Community Language Collections at Yarra Plenty

Yarra Plenty Regional Library Service has resources available for loan in 14 community languages other than English.

Directory of LOTE Holdings in Victorian Public Libraries

The Directory of LOTE Holdings in Victorian Public Libraries gives a breakdown (based on 1996 statistics) of the size and content of each of the language collections. The main area where difference will occur is in the number of magazine and newspaper subscriptions - we have added quite a number of new subscriptions over the last year.

Collection Content

Books

The focus of our collections is on popular materials. The main content of our book collections includes fiction titles by native authors and translated versions of English works, as well as non-fiction titles covering subjects such as health and lifestyle, cookery, craft, and biographies.

Magazines/Newspapers

Glossy weekly/monthly magazines are a feature of almost all of our collections except Maltese. The content covers many areas from current affairs, women's interest, cookery, craft and politics - so there's something for everyone to enjoy! Most languages have at least one newspaper subscription which in general is available to read in the branch library. In Chinese and Vietnamese we also have teenage interest magazines.

Children's Material

Excellent children's picture book collections are available in all except a few languages. Children's videos in cartoons and feature films, kits and CDs are also available in most languages.

Audiovisual

Audiovisual materials are also a feature of most collections. These include popular videos, the latest music CDs, tapes and kits for learning English.

Promotional Events

Translated welcome brochures in 9 languages are available at all branches, explaining membership conditions as well as services and collections available. If you would like to read one of these, please click the language you require from the following list:

Arabic
Chinese
Croatian
Greek
Italian
Macedonian
Serbian
Turkish
Vietnamese

Staff throughout the region speak 10 languages and are able to assist borrowers who cannot speak English or do not speak English well.

New Arrivals!

Chinese
We now have Chinese materials at 3 branch libraries! Lalor, Ivanhoe and Rosanna. New material is constantly arriving from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Arabic
New books, videos and CDs have recently been added to the Thomastown Library collection.

Compact Discs
Most of our language collections now contain recordings of popular musicians, groups and singers on compact disc. The latest arrivals have been in the Arabic, Serbian, Chinese and Italian languages. Printed lists of the latest videos and compact discs are available for some languages. Library staff are also available to instruct you on how to use the catalogue to view complete lists of video and CD holdings.

Polish
A revitalised and updated collection of Polish is now available with more than 150 books added in the last few months. Some videos and CDs are also available. We also receive 3 magazine subscriptions to WPROST, CLAUDIA and PANI.

Serbian
New Serbian material has arrived at Lalor Library, including popular fiction and non-fiction covering many areas such as cookery, biographies, travel and health. In addition there are lots of CDs and an extensive video collection. Five magazine titles are now arriving on a regular basis.

Internet Links

These Internet sites may require you to have special software to convert the documents into your required language. Unfortunately, at this time Yarra Plenty is unable to provide this service.

The following links have a range of information from news services around the world

Ecola Newsstand

Click here to access Port Phillip Library Services' extensive LOTE resources

Click here to access the Open Road Project.

Click here to access Vicnet's Languages Other than English Databases.