.jpg) |
| L-R: Sue Taylor, head librarian of the Mark Twain Branch and Glenda Williams, the director of the Long Beach Public Library, will be traveling to Cambodia to purchase between 1,000 and 2,000 books that they will add to the Long Beach Library collection of Khmer-language offerings. (Brittany Murray / Staff Photographer) |
10/17/2012
By Greg Mellen Staff Writer
Long Beach Press Telegram (California, USA)
Enter the Mark Twain Library and you may see Sue Taylor, the head librarian, peppering Randy Pa, a Cambodian security guard, with questions about his home country and proper pronunciation of certain phrases.
On a recent day, she was making sure she had the correct pronunciation of Sihanouk, the former king of Cambodia, who died Oct. 15 and whose body will be lying in state in Cambodia.
The tidbits Taylor picks up could come in handy next week as she trolls the markets of Phnom Penh looking for deals. On Saturday, Taylor and Glenda Williams, Long Beach director of library services, will travel to Cambodia for a whirlwind shopping spree.
They won't be looking for T-shirts, jewelry or cut-rate fashions - well, not much, at least.
Instead, they will be looking to significantly bolster the Long Beach library system's Khmer-language collection. Long Beach has the largest Cambodian population, whose native language is Khmer, in the United States.
Thanks to a grant from the Miller Foundation, the two will have more than $10,000 to spend on buying and shipping Khmer-language volumes, which could allow them to nearly double the current collection.
"It's going to be just great," Williams said of adding to the collection.
"You know (the library) purchases volumes every year. This collection hasn't been added to in nearly five years. Imagine going to a library and not having new books."
Unfortunately, the Khmer collection has stagnated because, Taylor said, while the Khmer publishing industry is quickly growing, the ability to order items online is virtually nonexistent.
In recent years, the need and thirst for Khmer-language material at the Twain branch has been evident.
According to Taylor, Cambodian-language books practically fly off the shelves.
"We check out more Khmer (material) than adult general fiction," she said. "In fact, more than any genre."
That's saying something when one considers that system-wide, Long Beach only has about 2,200 volumes in Khmer, compared to nearly 1 million overall, or 2.2 per thousand.
It was half that before January 2008. That's when Taylor made her first shopping trip to Cambodia and came back with 1,105 volumes for the library's Khmer-language collection.
On that trip, she had $20,000.
The uptick in use of the library by the Cambodian community has been a gradual process, which has accelerated since Taylor's first trip. Many refugees were hesitant to check out Khmer material, preferring instead to just peruse the books in the library.
It took patience and coaxing to get them to eventually take the volumes home, she said.
Since then, interest the Cambodian community's interest in the library has swelled.
In addition to the volumes, the library also offers weekly Khmer-language lessons, taught by resident Bryant Ben, which have helped Cambodians young and old improve their literacy.
In recent weeks, Taylor has been asking Cambodian library users about their preferences and compiling a list. She said requests have ranged from books on Khmer grammar, to magazines, to romance novels to medical books. She also plans to devote a good amount of money to children's books, history, culture and customs and poetry.
"We've gotta get the chlldren's books to teach them literacy," Williams said.
Like any good librarian, Taylor has a thick binder with her wish list categorized and cross-referenced three different ways. She intends to shop not only at publishing houses, but also in markets and at the country's documentation center, which has been a repository for information on the ongoing Khmer Rouge war tribunals prosecuting suspected Communist leaders responsible for the genocide that wiped out upwards of 2 million Cambodians in the mid-1970s.
This trip, Taylor expects to get more bang for her bucks because she and Williams will have cash, rather than the credit card she had to use last time. She expects the cash will open up some purchasing opportunities unavailable her last time over.
Also, having already been to the country once, Taylor said she better knows what to expect.
Williams, on the other hand, said this is her first trip outside the United States. She won't have much time for sightseeing, however.
"We're going to be so focused," Williams said. "We've got four days, so it doesn't leave any time for anything else."
"We'll be in a buying frenzy," Taylor said with a laugh.
greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, 562-714-2093, twitter.com/gregmellen
2 comments:
Burn his body over there (China). Don't bring back to Cambodia. He was a Traitor to Khmer people. The Khmer people have suffered enough by him. He did not respect even his own mother. He was an evil king . He should be alive until he can serve his punishement in the Khmer Rouge trail. Please don't forget he was the person who killed Lok Protean Sam Rainsy's father.
Pang Sokheoun, Secretary-General of SRP in Sweden.កុលបុត្រមហានគរខ្មែរ
I know that you are one of a CPP members because no one would put their real ID in this page. But the information that is given by you is very crucial as to the real facts of life and that is why your CPP team is so paranoid that the SR team might take revenge on your evils' actions but don't worry because SR is not a killer like some, you know what I mean? only a ruthless killer and a coward would do that in this world e.g. if you play with fire, you will be burned or whatever you play with shall die by it'. So, your CPP team will pay for your own cause, just for a reality check.
Post a Comment