century.
Include Everyone
With MessageBee by Unique, your notifications could be sent to your patrons in their designated language automatically. If you have a field in your ILS that designates a preferred language, then MessageBee can access that field and translate messages accordingly.
In the case of Ft. Worth Library, the library staff have both transactional messages as well as service alerts in Spanish.
How it works
The process is very simple. The library writes the message they wish in an alternate language on the template designer, and then modifies the dynamic list filter to send to patrons who designate the specified language. There are an unlimited amount of templates and languages you can save in MessageBee, meaning you can make the library more accessible for those that may have been previously unable to use the public service.
Want to learn more about MessageBee? Visit our page.
Look at how one Texas library system used the multilingual process to send email notices in Spanish and in English.
Use this tool to see how many people you may be able to help
