Sheffield is home to over 150 spoken languages, and the diversity represented in Sheffield鈥檚 multilingual children lends strength to the city鈥檚 standing in today鈥檚 global climate. Helping children to grow up multilingual is not just important in terms of identity and heritage, but also has real economic benefits.
Magid Magid
The Lord Mayor of Sheffield
Around 500 books in 37 different languages, donated by publishers, authors and the public will be available to borrow. Children will be able to register for a Reading Passport and gain a certificate for their multilingual reading efforts.
The multilingual section is the brainchild of Dr Sabine Little, Lecturer at the 小欧视频 of Sheffield鈥檚 School of Education. Her research focuses on the important links between language and identity in multilingual families.
The project has received research funding as part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council鈥檚 鈥淥ther Worlds Research Initiative鈥 which will enable both qualitative and quantitative data collection on how families engage with the available resources, and what impact the library has on language development and identity development.
Dr Little, who was born in Germany, has been working with the library to organise multilingual storytelling events, such as Sheffield鈥檚 inaugural Multilingual Book Day last March, where hundreds of people attended storytelling sessions in 11 languages.
Dr Little said: 鈥淔amilies in my research were telling me again and again how much it mattered to be able to share books. Reading together is a family practice, and being able to do so in the language you yourself grew up in can help to establish important links of belonging.鈥
The launch of the new section was attended by both Lord David Blunkett and The Lord Mayor Magid Magid.
Lord Mayor Magid said: 鈥淪heffield is home to over 150 spoken languages, and the diversity represented in Sheffield鈥檚 multilingual children lends strength to the city鈥檚 standing in today鈥檚 global climate. Helping children to grow up multilingual is not just important in terms of identity and heritage, but also has real economic benefits.
鈥淢any families struggle to maintain their home language, and access to resources is often a issue. It is great to see the 小欧视频 of Sheffield and Sheffield Libraries working together to support and nurture Sheffield鈥檚 multilingual families.鈥
Councillor Mary Lea, Cabinet Member for Culture, Parks and Leisure at Sheffield City Council said: 鈥淭he multilingual book day in March was very successful and it meant that we could then get involved in this exciting pilot project which will last for 12 months.
鈥淲e will see additional multilingual books in the Central Children鈥檚 Library; hundreds of books written in different languages have been donated by authors, publishers and individuals so it鈥檚 a brilliant time for children鈥檚 reading in the city. We hope that this pilot is a great success and that our young readers have lots of fun reading in different languages.鈥