Words from around the world
It’s hoped the Wakatipu’s wonderfully diverse global community can be celebrated in the Frankton Library garden with the launch of the first World Languages Lilliput Libraries there early next year.
Fifteen local artists from around the globe pitched in their creative talents during a weekend workshop on November 5 and 6 to paint and finish six wonderful Lilliput Libraries. They were built by volunteers from both the Arrowtown MenzSheds. Mitre 10 MEGA Queenstown made a huge donation of materials and staff time lead by the amazing Toni Boatright, with all of the paint donated by Resene in what library team leader Jess Payne says has been an incredible community effort by so many volunteers.
The project started more than a year ago and Jess says the end result has been “beautiful - beyond my wildest imaginings”. “It’s been a collaborative, co-designed project in which the community told us what they wanted and we, at the library, were just the facilitators,” she says. “There were so many people involved in this and there’s been some real magic come out of it.”
An official ribbon-cutting and launch of the World Language Lilliput Libraries will be held at either the end of February or early March and Jess says they’re keen to hear from migrant communities locally about how they’d like to represent their culture at the launch.
The library team is busy purchasing books in different languages after collecting data and feedback from a survey of migrant communities as to what they’d like.
“We still really want to talk to people involved in the community from different cultures about what they’d like to see featured and those who’d like to be part of the launch event,” she says.
“We’d love some cultural performances, and we’re on the hunt for some bi-lingual storytellers - people to read children’s stories in their own language.” Jess wants to hear from these people and also people who can read poetry in their native languages.
A major focus of the launch event will be a World Language Book Swap in which people can bring a book from their language, all to be spread on tables outside, and swap it for a book in another language.
“We want it to be a real celebration of the diversity of our community, possibly including games for the children and other activities – a real festival atmosphere,” says Jess.
“There’s such a huge demand for this locally but our library at Frankton just isn’t big enough to cater for the community’s diverse multicultural population so this project was our creative start to the solution.”
The six new World Language Lilliput Libraries will each represent a different continent, or group of countries, with books in those multiple languages from Europe, Africa and the Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and Asia. It’s hoped the six colourfully-decorated Lilliput Libraries lined up in the garden will hold between 50 and 100 books in these different languages at any one time, with a stock of about 200 in total.
“Our incredible volunteer artists from the migrant community – some professional painters, some creatives, others people with artistic flair, only had three weeks to meet and brainstorm ideas and what they’ve come up with is just amazing,” says Jess. These volunteers came from Poland, Chile, Uruguay, Indonesia, Argentina, France, Japan, Malaysia, China, India and South Africa.
The libraries have now been stored safely until the launch. “We’ve been inundated with offers of books in other languages and that’s wonderful, but we’re asking that people please hang onto those until we’re open and have somewhere to store them.”
Jess says the Japanese Family Society of Queenstown was the original inspiration for the project. “They once had a library of 5000 items in the old Queenstown Camping Ground, but had to close because of redevelopment there.”
She’d also like to especially thank Natasya Zambri from the Frankton Library team, who she says is “the organisational mastermind behind this entire project”.
“Queenstown Library already has a fantastic World Language Section and this means we, at Frankton, can also cater for these bi-lingual readers in our community who deserve to have access to books in their own languages,” she says. “There are so many people living here who come from other countries, many of them raising children here, and we want them to be able to pass on their own culture and language to their children. This will make a big difference for these people.”
A much larger World Language Collection will also be available in the 15 libraries across the Queenstown Lakes and Central Otago districts, for those tapping into their library membership.
Lilliput Libraries are a network of tiny community libraries, first founded by Dunedin woman Ruth Arnison and are now found all over New Zealand. The Catalyst Trust has been helping to set them up throughout the Wakatipu area.
